Only five of the nine seats inside the stage were occupied, but as the day, though cold, was clear and pleasant, we mounted the box, and took the vacant places beside the driver. That worthy was a rough, surly character, with a talent for profanity truly wonderful. His horses were lean, half-starved quadrupeds, with ribs protruding from their sides like hoops from a whisky-barrel, and he accounted for their condition, and for the scarcity of fences on the highroad, by saying that the stage-owners fed them on rails; but I suspected that the constant curses he discharged at them had worried the flesh off their bones, and induced the fences to move to a more godly latitude. On the top of the coach, coiled away on a pile of horse-blankets, was a woman whose skin and dress designated her as one of the species of 'white trash' known in North-Carolina as 'clay-eaters.' She was about thirty years of age, and if her face had been bleached, and her teeth introduced to a scrubbing-brush, might have passed for being tolerably good-looking. After a number of preliminary cracks of the whip, and sundry oaths and loud shouts administered to the 'leaders,' the driver got under way, and we were soon jolting--at a speed of about four miles an hour--over the 'slews' and ruts made by the recent rains. Shortly after we started the woman said to me: 'I say, stranger, ye han't no 'backer 'bout ye, hev ye?' I was about to say I had none, when Preston handed her a paper of 'Richmond Sweet.' Without pausing to thank him, she coolly stuffed nearly a half of it into her mouth. My companion did not seem at all surprised, but I remarked: 'You do not _smoke_, then, madam?' 'Oh! yas, I smokes; but I durned sight d'ruther chaw.' 'Let me give you a segar,' I said, taking one from my pocket, and slyly winking at Preston. 'I never smokes them sort o' things; I takes nat'rally ter pipes--did when I'se a gal,' she replied, ejecting a mouthful of saliva of the same color as her skin. 'This gentleman,' said the Squire, smiling, 'isn't fully up to our ways. He thinks it queer that women chew tobacco.' 'Quar thet wimmin chaws! Han't the' as much right ter as ye? _I_ reckon what's good fur th' gander'll do fur th' goose! 'Good logic, that,' said Preston, laughing heartily. The woman kept on expectorating for a time, when she again spoke to my companion: 'I say! ye b'long ter Newbern, doan't ye?' 'No, not now; but I live near there.' 'Ye doan't know a feller down thar called Mulock, I doan't s'pose--Bony Mulock?' 'Yes, I do; I know him well.' 'So do I. I'm gwine ter see 'im.' 'Where were you acquainted?' 'Up ter Harnett--I b'long thar--nigh on ter Chalk Level. He war raised thar.' 'Yes, I know; but he left there long ago.' 'Nigh on ter nine year. I'm his wife.' 'You his wife!' exclaimed the Squire, turning round and looking at her.