Читать книгу Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century - Various - Страница 59

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Let him be never so well made, yet his legs are not matches, for he is still setting the best foot forward. He will never be a staid man, for he has had a running head of his own ever since his childhood. His mother, which out of question was a light-heeled wench, knew it, yet let him run his race thinking age would reclaim him from his wild courses. He is very long-winded, and without doubt but that he hates naturally to serve on horseback, he had proved an excellent trumpet. He has one happiness above all the rest of the serving-men, for when he most overreaches his master he is best thought of. He lives more by his own heat than the warmth of clothes, and the waiting-woman hath the greatest fancy to him when he is in his close trouses. Guards he wears none, which makes him live more upright than any cross-gartered gentleman-usher. 'Tis impossible to draw his picture to the life, because a man must take it as he's running, only this, horses are usually let blood on St. Steven's Day. On St. Patrick's he takes rest, and is drenched for all the year after.