Tales and Novels — Volume 01: Moral TalesEdgeworth, Maria
General
Tales and Novels — Volume 01: Moral Tales
Edgeworth, Maria
Fiction
"She belongs to nobody--she's quite a stranger in these parts, and
doesn't know no more than a child where to go in all London; she only
knows the Christian name of an old gardener, where she lodged, she
says."
"What would she have us to do with her, then?" said Holloway. "Drive on,
for I shall be late."
The postilion, more humane than Holloway, exclaimed, "No, master,
no!--it's a sin to leave her upon the road this ways, though she's no
Christian, as we are, poor copper-coloured soul! I was once a stranger
myself in _Lon'on_, without a six-pence to bless myself; so I know what
it is, master."
The good-natured postilion returned to the mulatto woman. "Mistress,"
said he, "I'd fain see ye safe home, if you could but think of the
t'other name of that gardener that you mentioned lodging with; because
there be so many Pauls in London town, that I should never find your
Paul, as you don't know neither the name of his street--But I'll tell ye
now all the streets I'm acquainted with, and that's a many: do you stop
me, mistress, when I come to the right; for you're sadly bruised, and I
won't see ye left this ways on the road."
He then named several streets: the mulatto woman stopped him at one
name, which she recollected to be the name of the street in which the
gardener lived. The woman at the turnpike-house, as soon as she heard
the street in which he lived named, said she knew this gardener; that he
had a large garden about a mile off, and that he came from London early
almost every morning with his cart, for garden-stuff for the market: she
advised the mulatto woman to stay where she was that night, and to send
to ask the gardener to come on to the turnpike-house for her in the
morning. The postilion promised to go to the gardener's "by the first
break of day." The woman raised her head to bless him; and the impatient
Holloway loudly called to him to return to his horses, swearing that he
would not give him one farthing for himself if he did not.
The anxiety which Holloway felt to escape detection kept him in pain;
but Holloway never measured or estimated his pleasures and his
pains; therefore he never discovered that, even upon the most selfish
calculation, he had paid too dear for the pleasure of sitting upon a
coach-box for one hour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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