Visit to the Landlord — His Mortifications — Hunter and His Clan — Resolution

On the following morning, after breakfasting with Belle, who was silent and melancholy, I left her in the dingle, and took a stroll amongst the neighbouring lanes. After some time I thought I would pay a visit to the landlord of the public house, whom I had not seen since the day when he communicated to me his intention of changing his religion. I therefore directed my steps to the house, and on entering it found the landlord standing in the kitchen. Just then two mean-looking fellows, who had been drinking at one of the tables, and who appeared to be the only customers in the house, got up, brushed past the landlord, and saying in a surly tone, ‘We shall pay you some time or other,’ took their departure. ‘That’s the way they serve me now,’ said the landlord, with a sigh. ‘Do you know those fellows,’ I demanded, ‘since you let them go away in your debt?’ ‘I know nothing about them,’ said the landlord, ‘save that they are a couple of scamps.’ ‘Then why did you let them go away without paying you?’ said I. ‘I had not the heart to stop them,’ said the landlord; ‘and, to tell you the truth, everybody serves me so now, and I suppose they are right, for a child could flog me.’ ‘Nonsense,’ said I, ‘behave more like a man, and with respect to those two fellows run after them, I will go with you, and if they refuse to pay the reckoning I will help you to shake some money out of their clothes.’ ‘Thank you,’ said the landlord; ‘but as they are gone, let them go on. What they have drank is not of much consequence.’ ‘What is the matter with you?’ said I, staring at the landlord, who appeared strangely altered; his features were wild and haggard, his formerly bluff cheeks were considerably sunken in, and his figure had lost much of its plumpness. ‘Have you changed your religion already, and has the fellow in black commanded you to fast?’ ‘I have not changed my religion yet,’ said the landlord, with a kind of shudder; ‘I am to change it publicly this day fortnight, and the idea of doing so — I do not mind telling you — preys much upon my mind; moreover, the noise of the thing has got abroad, and everybody is laughing at me, and what’s more, coming and drinking my beer, and going away without paying for it, whilst I feel myself like one bewitched, wishing but not daring to take my own part. Confound the fellow in black, I wish I had never seen him! yet what can I do without him? The br............