Mrs. Austen, who was not then in strong health, performed the short
journey on a feather-bed, placed upon some soft articles of furniture in
the waggon which held their household goods. In those days it was not
unusual to set men to work with shovel and pickaxe to fill up ruts and
holes in roads seldom used by carriages, on such special occasions as a
funeral or a wedding. Ignorance and coarseness of language also were
still lingering even upon higher levels of society than might have been
expected to retain such mists. About this time, a neighbouring squire, a
man of many acres, referred the following difficulty to Mr. Austen's
decision: 'You know all about these sort of things. Do tell us. Is
Paris in France, or France in Paris? for my wife has been disputing with
me about it.' The same gentleman, narrating some conversation which he
had heard between the rector and his wife, represented the latter as
beginning her reply to her husband with a round oath; and when his
daughter called him to task, reminding him that Mrs. Austen never swore,
he replied, 'Now, Betty, why do you pull me up for nothing? that's
neither here nor there; you know very well that's only _my way of telling
the story_.
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