folk
Punch, the best horse, by-the-by, that anybody can purchase to drive, it
being the only animal of the horse kind in England that will pull twice
at a dead weight. I told him that I had none at that time that I could
recommend; in fact, that every horse in my stable was sick. He then
invited me to dine with him at an inn close by, and I was glad to go with
him, in the hope of getting rid of unpleasant thoughts. After dinner,
during which he talked nothing but slang, observing I looked melancholy,
he asked me what was the matter with me, and I, my heart being opened by
the wine he had made me drink, told him my circumstances without reserve.
With an oath or two for not having treated him at first like a friend, he
said he would soon set me all right; and pulling out two hundred pounds,
told me to pay him when I could. I felt as I never felt before; however,
I took his notes, paid my sneaks, and in less than three months was right
again, and had returned him his money. On paying it to him, I said that
I had now a Punch which would just suit him, saying that I would give it
to him--a free gift--for nothing. He swore at me; telling me to keep my
Punch, for that he was suited already. I begged him to tell me how I
could requite him for his kindness, whereupon, with the most dreadful
oath I ever heard, he bade me come and see him hanged when his time was
come. I wrung his hand, and told him I would, and I kept my word. The
night before the day he was hanged at H---, {280} I harnessed a Suffolk
Punch to my light gig, the same Punch which I had offered to him, which I
have ever since kept, and which brought me and this short young man to
Horncastle, and in eleven hours I drove that Punch one hundred and ten
miles. I arrived at H--- just in the nick of time. There was the ugly
jail--the scaffold--and there upon it stood the only friend I ever had in
the world. Driving my Punch, which was all in a foam, into the midst of
the crowd, which made way for me as if it knew what I came for, I stood
up in my gig, took off my hat, and shouted, "God Almighty bless you,
Jack!" The dying man turned his pale grim face towards me--for his face
was always somewhat grim, do you see--nodded and said, or I thought I
heard him say, "All right, old chap." The next moment . . . my eyes
water. He had a high heart, got into a scrape whilst in the marines,
lost his half-pay, took to the turf, ring, gambling, and at last cut the
throat o