speaking, sober,
were assisting home, by their _joint_ efforts, the third, who, supported
between them, could with difficulty use his legs. Thus did they
continue on; the two swayed first on the one side of the road, and then
on the other, by the weight of the third, whom they almost carried
between them. At last they arrived at a bridge built over one of those
impetuous streams so common in the county, when, as if by mutual
understanding, for it was without speaking, the two more sober deposited
the body of the third against the parapet of the bridge, and then for
some time were silently occupied in recovering their breath. One of the
two who remained leaning on the parapet by the side of their almost
lifeless companion was a man of about forty years of age, tall and
slender, dressed in a worn-out black coat, and a pair of trousers much
too short for him, the original colour of which it would have been
difficult to have surmised; a sort of clerical hat, equally the worse
for wear, was on his head. Although his habiliments were mean, still
there was something about his appearance which told of better days, and
of having moved in a different sphere in society; and such had been the
case. Some years before he had been the head of a grammar-school, with
a comfortable income; but a habit of drinking had been his ruin, and he
was now the preceptor of the village of Grassford, and gained his
livelihood by instructing the children of the cottagers for the small
modicum of twopence a head per week. This unfortunate propensity to
liquor remained with him and he no sooner received his weekly stipend
than he hastened to drown his cares, and the recollection of his former
position, at the ale-house which they had just quitted. The second
personage whom we shall introduce was not of a corresponding height with
the other: he was broad, square-chested, and short-dressed in
knee-breeches, leggings, and laced boots--his coat being of a thick
fustian, and cut short like a shooting-jacket: his profession was that
of a pedlar.

"It's odd to me," said the pedlar, at last breaking silence, as he
looked down upon the drunken man who lay at his feet, "why ale should
take a man off his legs; they say that liquor gets into the head, not
the feet."

"Well," replied the schoolmaster, who was much more inebriated than the
pedlar, "there's argument even in that and, you see, the perpendicular
deviation must arise from the head being too hea