The Vicar of Wakefield | Page 8

is, perhaps, one of the most distressful circumstances attendant
on penury. The day soon arrived on which we were to disperse for the
first time. My son, after taking leave of his mother and the rest, who
mingled their tears with their kisses, came to ask a blessing from me.
This I gave him from my heart, and which, added to five guineas, was
all the patrimony I had now to bestow. 'You are going, my boy,' cried I,
'to London on foot, in the manner Hooker, your great ancestor,
travelled there before you. Take from me the same horse that was given
him by the good bishop Jewel, this staff, and take this book too, it will
be your comfort on the way: these two lines in it are worth a million, I
have been young, and now am old; yet never saw I the righteous man
forsaken, or his seed begging their bread. Let this be your consolation
as you travel on. Go, my boy, whatever be thy fortune let me see thee
once a year; still keep a good heart, and farewell.' As he was possest of
integrity and honour, I was under no apprehensions from throwing him
naked into the amphitheatre of life; for I knew he would act a good part

whether vanquished or victorious. His departure only prepared the way
for our own, which arrived a few days afterwards. The leaving a
neighbourhood in which we had enjoyed so many hours of tranquility,
was not without a tear, which scarce fortitude itself could suppress.
Besides, a journey of seventy miles to a family that had hitherto never
been above ten from home, filled us with apprehension, and the cries of
the poor, who followed us for some miles, contributed to encrease it.
The first day's journey brought us in safety within thirty miles of our
future retreat, and we put up for the night at an obscure inn in a village
by the way. When we were shewn a room, I desired the landlord, in my
usual way, to let us have his company, with which he complied, as
what he drank would encrease the bill next morning. He knew, however,
the whole neighbourhood to which I was removing, particularly 'Squire
Thornhill, who was to be my landlord, and who lived within a few
miles of the place. This gentleman he described as one who desired to
know little more of the world than its pleasures, being particularly
remarkable for his attachment to the fair sex. He observed that no virtue
was able to resist his arts and assiduity, and that scarce a farmer's
daughter within ten miles round but what had found him successful and
faithless. Though this account gave me some pain, it had a very
different effect upon my daughters, whose features seemed to brighten
with the expectation of an approaching triumph, nor was my wife less
pleased and confident of their allurements and virtue. While our
thoughts were thus employed, the hostess entered the room to inform
her husband, that the strange gentleman, who had been two days in the
house, wanted money, and could not satisfy them for his reckoning.
'Want money!' replied the host, 'that must be impossible; for it was no
later than yesterday he paid three guineas to our beadle to spare an old
broken soldier that was to be whipped through the town for dog-
stealing.' The hostess, however, still persisting in her first assertion, he
was preparing to leave the room, swearing that he would be satisfied
one way or another, when I begged the landlord would introduce me to
a stranger of so much charity as he described. With this he complied,
shewing in a gentleman who seemed to be about thirty, drest in cloaths
that once were laced. His person was well formed, and his face marked
with the lines of thinking. He had something short and dry in his
address, and seemed not to understand ceremony, or to despise it. Upon

the landlord's leaving the room, I could not avoid expressing my
concern to the stranger at seeing a gentleman in such circumstances,
and offered him my purse to satisfy the present demand. 'I take it with
all my heart, Sir,' replied he, 'and am glad that a late oversight in giving
what money I had about me, has shewn me that there are still some
men like you. I must, however, previously entreat being informed of
the name and residence of my benefactor, in order to repay him as soon
as possible.' In this I satisfied him fully, not only mentioning my name
and late misfortunes, but the place to which I was going to remove.
'This,' cried he, 'happens still more luckily than I hoped for, as I am
going the