tenance cleared up: but I easily perceived that
it was long ere he forgot a proposal which seemed to him so fraught with
suspicion as that which I had now hazarded. I trouble you with this
detail of the man's disposition, and the manner in which I practised upon
it, because, however trivial in themselves, these particulars were
attended by an important influence on future incidents which will occur
in this narrative. At the time, this person's conduct only inspired me
with contempt, and confirmed me in an opinion which I already
entertained, that of all the propensities which teach mankind to torment
themselves, that of causeless fear is the most irritating, busy, painful,
and pitiable.

CHAPTER FOURTH.

The Scots are poor, cries surly English pride.
True is the charge; nor by themselves denied.
Are they not, then, in strictest reason clear,
Who wisely come to mend their fortunes here?
Churchill.

There was, in the days of which I write, an old-fashioned custom on the
English road, which I suspect is now obsolete, or practised only by the
vulgar. Journeys of length being made on horseback, and, of course, by
brief stages, it was usual always to make a halt on the Sunday in some
town where the traveller might attend divine service, and his horse have
the benefit of the day of rest, the institution of which is as humane to
our brute labourers as profitable to ourselves. A counterpart to this
decent practice, and a remnant of old English hospitality, was, that the
landlord of a principal inn laid aside his character of a publican on the
seventh day, and invited the guests who chanced to be within his walls to
take a part of his family beef and pudding. This invitation was usually
complied with by all whose distinguished rank did not induce them to
think compliance a derogation; and the proposal of a bottle of wine after
dinner, to drink the landlord's health, was the only recompense ever
offered or accepted.

I was born a citizen of the world, and my inclination led me into all
scenes where my knowledge of mankind could be enlarged; I had, besides,
no pretensions to sequester myself on the score of superior dignity, and
therefore seldom failed to accept of the Sunday's hospitality of mine
host, whether of the Garter, Lion, or Bear. The honest publican, dilated
into additional consequence by a sense of his own impo