g
gentlemen and ladies in the neighbourhood to play with them, he
generally rewarded their civility by tearing their coats or pulling
their clothes off their backs before he returned home; so that at last
they bestowed upon him, by general consent, the honourable title of
_'Squire Bruin_. It must, however, be acknowledged that he was a youth
of such impartial justice, that he shewed as little favour to his own
clothes as to those of _other_ people; for what with climbing up old
trees, and rambling over hedges and ditches, to seek for birds nests,
he commonly appeared by dinner time, how well soever he had been
dressed in the morning, in as ragged a coat as he wears at present. It
must also be remarked, that if the young gentlemen and ladies soon grew
weary, as indeed they did, of such a rough play fellow, he, in _his_
turn, was as willing to leave _their_ company, as they were to be rid
of _his_; for his chief delight was to associate with such vulgar boys
and girls as were of the same rugged disposition as himself. With these
he could pull and hawl and romp and tear as long as he pleased; and the
more active he became in this raggamuffin species of diversion, the
more they relished his company. But, upon occasion, he could fight as
well as play: I mean when he either was provoked to it by his equals,
or tempted to it by the hopes of defrauding of their little property
those who he knew had neither strength enough nor courage to resist
him. But whatever was his motive either for _beginning_ or suffering
himself to be _drawn_ into an engagement, he was very far from
confining himself to any rules of honour, or to the established laws of
war; for instead of boxing fairly, he would kick, pull hair, bite, and
scratch most unmercifully, and never fail to take every advantage of
his antagonist after he had brought him to the ground. For these
reasons he was soon dignified with the nick name of _Dick Bear_, even
by the vulgar boys in the streets; and most of them afterwards took
care never to engage with him unless when there were several other boys
present to see fair play. One would think that such a rough hewn and
slovenly mortal as we have been describing would have had little regard
for any delicacies in the eating way. But whoever draws such a
conclusion in favour of our hero, _Dicky Rustick_, is greatly mistaken;
for I can assure you that he had as nice and dainty a tooth as any lady
in the land. Though his father always