unities of knowing--and most people
allowed that it was a good country for adventurous English. The people
who chiefly spoke against it, as she informed me, were soldiers disbanded
upon pensions, the sextons of village churches, and excisemen. Belle had
a craving desire to visit that country, and to wander with cart and
little animal amongst its forests; when I would occasionally object that
she would be exposed to danger from strange and perverse customers, she
said that she had not wandered the roads of England so long and alone, to
be afraid of anything which might befall in America; and that she hoped,
with God's favour, to be able to take her own part, and to give to
perverse customers as good as they might bring. She had a dauntless
heart, that same Belle. Such was the staple of Belle's conversation. As
for mine, I would endeavour to entertain her with strange dreams of
adventure, in which I figured in opaque forests, strangling wild beasts,
or discovering and plundering the hoards of dragons; and sometimes I
would narrate to her other things far more genuine--how I had tamed
savage mares, wrestled with Satan, and had dealings with ferocious
publishers. Belle had a kind heart, and would weep at the accounts I
gave her of my early wrestlings with the dark Monarch. She would sigh,
too, as I recounted the many slights and degradations I had received at
the hands of ferocious publishers; but she had the curiosity of a woman;
and once, when I talked to her of the triumphs which I had achieved over
unbroken mares, she lifted up her head and questioned me as to the secret
of the virtue which I possessed over the aforesaid animals; whereupon I
sternly reprimanded, and forthwith commanded her to repeat the Armenian
numerals; and, on her demurring, I made use of words, to escape which she
was glad to comply, saying the Armenian numerals from one to a hundred,
which numerals, as a punishment for her curiosity, I made her repeat
three times, loading her with the bitterest reproaches whenever she
committed the slightest error, either in accent or pronunciation, which
reproaches she appeared to bear with the greatest patience. And now I
have given a very fair account of the manner in which Isopel Berners and
myself passed our time in the dingle.

CHAPTER NINETY-TWO

THE LANDLORD--RATHER TOO OLD--WITHOUT A SHILLING--REPUTATION--A FORTNIGHT
AGO--LIQUIDS--IRRATIONAL BEINGS--PARLIAMENT COVE--MY BREWER

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