e looked upon as the fair fruits of his valour and sagacity; and,
moreover, be detained as an evidence against the robbers, to the manifest
detriment of his affairs. Perhaps too he had motives of conscience, that
dissuaded him from bearing witness against a set of people whose
principles did not much differ from his own.

Influenced by such considerations, he yielded to the first importunity of
the beldame, whom he dismissed at a very small distance from the village,
after he had earnestly exhorted her to quit such an atrocious course of
life, and atone for her past crimes, by sacrificing her associates to the
demands of justice. She did not fail to vow a perfect reformation, and
to prostrate herself before him for the favour she had found; then she
betook herself to her habitation, with full purpose of advising her
fellow-murderers to repair with all despatch to the village, and impeach
our hero, who, wisely distrusting her professions, stayed no longer in
the place than to hire a guide for the next stage, which brought him to
the city of Chalons-sur-Marne.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

HE ARRIVES AT PARIS, AND IS PLEASED WITH HIS RECEPTION.

He was not so smitten with the delightful situation of this ancient town,
but that he abandoned it as soon as he could procure a post-chaise, in
which he arrived at Paris, without having been exposed to any other
troublesome adventure upon the road. He took lodgings at a certain hotel
in the Fauxbourg de St. Germain, which is the general rendezvous of all
the strangers that resort to this capital; and now sincerely
congratulated himself upon his happy escape from his Hungarian
connexions, and from the snares of the banditti, as well as upon the
spoils of the dead body, and his arrival at Paris, from whence there was
such a short conveyance to England, whither he was attracted, by far
other motives than that of filial veneration for his native soil.

He suppressed all his letters of recommendation, which he justly
concluded would subject him to a tedious course of attendance upon the
great, and lay him under the necessity of soliciting preferment in the
army, than which nothing was farther from his inclination; and resolved
to make his appearance in the character of a private gentleman, which
would supply him with opportunities of examining the different scenes of
life in such a gay metropolis, so as that he should be able to choose
that sphere in which he could move the most e