y own
charges, in quest of health, information, and merry adventures.

At Newcastle, which was the first town I reached, I completed my
preparations for the part, before going to the inn, by the purchase of a
knapsack and a pair of leathern gaiters. My plaid I continued to wear
from sentiment. It was warm, useful to sleep in if I were again
benighted, and I had discovered it to be not unbecoming for a man of
gallant carriage. Thus equipped, I supported my character of the
light-hearted pedestrian not amiss. Surprise was indeed expressed that I
should have selected such a season of the year; but I pleaded some
delays of business, and smilingly claimed to be an eccentric. The devil
was in it, I would say, if any season of the year was not good enough
for me; I was not made of sugar, I was no mollycoddle to be afraid of an
ill-aired bed or a sprinkle of snow; and I would knock upon the table
with my fist and call for t'other bottle, like the noisy and
free-hearted young gentleman I was. It was my policy (if I may so
express myself) to talk much and say little. At the inn-tables, the
country, the state of the roads, the business interest of those who sat
down with me, and the course of public events, afforded me a
considerable field in which I might discourse at large and still
communicate no information about myself. There was no one with less air
of reticence; I plunged into my company up to the neck; and I had a long
cock-and-bull story of an aunt of mine which must have convinced the
most suspicious of my innocence. "What!" they would have said, "that
young ass to be concealing anything! Why, he has deafened me with an
aunt of his until my head aches. He only wants you should give him a
line, and he would tell you his whole descent from Adam downward, and
his whole private fortune to the last shilling." A responsible solid
fellow was even so much moved by pity for my inexperience as to give me
a word or two of good advice: that I was but a young man after all--I
had at this time a deceptive air of youth that made me easily pass for
one-and-twenty, and was, in the circumstances, worth a fortune--that the
company at inns was very mingled, that I should do well to be more
careful, and the like; to all which I made answer that I meant no harm
myself and expected none from others, or the devil was in it. "You are
one of those d----d prudent fellows that I could never abide with," said
I. "You are the kind of man that has a l