we breathed
in the fresh country air with the reeks of crops and of kine. 'Rabbit
me! but you are to be envied, Clarke, for having been born and bred in
the country! What pleasures has the town to offer compared to the free
gifts of nature, provided always that there be a perruquier's and
a snuff merchant's, and a scent vendor's, and one or two tolerable
outfitters within reach? With these and a good coffee-house and a
playhouse, I think I could make shift to lead a simple pastoral life for
some months.'

'In the country,' said I, laughing, 'we have ever the feeling that the
true life of mankind, with the growth of knowledge and wisdom, are being
wrought out in the towns.'

'Ventre Saint-Gris! It was little knowledge or wisdom that I acquired
there,' he answered. 'Truth to tell, I have lived more and learned more
during these few weeks that we have been sliding about in the rain with
our ragged lads, than ever I did when I was page of the court, with the
ball of fortune at my feet. It is a sorry thing for a man's mind to have
nothing higher to dwell upon than the turning of a compliment or the
dancing of a corranto. Zounds, lad! I have your friend the carpenter to
thank for much. As he says in his letter, unless a man can get the good
that is in him out, he is of loss value in the world than one of those
fowls that we hear cackling, for they at least fulfill their mission, if
it be only to lay eggs. Ged, it is a new creed for me to be preaching!'

'But,' said I, 'when you were a wealthy man you must have been of
service to some one, for how could one spend so much money and yet none
be the better?'

'You dear bucolic Micah!' he cried, with a gay laugh. 'You will ever
speak of my poor fortune with bated breath and in an awestruck voice, as
though it were the wealth of the Indies. You cannot think, lad, how easy
it is for a money-bag to take unto itself wings and fly. It is true that
the man who spends it doth not consume the money, but passes it on to
some one who profits thereby. Yet the fault lies in the fact that it was
to the wrong folk that we passed our money, thereby breeding a useless
and debauched class at the expense of honest callings. Od's fish, lad!
when I think of the swarms of needy beggars, the lecherous pimps, the
nose-slitting bullies, the toadies and the flatterers who were reared by
us, I feel that in hatching such a poisonous brood our money hath done
what no money can undo. Have I not seen them