Oliver was an obliging, amiable man. In the front of his van was a seat, the top of which could be raised on hinges, and in which he deposited watches that went to be cleaned, books of the Reading Club that travelled between subscribers, medicine bottles and boxes of pills, ribbons, brooches, and other delicate goods. The lid of this box was sat on and kept secure by Oliver. He was devoid of humour. To every commission, to every joke, to every reprimand, he had but one answer, ’Certainly, certainly, very true.’ ’Oliver,’ said Nanspian one day, ’I can suggest to you a means of increasing your income. Put a sitting of eggs under you when you go to market, and sell the young chickens when you get there.’ ’Certainly, certainly, sir, very true,’ was his civil reply, without a muscle of his face moving. ’Oh, Mr. Luxmore!’ exclaimed Mrs. Robbins, the rectoress, ’this is the same book you brought me last month from the parsonage at Maristowe. I have had it and returned it, and now you bring it me again. Mind it goes back on Friday; and you shall not be paid for your trouble, as I cannot be expected to read the same book over twice.’ ’Certainly, certainly, ma’am, very true.’ ’Oh, Mr. Luxmore,’ said Mrs. Veale, ’you are to mind and match me the silk, cut on the cross, and if the shade be out, I won’t take it, you must return it, and pay for it from your own pocket.’ ’Certainly, certainly, ma’am.’ ’The Vivid,’ as Mr. Luxmore’s van was called, belied its name. There was no vividity (pass the word) about it. It went slowly up hill, because the horse had so much to draw. It went slower down hill, because it had to back against such a prodigious weight, descending by natural velocity. There was not a mile—not half a mile—of level road between Bratton Clovelly and the market-towns. The carrier’s horse was a rough creature, brown, with a long tail, thick mane, and coarse hair about the fetlocks, of the colour of tow. It lived in a precarious manner; the children cut grass in the hedges for it, and it was sometimes turned out on Broadbury, with hobbles on its feet. It ate the refuse of Luxmore’s vegetable garden, the turnip-tops, the potato parings, the maggot-nibbled outer cabbage leaves, and the decayed apples from his trees. Once, when the horse had knocked his nose, and Luxmore had put a linseed poultice over it, in a bit of sacking tied round the head with four stout tapes, when his back was turned the horse curled his tongue out of his mouth, detached the poultice, and ate it, linseed, sacking, and tapes, to the last grain and thread. There was nothing but stones that horse would not eat. He bit away great pieces from his manger. He took a bite out of Luxmore’s trousers, he gnawed the bark off the cherry-tree by his gate, he gobbled up nettles, thistles, furze, as though his appetite were as vitiated as an East Indian’s.