lamity still sounded in my ears. I was inured to the apprehension of
mischief, till at last the hoarse roarings of the beginning tempest had
lost their power of annihilating my peace. I however thought it
necessary, while I was most palpably within the sphere of the enemy, to
exert every practicable degree of vigilance. I was careful not to incur
the hazards of darkness and solitude. When I left the town it was with
the stage-coach, an obvious source of protection against glaring and
enormous violence. Meanwhile I found myself no more exposed to
molestation in my progress, than the man in the world who should have
had the least reason for apprehensions of this nature. As the distance
increased, I relaxed something in my precaution, though still awake to a
sense of danger, and constantly pursued with the image of my foe. I
fixed upon an obscure market-town in Wales as the chosen seat of my
operations. This place recommended itself to my observation as I was
wandering in quest of an abode. It was clean, cheerful, and of great
simplicity of appearance. It was at a distance from any public and
frequented road, and had nothing which could deserve the name of trade.
The face of nature around it was agreeably diversified, being partly
wild and romantic, and partly rich and abundant in production.

Here I solicited employment in two professions; the first, that of a
watchmaker, in which though the instructions I had received were few,
they were eked out and assisted by a mind fruitful in mechanical
invention; the other, that of an instructor in mathematics and its
practical application, geography, astronomy, land-surveying, and
navigation. Neither of these was a very copious source of emolument in
the obscure retreat I had chosen for myself; but, if my receipts were
slender, my disbursements were still fewer. In this little town I became
acquainted with the vicar, the apothecary, the lawyer, and the rest of
the persons who, time out of mind, had been regarded as the top gentry
of the place. Each of these centred in himself a variety of occupations.
There was little in the appearance of the vicar that reminded you of his
profession, except on the recurring Sunday. At other times he
condescended, with his evangelical hand to guide the plough, or to drive
the cows from the field to the farm-yard for the milking. The apothecary
occasionally officiated as a barber, and the lawyer was the village
schoolmaster.

By all these persons