"A bed!" exclaimed our Cumberland farmer. "Man, had ye not the gumption to sleep aboord, or gie the captain the hint, after treating him wi' the glass. That was eighteen-pence clean thrown awa'; and only left ye wi' three-and-sax-pence. Poor soul! what did ye do?"
"Beginning to reflect in the morning," said the other, "that three-and-sixpence was not an inexhaustible sum, I agreed to pass over the very useful ceremony of a breakfast; and, strolling about, planning what to do, and marvelling at all I saw—after narrowly escaping being jostled to pieces, as I moved slowly from street to street, while every soul in the great city appeared to be walking for a wager but myself—towards three o'clock I dined in an eating-house, for six pence, by the side of a coalheaver. The afternoon was also passed in dreamy wandering. After nightfall, I became dispirited and fatigued. I was still unable to form any definite plan of proceeding, and I more than once asked myself what I had come to London to do."
"Poor man! I doubt there are too many like ye," said Peter.
"I was satiated with the busy variety of the scene," he continued; "the very changes became as sameness, and I longed only for a place where I might lie down and rest. I obtained a lodging for the night, in a suspicious-looking public-house, for a sixpence; and rising early on the following morning, my second day in London was spent as the first had been, and at the same expense, save a penny—for on that day my dinner cost me but five pence. My two shillings and a penny were now sacred, and I feared to incur the expense of a night's lodgings. I was passing what I discovered to be Covent Garden. Crowds were pressing into the theatre. I stood and ran my eyes over the playbill. I saw the names, Kemble! Cooke! Bannister! Siddons!—The temptation was irresistible."
"Irresistible!" cried Peter; "what the mischief do ye mean? I see naething irresistible in the case, unless ye just mean to tell me that ye are a born fool."
"Siddons! Kemble! Cook! and Bannister!" proceeded our hero, "on the same boards, and on the same night! I thought myself transported to Elysium! I looked for the word Gallery, pressed forward with the eager crowd, and threw down my shilling. 'Another shilling, sir,' said the man of checks. I had followed the stream of the two-shilling gallery, and thus——"
"Good gracious!" exclaimed the farmer, raising his hands "did ever man in his right judgment hear the like o' that?—ye're no to be pitied! I wonder ye didna think o' buying a strait-jacket!—ye was fitter for it than a play-house. Doctor, I didna think ye had been such an idiot. But I must say that some mothers bring fools into the world after a'. Did ye really no turn back again?—or what did ye do wi' your last penny? It would be thrown away as wisely as the two shillings, I reckon."
"I plead guilty," said Robert; "I acted as a fool, but bore the consequence like a philosopher. My last shilling had disappeared. The performance proceeded—I was delighted, enraptured, overwhelmed. The curtain dropped. The house was crowded to suffocation—my throat was parched—and with my last penny—(keep your seat, Mr Liddell)—with my last penny I bought an orange from a fruit-seller in the gallery. The second piece was concluded. The human mass moved every one to the tavern or their homes, a supper and a pillow, and I—I alone of the thousands—went forth penniless into the streets, hungry, shivering, and fatigued, to wander without hope!"
"And served ye right," said Peter. "I dinna pity ye, sir. No, no; after that, I'm done wi' ye. But how did ye get through the night?"
"The day dawned," resumed Robert Musgrave, "and I was still wandering—fainting, trembling, cold, and benumbed. I had long had some pretensions to literature. I was born in the midst of poetry. It sang around me from the deathless voices of my native Esk, hymning to its green woods and its massy crags. It looked down upon me from the thunder-belted brows of my native mountains, and drew my soul upwards to itself. It grew with my growth, it became a part of my being, and, in the midst of my debasement, it parted not from me."