CHAPTER LXIX.
Ah! Sir, had I but bestowed half the pains in learning a trade, that I have in learning to be a scoundrel, I might have been a rich man at this day; but, rogue as I am, still I may be your friend, and that, perhaps, when you least expect it.—Vicar of Wakefield.
What with the anxiety and uncertainty of my political prospects, the continued dissipation in which I lived, and, above all, the unpropitious state of my belle passion, my health gave way; my appetite forsook me—my sleep failed me—a wrinkle settled itself under my left eye, and my mother declared, that I should have no chance with an heiress: all these circumstances together, were not without their weight. So I set out one morning to Hampton Court, (with a volume of Bishop Berkely, and a bottle of wrinkle water,) for the benefit of the country air.
It is by no means an unpleasant thing to turn one’s back upon the great city, in the height of its festivities. Misanthropy is a charming feeling for a short time, and one inhales the country, and animadverts on the town, with the most melancholy satisfaction in the world. I sat myself down at a pretty little cottage, a mile out of the town. From the window of my drawing-room I revelled in the luxurious contemplation of three pigs, one cow, and a straw-yard; and I could get to the Thames in a walk of five minutes, by a short cut through a lime-kiln. Such pleasing opportunities of enjoying the beauties of nature, are not often to be met with: you may be sure, therefore, that I made the most of them. I rose early, walked before breakfast, pour ma sante, and came back with a most satisfactory head-ache, pour mes peines. I read for just three hours, walked for two more, thought over Abernethy, dyspepsia, and blue pills, till dinner; and absolutely forgot Lord Dawton, ambition, Guloseton, epicurism—aye, all but—of course, reader, you know whom I am about to except—the ladye of my love.
One bright, laughing day, I threw down my book an hour sooner than usual, and sallied out with a lightness of foot and exhilaration of spirit, to which I had long been a stranger. I had just sprung over a stile that led into one of those green shady lanes, which make us feel the old poets who loved, and lived for, Nature, were right in calling our island “the merry England”—when I was startled by a short, quick bark, on one side of the hedge. I turned sharply round; and, seated upon the sward, was a man, apparently of the pedlar profession; a large deal box was lying open before him; a few articles of linen, and female dress, were scattered round, and the man himself appeared earnestly occupied in examining the deeper recesses of his itinerant warehouse. A small black terrier flew towards me with no friendly growl. “Down,” said I: “all strangers are not foes, though the English generally think so.”
The man hastily looked up; perhaps he was struck with the quaintness of my remonstrance to his canine companion; for, touching his hat, civilly, he said—“The dog, Sir, is very quiet; he only means to give me the alarm by giving it to you; for dogs seem to have no despicable insight into human nature, and know well that the best of us may be taken by surprise.”
“You are a moralist,” said I, not a little astonished in my turn by such an address from such a person. “I could not have expected to stumble upon a philosopher so easily. Have you any wares in your box likely to suit me? if so, I should like to purchase of so moralizing a vendor?”
“No, Sir,” said the seeming pedlar, smiling, and yet at the same time hurrying his goods into his box, and carefully turning the key—“no, Sir, I am only a bearer of other men’s goods; my morals are all that I can call my own, and those I will sell you at your own price.”
“You are candid, my friend,” said I, “and your frankness, alone, would be inestimable in this age of deceit, and country of hypocrisy.”
“Ah, Sir!” said my new acquaintance, “I see already that you are one of those persons who look to the dark side of things; for my part, I think the present age the best that ever existed, and our own country the most virtuous in Europe.”