Many people will doubtless say that things have altered wonderfully with me for the better, and they would say right, provided I possessed now what I then carried about with me in my journeys - the spirit of youth.Youth is the only season for enjoyment, and the first twenty-five years of one's life are worth all the rest of the longest life of man, even though those five-and-twenty be spent in penury and contempt, and the rest in the possession of wealth, honours, respectability, ay, and many of them in strength and health, such as will enable one to ride forty miles before dinner, and over one's pint of port - for the best gentleman in the land should not drink a bottle - carry on one's argument, with gravity and decorum, with any commercial gentleman who, responsive to one's challenge, takes the part of humanity and common sense against "protection" and the lord of the land.
Ah! there is nothing like youth - not that after-life is valueless.Even in extreme old age one may get on very well, provided we will but accept of the bounties of God.I met the other day an old man, who asked me to drink."I am not thirsty," said I, "and will not drink with you." "Yes, you will," said the old man, "for I am this day one hundred years old; and you will never again have an opportunity of drinking the health of a man on his hundredth birthday." So I broke my word, and drank."Yours is a wonderful age," said I."It is a long time to look back to the beginning of it," said the old man; "yet, upon the whole, I am not sorry to have lived it all." "How have you passed your time?" said I."As well as I could," said the old man; "always enjoying a good thing when it came honestly within my reach; not forgetting to praise God for putting it there." "I suppose you were fond of a glass of good ale when you were young?" "Yes," said the old man, "I was; and so, thank God, I am still." And he drank off a glass of ale.
On I went in my journey, traversing England from west to east - ascending and descending hills - crossing rivers by bridge and ferry - and passing over extensive plains.What a beautiful country is England! People run abroad to see beautiful countries, and leave their own behind unknown, unnoticed - their own the most beautiful! And then, again, what a country for adventures! especially to those who travel on foot, or on horseback.People run abroad in quest of adventures, and traverse Spain or Portugal on mule or on horseback; whereas there are ten times more adventures to be met with in England than in Spain, Portugal, or stupid Germany to boot.Witness the number of adventures narrated in the present book - a book entirely devoted to England.
Why, there is not a chapter in the present book which is not full of adventures, with the exception of the present one, and this is not yet terminated.
After traversing two or three counties, I reached the confines of Lincolnshire.During one particularly hot day Iput up at a public-house, to which, in the evening, came a party of harvesters to make merry, who, finding me wandering about the house a stranger, invited me to partake of their ale; so I drank with the harvesters, who sang me songs about rural life, such as -"Sitting in the swale; and listening to the swindle of the flail, as it sounds dub-a-dub on the corn, from the neighbouring barn."In requital for which I treated them with a song, not of Romanvile, but the song of "Sivory and the horse Grayman." Iremained with them till it was dark, having, after sunset, entered into deep discourse with a celebrated ratcatcher, who communicated to me the secrets of his trade, saying, amongst other things, "When you see the rats pouring out of their holes, and running up my hands and arms, it's not after me they comes, but after the oils I carries about me they comes;" and who subsequently spoke in the most enthusiastic manner of his trade, saying that it was the best trade in the world, and most diverting, and that it was likely to last for ever; for whereas all other kinds of vermin were fast disappearing from England, rats were every day becoming more abundant.I had quitted this good company, and having mounted my horse, was making my way towards a town at about six miles' distance, at a swinging trot, my thoughts deeply engaged on what I had gathered from the ratcatcher, when all on a sudden a light glared upon the horse's face, who purled round in great terror, and flung me out of the saddle, as from a sling, or with as much violence as the horse Grayman, in the ballad, flings Sivord the Snareswayne.I fell upon the ground - felt a kind of crashing about my neck - and forthwith became senseless.
