A few days after the circumstance which I have last commemorated, it chanced that, as I was standing at the door of the inn, one of the numerous stage-coaches which were in the habit of stopping there, drove up, and several passengers got down. I had assisted a woman with a couple of children to dismount, and had just delivered to her a band-box, which appeared to be her only property, which she had begged me to fetch down from the roof, when I felt a hand laid upon my shoulder, and heard a voice exclaim, ‘Is it possible, old fellow, that I find you in this place?’ I turned round, and wrapped in a large blue cloak, I beheld my good friend Francis Ardry. 148 I shook him most warmly by the hand, and said, ‘If you are surprised to see me, I am no less so to see you, where are you bound to?’
‘I am bound for L—— 149 at any rate I am booked for that seaport,’ said my friend in reply.
‘I am sorry for it,’ said I, ‘for in that case we shall have to part in a quarter of an hour, the coach by which you came stopping no longer.’
‘And whither are you bound?’ demanded my friend.
‘I am stopping at present in this house, quite undetermined as to what to do.’
‘Then come along with me,’ said Francis Ardry.
‘That I can scarcely do,’ said I, ‘I have a horse in the stall which I cannot afford to ruin by racing to L—— by the side of your coach.’
My friend mused for a moment: ‘I have no particular business at L—— ’ said he; ‘I was merely going thither to pass a day or two, till an affair, in which I am deeply interested, at C—— 150 shall come off. I think I shall stay with you for four-and-twenty hours at least; I have been rather melancholy of late, and cannot afford to part with a friend like you at the present moment; it is an unexpected piece of good fortune to have met you; and I have not been very fortunate of late,’ he added, sighing.
‘Well,’ said I, ‘I am glad to see you once more, whether fortunate or not; where is your baggage?’
‘Yon trunk is mine,’ said Francis, pointing to a trunk of black Russian leather upon the coach.
‘We will soon have it down,’ said I, and at a word which I gave to one of the hangers-on at the inn, the trunk was taken from the top of the coach. ‘Now,’ said I to Francis Ardry, ‘follow me, I am a person of some authority in this house;’ thereupon I led Francis Ardry into the house, and a word which I said to a waiter forthwith installed Francis Ardry in a comfortable private sitting-room, and his trunk in the very best sleeping-room of our extensive establishment.
It was now about one o’clock: Francis Ardry ordered dinner for two, to be ready at four, and a pint of sherry to be brought forthwith, which I requested my friend the waiter might be the very best, and which in effect turned out as I requested; we sat down, and when we had drank to each other’s health, Frank requested me to make known to him how I had contrived to free myself from my embarrassments in London, what I had been about since I quitted that city, and the present posture of my affairs.
I related to Francis Ardry how I had composed the Life of Joseph Sell, and how the sale of it to the bookseller had enabled me to quit London with money in my pocket, which had supported me during a long course of ramble in the country, into the particulars of which I, however, did not enter with any considerable degree of fulness. I summed up my account by saying that ‘I was at present a kind of overlooker in the stables of the inn, had still some pounds in my purse, and, moreover, a capital horse in the stall.’
‘No very agreeable posture of affairs,’ said Francis Ardry, looking rather seriously at me.
‘I make no complaints,’ said I, ‘my prospects are not very bright, it is true, but sometimes I have visions, both waking and sleeping, which, though always strange, are invariably agreeable. Last night, in my chamber near the hayloft, I dreamt that I had passed over an almost interminable wilderness — an enormous wall rose before me, the wall, methought, was the great wall of China:— strange figures appeared to be beckoning to me from the top of the wall; such visions are not exactly to be sneered at. Not that such phantasmagoria,’ said I, raising my voice, ‘are to be compared for a moment with such desirable things as fashion, fine clothes, cheques from uncles, parliamentary interest, the love of splendid females. Ah! woman’s love,’ said I, and sighed.
‘What’s the matter with the fellow?’ said Francis Ardry.
‘There is nothing like it,’ said I.
‘Like what?’
‘Love, divine love,’ said I.
‘Confound love,’ said Francis Ardry, ‘I hate the very name; I have made myself a pretty fool by it, but trust me for ever being caught at such folly again. In an evil hour I abandoned my former pursuits and amusements for it; in one morning spent at Joey’s there was more real pleasure than in-’
‘Surely,’ said I, ‘you are not hankering after dog-fighting again, a sport which none but the gross and unrefined care anything for? No, one’s thoughts should be occupied by something higher and more rational than dog-fighting; and what better than love — divine love? Oh, there’s nothing like it!’
‘Pray, don’t talk nonsense,’ said Francis Ardry.
‘Nonsense,’ said I; ‘why I was repeating, to the best of my recollection, what I heard you say on a former occasion.’
‘If ever I talked such stuff,’ said Francis Ardry, ‘I was a fool; and indeed I cannot deny that I have been one: no, there is no denying that I have been a fool. What do you think? That false Annette 151 has cruelly abandoned me.’
‘Well,’ said I, ‘perhaps you have yourself to thank for her having done so; did you never treat her with coldness, and repay her marks of affectionate interest with strange fits of eccentric humour?’
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