And who was Blucher? A cut-throat looking dog, with his black bull-muzzle thrust through a gap in the hedge. And his master? A sturdy farmer, with an alarming cudgel in his hand.
“Come, are you going to start?” he cried.
“Presently,” said I, making off with great dispatch. When I had got a few yards into the middle of the highroad (which belonged as much to me as it did to the queen herself), I turned round, like a man on his own premises, and said— “Stranger! if you ever visit America, just call at our house, and you’ll always find there a dinner and a bed. Don’t fail.”
I then walked on toward Liverpool, full of sad thoughts concerning the cold charities of the world, and the infamous reception given to hapless young travelers, in broken-down shooting-jackets.
On, on I went, along the skirts of forbidden green fields; until reaching a cottage, before which I stood rooted.
So sweet a place I had never seen: no palace in Persia could be pleasanter; there were flowers in the garden; and six red cheeks, like six moss-roses, hanging from the casement. At the embowered doorway, sat an old man, confidentially communing with his pipe: while a little child, sprawling on the ground, was playing with his shoestrings. A hale matron, but with rather a prim expression, was reading a journal by his side: and three charmers, three Peris, three Houris! were leaning out of the window close by.
Ah! Wellingborough, don’t you wish you could step in?
With a heavy heart at his cheerful sigh, I was turning to go, when—is it possible? the old man called me back, and invited me in.
“Come, come,” said he, “you look as if you had walked far; come, take a bowl of milk. Matilda, my dear” (how my heart jumped), “go fetch some from the dairy.” And the white-handed angel did meekly obey, and handed me—me, the vagabond, a bowl of bubbling milk, which I could hardly drink down, for gazing at the dew on her lips.
As I live, I could have married that charmer on the spot!