rk and his wife, the seedsman and his aged father, the registrar; also
Mr. Day, the world-ignored local landscape-painter, an elderly man who
resides in his native place, and has never sold a picture outside it,
though his pretensions to art have been nobly supported by his fellow-
villagers, whose confidence in his genius has been as remarkable as the
outer neglect of it, leading them to buy his paintings so extensively (at
the price of a few shillings each, it is true) that every dwelling in the
parish exhibits three or four of those admired productions on its walls.

Burthen, the carrier, is by this time seen bustling round the vehicle;
the horses are put in, the proprietor arranges the reins and springs up
into his seat as if he were used to it--which he is.

'Is everybody here?' he asks preparatorily over his shoulder to the
passengers within.

As those who were not there did not reply in the negative the muster was
assumed to be complete, and after a few hitches and hindrances the van
with its human freight was got under way. It jogged on at an easy pace
till it reached the bridge which formed the last outpost of the town. The
carrier pulled up suddenly.

'Bless my soul!' he said, 'I've forgot the curate!'

All who could do so gazed from the little back window of the van, but the
curate was not in sight.

'Now I wonder where that there man is?' continued the carrier.

'Poor man, he ought to have a living at his time of life.'

'And he ought to be punctual,' said the carrier. '"Four o'clock sharp is
my time for starting," I said to 'en. And he said, "I'll be there." Now
he's not here, and as a serious old church-minister he ought to be as
good as his word. Perhaps Mr. Flaxton knows, being in the same line of
life?' He turned to the parish clerk.

'I was talking an immense deal with him, that's true, half an hour ago,'
replied that ecclesiastic, as one of whom it was no erroneous supposition
that he should be on intimate terms with another of the cloth. 'But he
didn't say he would be late.'

The discussion was cut off by the appearance round the corner of the van
of rays from the curate's spectacles, followed hastily by his face and a
few white whiskers, and the swinging tails of his long gaunt coat. Nobody
reproached him, seeing how he was reproaching himself; and he entered
breathlessly and took his seat.

'Now be we all here?' said the carrier again. They started a second
time, and moved on