Chapter 2

The dog-cart, with Mr. Thomas Idle and his ankle on the hanging
seat behind, Mr. Francis Goodchild and the Innkeeper in front, and
the rain in spouts and splashes everywhere, made the best of its
way back to the little inn; the broken moor country looking like
miles upon miles of Pre-Adamite sop, or the ruins of some enormous
jorum of antediluvian toast-and-water. The trees dripped; the
eaves of the scattered cottages dripped; the barren stone walls
dividing the land, dripped; the yelping dogs dripped; carts and
waggons under ill-roofed penthouses, dripped; melancholy cocks and
hens perching on their shafts, or seeking shelter underneath them,
dripped; Mr. Goodchild dripped; Thomas Idle dripped; the Inn-keeper
dripped; the mare dripped; the vast curtains of mist and cloud
passed before the shadowy forms of the hills, streamed water as
they were drawn across the landscape. Down such steep pitches that
the mare seemed to be trotting on her head, and up such steep
pitches that she seemed to have a supplementary leg in her tail,
the dog-cart jolted and tilted back to the village. It was too wet
for the women to look out, it was too wet even for the children to
look out; all the doors and windows were closed, and the only sign
of life or motion was in the rain-punctured puddles.

Whiskey and oil to Thomas Idle's ankle, and whiskey without oil to
Francis Goodchild's stomach, produced an agreeable change in the
systems of both; soothing Mr. Idle's pain, which was sharp before,
and sweetening Mr. Goodchild's temper, which was sweet before.
Portmanteaus being then opened and clothes changed, Mr. Goodchild,
through having no change of outer garments but broadcloth and
velvet, suddenly became a magnificent portent in the Innkeeper's
house, a shining frontispiece to the fashions for the month, and a
frightful anomaly in the Cumberland village.

Greatly ashamed of his splendid appearance, the conscious Goodchild
quenched it as much as possible, in the shadow of Thomas Idle's
ankle, and in a corner of the little covered carriage that started
with them for Wigton--a most desirable carriage for any country,
except for its having a flat roof and no sides; which caused the
plumps of rain accumulating on the roof to play vigorous games of
bagatelle into the interior all the way, and to score immensely.
It was comfortable to see how the people coming back in open carts
from Wigton market made no more of the rain than if it were
sunshine; how the Wigton policeman taking a country walk of half-a-
dozen miles (apparently for pleasure), in resplendent uniform,
accepted saturation as his normal state; how clerks and
schoolmasters in black, loitered along the road without umbrellas,
getting varnished at every step;