The Wayfarers

by J. C. Snaith

In my distraught state I mentioned my unhappy case to Mr. Fielding. He, with the sanguine temper that seemed to be so strangely characteristic of him, pooh-poohed my fears, and swore that all would come right by the morning.

"I will wager you the last guinea I have got in the world," says he, "which by the way I borrowed from Tommie to bear me back to Fleet Street to-morrow, that you will see her pretty face in this parlour before you are prepared to leave it. Why, man, if she hath any wit at all she will remain with the gypsies until they discover whither you have been taken, and then she will come to Tommie with a mighty long tale and a mighty heart-moving countenance. I suppose it is that my wit runs wonderfully clear to-night, for I confess I can see the whole course of this matter as plain as the back of my hand."

Mr. Fielding declared his opinions with such an energy, that in spite of myself I half subscribed to them. Indeed, as he pointed out, nothing could be done by repining. But as he followed up this last sage reflection in a manner peculiarly his own, no less than by the opening of a new bottle, I am not sure that the occasion itself was not the source of his wisdom. "Vino diffigiunt mordaces curæ," says he, "an old, old tag, but a monstrous good one. Come, my dear fellow, do not spoil the excellent impression you have already made. I am sure to mump and moan is not in you; besides, you would be the last to have yourself numbered among the Tommies of the world, the half-bottle men. You are capable to bear me company for many an hour yet. Come, let us grapple with melancholy and put him to sleep."

I was in such a state of maudlin misery by this, thanks to the wine I had already drunk, and my dubious speculation in regard to Cynthia, that I soon fell a-prey to Mr. Fielding's importuning. That lusty full-blooded fellow was not to be denied. As I accepted glass after glass of the insidious liquor from his hands, I felt my resolution weaken as of old, and that same sense of large content and utter heedlessness of the morrow steal upon me. As my brain grew hotter and heavier and less capable of thinking and doing, Cynthia's absence grew less poignant to it, and my own situation of the moment more perfectly acceptable. It was truly Elysian to sit in this warm room and in this mellow society, after having been without a roof to one's head and in such peril for so many hours. The sense of abandoning oneself by slow degrees and against one's proper judgment to this forbidden pleasure, was fraught with a delight that it is only in the power of the illicit to bestow. At the same time that I knew Mr. Fielding's point of view was specious and worthless, vide the teachings of a bitter experience, I could hardly find it in my heart to resist his wit, the compliment of his good-fellowship, his whole-hearted gaiety. He was such a lovable spirit that he would have seduced the first of the Pharisees to hang with him at Tyburn, for the sake of the companionship. It would have taken sterner stuff than was ever in me to deny or resist him.

It was not long before the justice was so overcome by the contents of his cellar that he drooped his head on the table and straightway fell fast asleep. Mr. Fielding, who was himself so seasoned that his face hardly shone as yet, laughed, and says with a kind of kingly pity:

"What a penny-halfpenny haberdasher of a man it is! C'est un vrai épicier. Strip him of his paunch, his purse, and his knighthood, and there remains one who hath no more parts than a Presbyterian. If I were old Sir John, I would undertake to make a better man out of a cheese paring. It is a pretty behaviour in him, when we are sitting at this table, bearing ourselves so gallantly before his claret. But after all, I would prefer that his honour should speak with his nose rather than with his mouth. Both organs are equally witty; and we are under no obligation to answer his lustiest performances in that style."

It was not long before I began to feel some inklings of a disposition to imitate Sir Thomas. Fortunately Mr. Fielding did not observe it in me; and he on his side was so brisk and jovial-hearted that he easily found enough of conversation for us both. And he was so prolific that I am sure he would have been the last to notice it. My bosom was no longer torn with the same pain when my thoughts reverted to Cynthia. My wits were so deadened that I had a sort of sweet sorrow instead; the sorrow whose expression is an amiable snuffling melancholy, and a tender reflection on the days that are past. I was fast sinking into the depths of this maudlin condition, when a diversion occurred that mercifully kept me from it, even as my mind tottered on the brink. A servant entered with the information that a woman was at the hall door demanding to see the justice on a most particular business. In an instant a great possibility possessed me completely, and startled me out of the bibulous lassitude that was creeping upon me.

"What kind of a woman?" I asked eagerly, "A very beautiful woman, a most adorably beautiful woman, with the voice of a nightingale and as dainty in her carriage as, as—— Fielding, an you love me, give me a simile—as dainty as——"

"The swift Camilla," says he instantly, "the virgin Volscian queen, as she

'Flies o'er th' unbending corn, or skims along the main,'