stand; and there was a custom-house on the spot, besides. Over
and above all this, I had no small money; and the brave C never has,
when I want it for a beggar. When I had excused myself several times, he
suddenly drew himself up and said, with a wizard look (fancy the
aggravation of M. F. G. as a wizard!) 'Do you know what you are doing,
my lord? Do you mean to go on, to-day?' 'Yes,' I said, 'I do.' 'My
lord,' he said, 'do you know that your vetturino is unacquainted with
this part of the country; that there is a wind raging on the mountain,
which will sweep you away; that the courier, the coach, and all the
passengers, were blown from the road last year; and that the danger is
great and almost certain?' 'No,' I said, 'I don't.' 'My lord, you don't
understand me, I think?' 'Yes I do, d---- you!' nettled by this (you
feel it? I confess it). 'Speak to my servant. It's his business. Not
mine'--for he really was too like M. F. G. to be borne. If you could
have seen him!--'Santa Maria, these English lords! It's not their
business, if they're killed! They leave it to their servants!' He drew
off the boys; whispered them to keep away from the heretic; and ran up
the hill again, almost as fast as he had come down. He stopped at a
little distance as we moved on; and pointing to Roche with his long
staff cried loudly after me, 'It's _his_ business if you're killed, is
it, my lord? Ha! ha! ha! whose business is it, when the English lords
are born! Ha! ha! ha!' The boys taking it up in a shrill yell, I left
the joke and them at this point. But I must confess that I thought he
had the best of it. And he had so far reason for what he urged, that
when we got on the mountain pass the wind became terrific, so that we
were obliged to take Kate out of the carriage lest she should be blown
over, carriage and all, and had ourselves to hang on to it, on the windy
side, to prevent its going Heaven knows where!"

The first impression of Rome was disappointing. It was the evening of
the 30th of January, and the cloudy sky, dull cold rain, and muddy
footways, he was prepared for; but he was not prepared for the long
streets of commonplace shops and houses like Paris or any other capital,
the busy people, the equipages, the ordinary walkers up and down. "It
was no more my Rome, degraded and fallen and lying asleep in the sun
among a heap of ruins, than Lincoln's-inn-fields is. So I really went to
bed in a very indifferent humour." That all this y