第36章 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD(1)

IT chanced that as I went down the hill these last words of my friend the drover echoed not unfruitfully in my head.I had never told these men the least particulars as to my race or fortune, as it was a part, and the best part, of their civility to ask no questions: yet they had dubbed me without hesitation English.Some strangeness in the accent they had doubtless thus explained.And it occurred to me, that if I could pass in Scotland for an Englishman, I might be able to reverse the process and pass in England for a Scot.I thought, if I was pushed to it, I could make a struggle to imitate the brogue; after my experience with Candlish and Sim, I had a rich provision of outlandish words at my command;

and I felt I could tell the tale of Tweedie's dog so as to deceive a native.At the same time, I was afraid my name of St.Ives was scarcely suitable; till I remembered there was a town so called in the province of Cornwall, thought I might yet be glad to claim it for my place of origin, and decided for a Cornish family and a Scots education.For a trade, as I was equally ignorant of all, and as the most innocent might at any moment be the means of my exposure, it was best to pretend to none.And I dubbed myself a young gentleman of a sufficient fortune and an idle, curious habit of mind, rambling the country at my own charges, in quest of health, information, and merry adventures.

At Newcastle, which was the first town I reached, I completed my preparations for the part, before going to the inn, by the purchase of a knapsack and a pair of leathern gaiters.My plaid I continued to wear from sentiment.It was warm, useful to sleep in if I were again benighted, and I had discovered it to be not unbecoming for a man of gallant carriage.Thus equipped, I supported my character of the light-hearted pedestrian not amiss.Surprise was indeed expressed that I should have selected such a season of the year;

but I pleaded some delays of business, and smilingly claimed to be an eccentric.The devil was in it, I would say, if any season of the year was not good enough for me; I was not made of sugar, I was no mollycoddle to be afraid of an ill-aired bed or a sprinkle of snow; and I would knock upon the table with my fist and call for t'other bottle, like the noisy and free-hearted young gentleman I was.It was my policy (if I may so express myself) to talk much and say little.At the inn tables, the country, the state of the roads, the business interest of those who sat down with me, and the course of public events, afforded me a considerable field in which I might discourse at large and still communicate no information about myself.There was no one with less air of reticence; I plunged into my company up to the neck; and I had a long cock-and-

bull story of an aunt of mine which must have convinced the most suspicious of my innocence.'What!' they would have said, 'that young ass to be concealing anything! Why, he has deafened me with an aunt of his until my head aches.He only wants you should give him a line, and he would tell you his whole descent from Adam downward, and his whole private fortune to the last shilling.' Aresponsible solid fellow was even so much moved by pity for my inexperience as to give me a word or two of good advice: that I was but a young man after all - I had at this time a deceptive air of youth that made me easily pass for one-and-twenty, and was, in the circumstances, worth a fortune - that the company at inns was very mingled, that I should do well to be more careful, and the like; to all which I made answer that I meant no harm myself and expected none from others, or the devil was in it.'You are one of those d-

d prudent fellows that I could never abide with,' said I.'You are the kind of man that has a long head.That's all the world, my dear sir: the long-heads and the short-horns! Now, I am a short-

horn.' 'I doubt,' says he, 'that you will not go very far without getting sheared.' I offered to bet with him on that, and he made off, shaking his head.

But my particular delight was to enlarge on politics and the war.

None damned the French like me; none was more bitter against the Americans.And when the north-bound mail arrived, crowned with holly, and the coachman and guard hoarse with shouting victory, I went even so far as to entertain the company to a bowl of punch, which I compounded myself with no illiberal hand, and doled out to such sentiments as the following:-

'Our glorious victory on the Nivelle'! 'Lord Wellington, God bless him! and may victory ever attend upon his arms!' and, 'Soult, poor devil! and may he catch it again to the same tune!'

Never was oratory more applauded to the echo - never any one was more of the popular man than I.I promise you, we made a night of it.Some of the company supported each other, with the assistance of boots, to their respective bedchambers, while the rest slept on the field of glory where we had left them; and at the breakfast table the next morning there was an extraordinary assemblage of red eyes and shaking fists.I observed patriotism to burn much lower by daylight.Let no one blame me for insensibility to the reverses of France! God knows how my heart raged.How I longed to fall on that herd of swine and knock their heads together in the moment of their revelry! But you are to consider my own situation and its necessities; also a certain lightheartedness, eminently Gallic, which forms a leading trait in my character, and leads me to throw myself into new circumstances with the spirit of a schoolboy.It is possible that I sometimes allowed this impish humour to carry me further than good taste approves: and I was certainly punished for it once.

This was in the episcopal city of Durham.We sat down, a considerable company, to dinner, most of us fine old vatted English tories of that class which is often so enthusiastic as to be inarticulate.I took and held the lead from the beginning; and, the talk having turned on the French in the Peninsula, I gave them authentic details (on the authority of a cousin of mine, an ensign)