But this was a daily relaxation
with the Brave, who was always stricken deaf when shabby
functionaries in uniform came, as they constantly did come,
plunging out of wooden boxes to look at it--or in other words to
beg--and who, stone deaf to my entreaties that the man might have a
trifle given him, and we resume our journey in peace, was wont to
sit reviling the functionary in broken English: while the
unfortunate man's face was a portrait of mental agony framed in the
coach window, from his perfect ignorance of what was being said to
his disparagement.
There was a postilion, in the course of this day's journey, as wild
and savagely good-looking a vagabond as you would desire to see.
He was a tall, stout-made, dark-complexioned fellow, with a
profusion of shaggy black hair hanging all over his face, and great
black whiskers stretching down his throat. His dress was a torn
suit of rifle green, garnished here and there with red; a steeple-
crowned hat, innocent of nap, with a broken and bedraggled feather
stuck in the band; and a flaming red neckerchief hanging on his
shoulders. He was not in the saddle, but reposed, quite at his
ease, on a sort of low foot-board in front of the postchaise, down
amongst the horses' tails--convenient for having his brains kicked
out, at any moment.
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