Dick lost no time, but asked for a pack of cards, with such a smile, and so much as if the request were the most natural one possible, that the mother told the girl where the cards were, and the girl immediately brought them. Dick began by telling the fortune of the head of the house, who was so diverted with the prediction of a gift from a dark man, that Dick's invention was allowed full exercise regarding the future destiny of each member of the family. The mother then speaking of a dream she had recently had, Dick promptly offered to interpret it for her, and its meaning was so favorable that the interpreter was soon in the way to gorge himself with beef and ale. He then did some card tricks that Tom had taught him, and, perceiving that a pack of cards would thereafter be a useful implement to him, eventually won the cards themselves, on a bet as to the location of a certain one of them. Having found that his card tricks amused, he resolved to rely on them thereafter, and not to stoop again to fortune-telling, an old woman's business adopted by him for the once as most likely means of exciting the girl's curiosity.
He went from the weaver's house to the inn hard by the church of St. Eustache, and, obtaining a friendly reception by the conciliating manner and flattering air with which he accosted the servants, passed the afternoon in manipulating the cards, to the mystification of kitchen wenches, ostlers, and tipplers of low degree; winning a few sixpences from the last named in a fair game of skill. He thus earned a supper in a kitchen, and a bed in the stable-loft.
The next day he walked twenty-one miles, crossing Dartmoor Forest and the vast common, doing card tricks for a meal in a farmer's cottage at each one of two villages, and lodging for the night at Moreton Hampstead, where his procedure at the inn was in general similar to that at Tavistock.
In the morning he went on to Exeter, which—with its antique houses, its splendid cathedral of St. Peter flanked by the old bishop's palace, its ruined castle of West Saxon kings, its bustling High Street, its bridge across the Exe, and its busy quay—impressed Dick the more for its being the first large town of England to greet his eyes. He remained here many days, going from inn-yard to inn-yard, and, in the poorer quarters, from house to house; always with an address so polite and amiable that few resisted or distrusted him. His look and manner were so different from those of the common wayfarer or mountebank that he found he need stand in no fear of being dealt with as a vagrant. He added to his resources some of Tom's old conjuring feats, which he made new by means of the glib, humorous speeches he was soon able to rattle off. A cause of his prolonged stay at Exeter was the great snowfall and frost, which began January 7th, with a high eastern wind, froze the rivers, and put to shame all recollections of cold weather that dated since the memorable hard winter of 1739-40. Dick spent most of this time in entertaining snow-bound travellers of low degree, at the inns, receiving in payment now a meal, now a share of a bed, now a few small coins. There were nights, though, when he lodged outside, taking short naps in some sheltering angle of the cathedral, and rousing himself at intervals to stir his blood by walking.
On the 2d of February the wind changed and blew from the south. Waiting a few days more, so as to be less inconvenienced by the thaw, Dick started northward, passing through a beautiful country partly in sight of the Exe, dined at Collumpton, and proceeded in the afternoon to Wellington in Somersetshire, where he lay for the night in an open shed appertaining to the inn. The next morning, paying for breakfast with the last of the coins he had earned at Exeter, he went on to the sweet vale of Taunton Dean, and arrived penniless at the town of Taunton, where a singular thing befell him.
He had stopped to look into an inn-yard, to see whether the time was propitious for his obtaining the attention of servants and inferior guests, and thus for his paving the way to one of his unlicensed performances, when a post-chaise drove up and let out a richly dressed young gentleman, with a portmanteau and a gold-headed cane, but not attended by any private servant.
As he was about to enter the inn, this young gentleman, who was of a sedate and self-contained demeanor, stopped for a moment, regarded Dick with a sudden but civil interest, and half perceptibly smiled; he then passed in, while a menial shouldered his portmanteau and followed.
Dick knew at once the cause of the look of interest and of the smile. He was still pondering on it when, a few minutes later, the gentleman came out of the inn, greeted him with most kindly condescension, and said, in a quiet tone, while making sure by swift side-glances that no one overheard:
"My good man, I see you, too, have noticed how much we look like each other."
"In the face, yes," replied Dick; "but not as much in the clothes."