Indeed, I have been entertained with
the mixture of bustle, importance, and kind-heartedness which he
displays. He is of too vivacious a temperament to comfort the
afflicted by sitting down, moping and whining, and blowing noses in
concert: but goes whisking about like a sparrow, chirping consolation
into every hole and corner of the village. I have seen an old woman,
in a red cloak, hold him for half an hour together with some long
phthisical tale of distress, which Master Simon listened to with many
a bob of the head, smack of his dog-whip, and other symptoms of
impatience, though he afterwards made a most faithful and
circumstantial report of the case to the Squire. I have watched him,
too, during one of his pop visits into the cottage of a superannuated
villager, who is a pensioner of the Squire, where he fidgeted about
the room without sitting down, made many excellent off-hand
reflections with the old invalid, who was propped up in his chair,
about the shortness of life, the certainty of death, and the necessity
of preparing for "that awful change;" quoted several texts of
scripture very incorrectly, but much to the edification of the
cottager's wife; and on coming out, pinched the daughter's rosy cheek,
and wondered what was in the young men that such a pretty face did not
get a husband.
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