The Man of Feeling | Page 7

benediction could not be heard: --but
it shall be heard, honest Peter! where these tears will add to its energy.
In a few hours Harley reached the inn where he proposed breakfasting,
but the fulness of his heart would not suffer him to eat a morsel. He
walked out on the road, and gaining a little height, stood gazing on that
quarter he had left. He looked for his wonted prospect, his fields, his
woods, and his hills: they were lost in the distant clouds! He pencilled
them on the clouds, and bade them farewell with a sigh!
He sat down on a large stone to take out a little pebble from his shoe,
when he saw, at some distance, a beggar approaching him. He had on a
loose sort of coat, mended with different-coloured rags, amongst which
the blue and the russet were the predominant. He had a short knotty
stick in his hand, and on the top of it was stuck a ram's horn; his knees
(though he was no pilgrim) had worn the stuff of his breeches; he wore
no shoes, and his stockings had entirely lost that part of them which
should have covered his feet and ankles; in his face, however, was the
plump appearance of good humour; he walked a good round pace, and
a crook-legged dog trotted at his heels.
"Our delicacies," said Harley to himself, "are fantastic; they are not in

nature! that beggar walks over the sharpest of these stones barefooted,
whilst I have lost the most delightful dream in the world, from the
smallest of them happening to get into my shoe." The beggar had by
this time come up, and, pulling off a piece of hat, asked charity of
Harley; the dog began to beg too: --it was impossible to resist both; and,
in truth, the want of shoes and stockings had made both unnecessary,
for Harley had destined sixpence for him before. The beggar, on
receiving it, poured forth blessings without number; and, with a sort of
smile on his countenance, said to Harley "that if he wanted to have his
fortune told"--Harley turned his eye briskly on the beggar: it was an
unpromising look for the subject of a prediction, and silenced the
prophet immediately. "I would much rather learn," said Harley, "what it
is in your power to tell me: your trade must be an entertaining one; sit
down on this stone, and let me know something of your profession; I
have often thought of turning fortune-teller for a week or two myself."
"Master," replied the beggar, "I like your frankness much; God knows I
had the humour of plain-dealing in me from a child, but there is no
doing with it in this world; we must live as we can, and lying is, as you
call it, my profession, but I was in some sort forced to the trade, for I
dealt once in telling truth.
"I was a labourer, sir, and gained as much as to make me live: I never
laid by indeed: for I was reckoned a piece of a wag, and your wags, I
take it, are seldom rich, Mr. Harley."
"So," said Harley, "you seem to know me."
"Ay, there are few folks in the country that I don't know something of:
how should I tell fortunes else?"
"True; but to go on with your story: you were a labourer, you say, and a
wag; your industry, I suppose, you left with your old trade, but your
humour you preserve to be of use to you in your new."
"What signifies sadness, sir? a man grows lean on't: but I was brought
to my idleness by degrees; first I could not work, and it went against
my stomach to work ever after. I was seized with a jail fever at the time
of the assizes being in the county where I lived; for I was always
curious to get acquainted with the felons, because they are commonly
fellows of much mirth and little thought, qualities I had ever an esteem
for. In the height of this fever, Mr. Harley, the house where I lay took
fire, and burnt to the ground; I was carried out in that condition, and lay

all the rest of my illness in a barn. I got the better of my disease,
however, but I was so weak that I spit blood whenever I attempted to
work. I had no relation living that I knew of, and I never kept a friend
above a week, when I was able to joke; I seldom remained above six
months in a parish, so that I might have died before I had found a
settlement in any: thus I was forced to beg my bread, and a sorry trade I
found