Should the weather prove rainy, the hungry traveller may certainly get a wet on the road, although he starves before he reaches the wished-for inn.
As there is likewise no more chance of meeting a good tempered guide on a cross-road, than of finding eggs and bacon, in an edible state, at least on a common—and as he can no more pull in the summer-rains than he can the reins of a runaway stallion; the result is, the inexperienced youth ludicrously represents so many pounds of 'dripping,' and although he may be thirsty, he will have no cause to complain that he is—dry! The best mode for an honest man to go round the country, is to take a straight-forward course, especially when the surcharged clouds do rule the horizon with sloping lines of rain! Besides, it is by no means a pleasant thing for a man with a scanty wardrobe, to find his clothes running away at a most unpleasant rate, while he can scarcely drag one clay-encumbered leg after the other.
It is a difficult trial, too, of a man's philosophy, after trudging over a long field, to be encountered by the mockery of a 'ha! ha!'—fence! He utters a few bitter expletives, perhaps, but nought avails his railing against such a fence as that!
The shower which makes all nature smile, only causes him to laugh—on the wrong side of his mouth, for he regards it as a temperance man does a regular soaker!
Reader! never attempt a bye-way on a wet day, with a stick and bundle at your back—(if you have a waterproof trunk, you may indeed weather it)—but go a-head on the turnpike road—the way of all mails—leaving long and short commons to the goose and donkey—and the probability is, that you may not only I make a sign before you die, but get a feed—and a shelter.
SCENE XVII.
“I'm dem'd if I can ever hit 'em.”
IT is a most extraordinary thing, 'pon my veracity: I go out as regularly as the year, and yet I never bring down an individual bird.