'

'I lack no Zummerzett maid, mistress: I have a fairer than your brown
things; and for her alone would I strike a blow.'

At this the old woman gave me up, as being beyond correction: and
it vexed me a little that my great fame had not reached so far as
Bridgwater, when I thought that it went to Bristowe. But those people in
East Somerset know nothing about wrestling. Devon is the headquarters
of the art; and Devon is the county of my chief love. Howbeit, my vanity
was moved, by this slur upon it--for I had told her my name was John
Ridd, when I had a gallon of ale with her, ere ever I came upstairs; and
she had nodded, in such a manner, that I thought she knew both name
and fame--and here was I, not only shaken, pinched, and with many hairs
pulled out, in the midst of my first good sleep for a week, but also
abused, and taken amiss, and (which vexed me most of all) unknown.

Now there is nothing like vanity to keep a man awake at night, however
he be weary; and most of all, when he believes that he is doing
something great--this time, if never done before--yet other people will
not see, except what they may laugh at; and so be far above him, and
sleep themselves the happier. Therefore their sleep robs his own; for
all things play so, in and out (with the godly and ungodly ever moving
in a balance, as they have done in my time, almost every year or two),
all things have such nice reply of produce to the call for it, and such
a spread across the world, giving here and taking there, yet on the
whole pretty even, that haply sleep itself has but a certain stock,
and keeps in hand, and sells to flattered (which can pay) that which
flattened vanity cannot pay, and will not sue for.

Be that as it may, I was by this time wide awake, though much aggrieved
at feeling so, and through the open window heard the distant roll of
musketry, and the beating of drums, with a quick rub-a-dub, and the
'come round the corner' of trumpet-call. And perhaps Tom Faggus might be
there, and shot at any moment, and my dear Annie left a poor widow, and
my godson Jack an orphan, without a tooth to help him.

Therefore I reviled myself for all my heavy laziness; and partly through
good honest will, and partly through the stings of pride, and yet a
little perhaps by virtue of a young man's love of riot, up I arose, and
dressed myself, and woke Kickums (who was snoring), and set out to see
the worst of it. The sleepy hostler scratched his poll, a