the world might think so much to my disadvantage. And as, possibly,
she compassionated the daily anxieties which she must have perceived
me suffer on her account, she resolved to put an end to my distress.
She soon, indeed, found means to relieve me from troublesome and
perplexed situation; for while I was distracted with various
inventions to supply her with pleasures, she very kindly- betrayed me
to one of her former lovers at Oxford, by whose care and diligence I
was immediately apprehended and committed to gaol.
"Here I first began seriously to reflect on the miscarriages of my
former life; on the errors I had been guilty of; on the misfortunes
which I had brought on myself; and on the grief which I must have
occasioned to one of the best fathers. When I added to all these the
perfidy of my mistress, such was the horror of my mind, that life,
instead of being longer desirable, grew the object of my abhorrence;
and I could have gladly embraced death as my dearest friend, if it had
offered itself to my choice unattended by shame.
"The time of the assizes some came, and I was removed by habeas
corpus to Oxford, where I expected certain conviction and
condemnation; but, to my great surprize, none appeared against me, and
I was, at the end the sessions, discharged for want of procecution. In
short, my chum had left Oxford, and whether from indolence, or from
what other motive I am ignorant, had declined concerning himself any
farther in the affair."
"Perhaps," cries Partridge, "he did not care to have your blood upon
his hands; he was in the right on't. If any person was to hanged
upon my evidence, I should never able to lie alone afterwards, for
fear of seeing his ghost."
"I shall shortly doubt, Partridge," says Jones, "whether thou art
more brave or wise."- "You may laugh at me, sir, if you please,"
answered Partridge; "but if you will hear a very short story which I
can tell, and which is most certainly true, perhaps you may change
your opinion. In the parish where I was born--" Here Jones would
silenced him; but the stranger interceded that he might be permitted
to tell his story, and in the meantime promised to recollect the
remainder of his own.
Partridge then proceeded thus: "In the parish where I was born,
there lived a farmer whose name was Bridle, and he had a son names
Francis, a good hopeful young fellow: I was at the grammar-school with
him, where I remember he was got into Ovid's Epistles, and he could
construe you three lines together sometimes without looking into a
dictionary. Besides all this, he was a very good lad, never missed
church o' Sundays, and was reckoned one of the best psalm-singers in
the whole parish. He would indeed now and then take a cup too much,
and that was the only fault he had."- "Well, but come to the ghost,"
cries Jones. "Never fear, sir; I shall come to him soon enough,"
answered Partridge. "You must know, then, that farmer Bridle lost a
mare, a sorrel one, to the best of my remembrance; and so it fell
out that this young Francis shortly afterward being at a fair at
Hindon, and as I think it was on--, I can't remember the day; and
being as he was, what should he happen to meet but a man upon his
father's mare. Frank called out presently, Stop thief; and it being in
the middle of the fair, it was impossible, you know, for the man to
make his escape. So they apprehended him and carried him before the
justice: I remember it was Justice Willoughby, of Noyle, a very worthy
good gentleman; and he committed him to prison, and bound Frank in a
recognisance, I think they call it- a hard word compounded of re and
cognosco; but it differs in its meaning from the use of the simple, as
many other compounds do. Well, at last down came my Lord Justice
Page to hold the assizes; and so the fellow was had up, Frank was
had up for a witness. To be sure, I shall never forget the face of the
judge, when he began to ask him what he had to say against the
prisoner. He made poor Frank tremble and shake in his shoes. 'Well
you, fellow,' says my lord, 'what have you to say? Don't stand humming
and hawing, but speak out.' But, however, he soon turned altogether as
civil to Frank, and began to thunder at the fellow; and when he
asked him if he had anything to say for himself, the fellow said, he
had found the horse. 'Ay!' answered the judge, 'thou art a lucky
fellow: I have travelled the circuit these forty years, and never
found a horse in my life: but I'll tell thee what, friend, thou wast
more lucky than thou didst know of; for thou didst not only find a
horse, but a halter too, I promise thee.' To be sure, I shall never
forget the word. Upon which everybody fell a laughing, as how could
they help it? Nay, and twenty other jests he made, which I can't
remember now. There was something about his skill in horse-flesh which
made all the folks laugh. To be certain, the judge must have been a
very brave man, as well as a man of much learning. It is indeed
charming sport to hear trials upon life and death. One thing I own
thought a little hard, that the prisoner's counsel was not suffered to
speak for him, though he desired only to be heard one very short word,
my lord would not hearken to him, though he suffered a counsellor to
talk against him for above half-an-hour. I thought it hard, I own,
that there should be so many of them; my lord, and the court, and
the jury, and the counsellors, and the witnesses, all upon one poor
man, and he too in chains. Well, the fellow was hanged, as to be
sure it could be no otherwise, and poor Frank could never be easy
about it. He never was in the dark alone, but fancied he saw the
fellow's spirit."- "Well, and is this thy story?" cries Jones. "No,
no," answered Partridge. "O Lord have mercy upon me! I am just now
coming to the matter; for one night, coming from the alehouse, in a
long, narrow, dark lane, there he ran directly up against him; and the
spirit was all in white, fell upon Frank; and Frank, who was sturdy
lad, fell upon the spirit again, and there they had a tussel together,
and poor Frank was dreadfully beat: indeed he made a shift at last
crawl home; but what with the beating, and what with the fright, he
lay ill above a fortnight; and all this is most certainly true, and
the whole parish will bear witness to it."
The stranger smiled at this story, and Jones burst into a loud fit
of laughter; upon which Partridge cried, "Ay, you may laugh, sir;
and so did some others, particularly a squire, who is thought to be no
better than an atheist; who, forsooth, because there was a calf with a
white face found dead in the same lane the next morning, would fain
have it that the battle was between Frank and that, as if a calf would
set upon a man. Besides, Frank told me he knew it to be a spirit,
and could swear to him in any court in Christendom; and he had not
drank above a quart or two or such a matter of liquor, at the time.
Lud have mercy upon us, and keep us all from dipping our hands in
blood, I say!"
"Well, sir," said Jones to the stranger, "Mr. Partridge hath
finished his story, and I hope will give you no future interruption,
if you will be so kind to proceed." He then resumed his narration; but
as he hath taken breath for a while, we think proper to give it to our
reader, and shall therefore put an end to this chapter.
Chapter 12
In which the Man of the Hill continues his history
"I had now regained my liberty," said the stranger; "but I had
lost my reputation; for there is a wide difference between the case of
a man who is barely acquitted of a crime in a court of justice, and of
him who is acquitted in his own heart, and in the opinion of the
people. I was conscious of my guilt, and ashamed to look any one in
the face; so resolved to leave Oxford the next morning, before the
daylight discovered me to the eyes of any beholders.
"When I had got clear of the city, it first entered into my head
to return home to my father, and endeavour to obtain his
forgiveness; but as I had no reason to doubt his knowledge of all
which had past, and as I was well assured of his great aversion to all
acts of dishonesty, I could entertain no hopes of being received by
him, especially since I was too certain all the good offices in the
power of my mother; nay, had my father's pardon been as sure, as I
conceived his resentment to be, I yet question whether I could have
had the assurance to behold him, or whether I could, upon any terms,
have submitted to live and converse with those who, I was convinced,
knew me to have been guilty of so base an action.
"I hastened therefore back to London, the best retirement of
either grief or shame, unless for persons of a very public
character; for here you have the advantage of solitude without its
disadvantage, since you may be alone and in company at the same
time; and while you walk or sit unobserved, noise, hurry, and a
constant succession of objects, entertain the mind, and prevent the
spirits from preying on themselves, or rather on grief or shame, which
are the most unwholesome diet in the world; and on which (though there
are many who never taste either but in public) there are some who
can feed very plentifully and very fatally when alone.
"But as there is scarce any human good without its concomitant evil,
so there are people who find an inconvenience in this unobserving
temper of mankind; I mean persons who have no money; for as you are
not put out of countenance, so neither are you cloathed or fed by
those who do not know you. And a man may be as easily starved in
Leadenhall-market as in the deserts of Arabia.
"It was as present my fortune to be destitute of that great evil, as
it is apprehended to be by several writers, who I suppose were
overburthened with it, namely, money."- "With submission, sir," said
Partridge, "I do not remember any writers who have called it
malorum; but irritamenta malorum. Effodiuntur opes, irritamenta
malorum."*- "Well, sir," continued the stranger, "whether it be an
evil, or only the cause of evil, I was entirely void of it, and at the
same time of friends, and, as I thought, of acquaintance; when one
evening, as I was passing through the Inner Temple, very hungry, and
very miserable, I heard a voice on a sudden hailing me with great
familiarity by my Christian name; and upon my turning about, I
presently recollected the person who so saluted me to have been my
fellow-collegiate; one who had left the university above a year, and
long before any of my misfortunes had befallen me. This gentleman,
whose name was Watson, shook me heartily by the hand; and expressing
great joy at meeting me, proposed our immediately drinking a bottle
together. I first declined the proposal, and pretended business, but
as he was very earnest and pressing, hunger at last overcame my pride,
and I fairly confessed to him I had no money in my pocket; yet not
without framing a lie for an excuse, and imputing it to my having
changed my breeches that morning. Mr. Watson answered, 'I thought,
Jack, you and I had been too old acquaintance for you to mention
such a matter.' He then took me by the arm, and was pulling me
along; but I gave him very little trouble, for my own inclinations
pulled me much stronger than he could do.
*Riches, the incentives to evil, are dug out of the earth.
"We then went into the Friars, which you know is the scene of all
mirth and jollity. Here, when we arrived at the tavern, Mr. Watson
applied himself to the drawer only, without taking the least notice of
the cook; for he had no suspicion but that I had dined long since.
However, as the case was really otherwise, I forged another falsehood,
and told my companion I had been at the further end of the city on
business of consequence, and had snapt up a mutton-chop in haste; so
that I was again hungry, and wished he would add a beef-steak to his
bottle."- "Some people," cries Partridge, "ought to have good
memories; or did you find just money enough in your breeches to pay
for the mutton-chop?"- "Your observation is right," answered the
stranger, "and I believe such blunders are inseparable from all
dealing in untruth.- But to proceed- I began now to feel myself
extremely happy. The meat and wine soon revived my spirits to a high
pitch, and I enjoyed much pleasure in the conversation of my old
acquaintance, the rather as I thought him entirely ignorant of what
had happened at the university since his leaving it.
"But he did not suffer me to remain long in this agreeable delusion;
for taking a bumper in one hand, and holding me by the other, 'Here,
my boy,' cries he, 'here's wishing you joy of your being so honourably
acquitted of that affair laid to your charge. 'I was thunderstruck
with confusion at those words, which Watson observing, proceeded thus:
'Nay, never be ashamed, man; thou hast been acquitted, and no one
now dares call thee guilty; but, prithee, do tell me, who am thy
friend- I hope thou didst really rob him? for rat me if it was not a
meritorious action to strip such a sneaking, pitiful rascal; and
instead of the two hundred guineas, I wish you had taken as many
thousand. Come, come, my boy, don't be shy of confessing to me: you
are not now brought before one of the pimps. D--n me if I don't
honour you for it; for, as I hope for salvation, I would have made
no manner of scruple of doing the same thing.'
"This declaration a little relieved my abashment; and as wine had
now somewhat opened my heart, I very freely acknowledged the
robbery, but acquainted him that he had been misinformed as to the sum
taken, which was little more than a fifth part of what he had
