Sometimes we pass a village inn,
with a crumbling wall belonging to it, and a perfect town of out-
houses; and painted over the gateway, 'Stabling for Sixty Horses;'
as indeed there might be stabling for sixty score, were there any
horses to be stabled there, or anybody resting there, or anything
stirring about the place but a dangling bush, indicative of the
wine inside: which flutters idly in the wind, in lazy keeping with
everything else, and certainly is never in a green old age, though
always so old as to be dropping to pieces. And all day long,
strange little narrow waggons, in strings of six or eight, bringing
cheese from Switzerland, and frequently in charge, the whole line,
of one man, or even boy--and he very often asleep in the foremost
cart--come jingling past: the horses drowsily ringing the bells
upon their harness, and looking as if they thought (no doubt they
do) their great blue woolly furniture, of immense weight and
thickness, with a pair of grotesque horns growing out of the
collar, very much too warm for the Midsummer weather.
Then, there is the Diligence, twice or thrice a-day; with the dusty
outsides in blue frocks, like butchers; and the insides in white
nightcaps; and its cabriolet head on the roof, nodding and shaking,
like an idiot's head; and its Young-France passengers staring out
of window, with beards down to their waists, and blue spectacles
awfully shading their warlike eyes, and very big sticks clenched in
their National grasp.
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