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108 MY GEE AT AUNT POLLY' S ELOPEMENT.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Babl Dear Y Be Reader Declared .—The By ...
and no Flying Post appeared . Seven o ' clock and the travellers liad not arrived ; half-past seven—eight , and Burchester was seized
with consternation . Had the coach been stopped by highwaymen , or had the baffled men of York organized an attack for the carrying off
of the rich and beautiful Polly , and waylaid her on the road , on the princile that a miss was worth more than a mile ?
My p three little great-uncles were offering violent opposition to the idea of being sent to bed disappointed of their cousin Polly , and
my great-grandmother was scolding them all round in a breath , and frihtening her maids into fits by her dreadful presentiments of
murder g and robbery , when a pedler , entering the town on a stout cob from the northern road , spread the news that the Flying Post
had upset in violent collision with a farmer ' s waggon ; that she was now ling seven miles away , considerably battered ; and that the
travellers y of whom two had broken legs , and the remainder bumps and bruises , enowhad taken refuge at a small wayside inn , whither
, the surgeon from Burchester had better betake himself with as little delay as possible . My great-grandfather was just preparing the one
vehicle owned by the Cat and the Fiddle , to go in search of his sisterwhen the scene was changed by the thundering entrance into
the hi , gh street of a carriage and four , whose bewigged and behatted coachman announced no less an equipage than that of Mr . Paul
Xiefevre himself , which swept up with a clash and a clatter to the old shop in the market-place . Out of it alighted the lovely Miss
Polly and her friend , followed by the gallant Paul Xiefevre himself , who , having found beauty in distress at a wayside inn , had , with
that politeness which marks the man of breeding / ' said Polly , invited both the travellers into his chariot for the remainder of the
way . As to the two broken legs , and the coachman of the Flying Postwho declared himself " shook amost to a mummy , " the surgeon
galloped , off to them , followed , at some distance , by a glass coach , and in due time the legs were mended and the coachman recovered
his wits , but the course of our story concerns them no more . ] S ow , as the events which I am relating took place one hundred and
five years ago , I am not going to pretend that I know every little detail of the life and conversation of my ancestors , and can only say
that Mr . Paul Lefevre took supper that night with Mr . Dever and his familyand fell violently in love with my great-aunt Polly , as was
only proper , and gallant after succouring that youthful heroine in distress . In confirmation of which I might quote long letters
• written by Polly to Lavinia Billings , her intimate friend at York . These letters were left by Lavinia to me , who , being a very little
boy in petticoats at the time of her death , could hardly appreciate the treasure of epistolary literature contained in the old lady ' s
bequest . A week passed , during which John Chiselton remained a guest
of the Cat and the Fiddle , and Polly gradually recovered her
108 My Gee At Aunt Polly' S Elopement.
108 MY GEE AT AUNT POLLY ' S ELOPEMENT .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1858, page 108, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041858/page/36/
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