dships and Hazards of Climate and Excess we can bear in our Youth,
whereas in middle life an extra Slice gives us a Surfeit, and another
cup turns our Liver to Touchwood; whilst in age (as I know to my sorrow)
we dare scarcely venture our shoe in a Puddle for fear of the Chills and
Sciatica. In the morning I laved my face in a Brook that hurtled hard
by; but waited very fearfully until Noon ere I dared venture forth from
my covert. I had filled my pockets with Fruit and Bread (which I am
afraid I did not come very honestly by, and indeed admit that Gnawbit's
Larder and Orchard found me in Provender), and was so able to break my
fast. And my Guinea, I remembered, was still unchanged. I had a dim kind
of impression that I was bound to Charlwood Chase, to join the Blacks of
whom the Old Gentleman had spoken, but I was not in any Hurry to get to
my Goal. I was Free, albeit a Runaway, and felt all the delights of
Independence. You whose pleasures lie in Bowers, and Beds, and Cards,
and Wine, can little judge of the Ease felt by him who is indeed a
Beggar and pursued, but is at Liberty. I remember being in hiding once
with a Gentleman Robber, who had, by the aid of a File and a Friend,
contrived to give the Galleys leg-bail, and who for days afterwards was
never tired of patting and smoothing his ankles, and saying, "'Twas
there the shackles galled me so." Poor rogue! he was soon afterwards
laid by the heels and swung; for there is no Neck Verse in France to
save a Gentleman from the Gallows.

Towards evening my gall began to grate somewhat with the sense of mine
own utter loneliness; and for a moment I Wavered between the resolve to
go Forward, and a slavish prompting to return to my Tyrant, and suffer
all the torments his cruelty could visit me with. Then, as a middle
course, I thought I would creep back to my kennel and die there; but I
was happily dissuaded from such a mean surrender to Fortune's Spites
through the all-unknowing agency of a Bull, that, spying me from afar
off where he was feeding, came thundering across two fields and through
a shallow stream, routed me up from my refuge, and chased me into the
open. I have often since been thankful to this ungovernable Beast (that
would have Tossed, and perchance Gored me sorely, had he got at me), and
seldom, in later life, when I have felt weak and wavering in the pursuit
of a profitable purpose, have I failed to remember the Bull, and how he
chased me out of Distempere