Everything was in order, the carriage examined, even a whip with a good lash was not forgotten. "Two whips would be best," said the ironmonger, who sold it, and the ironmonger was a man of experience, which travellers often are not. A whole bag full of "slanter" -- that is, copper coins of small value -- stood before us for bridge-money, for beggars, for shepherd's boys, or whoever might open the many field-gates for us that obstructed our progress. But we had to do this ourselves, for the rain pattered down and lashed the ground; no one had any desire to come out in such weather. The rushes in the marsh bent and waved; it was a real rain feast for them, and it whistled from the tops of the rushes: "We drink with our feet, we drink with our heads, we drink with the whole body, and yet we stand on one leg, hurra! We drink with the bending willow, with the dripping flowers on the bank; their cups run over -- the marsh marigold, that fine lady, can bear it better! Hurra! it is a feast!
it pours, it pours; we whistle and we sing; it is our own song. Tomorrow the frogs will croak the same after us and say, 'it is quite new!"
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