they fly into each other’s arms, and both drop down dead for joy.
There is a soft æra in every gentle mortal’s life, where such a story
affords more _pabulum_ to the brain, than all the _Frusts_, and
_Crusts_, and _Rusts_ of antiquity, which travellers can cook up for
it.
——’Twas all that stuck on the right side of the cullender in my own, of
what _Spon_ and others, in their accounts of _Lyons_, had _strained_
into it; and finding, moreover, in some Itinerary, but in what God
knows——That sacred to the fidelity of _Amandus_ and _Amanda_, a tomb
was built without the gates, where, to this hour, lovers called upon
them to attest their truths——I never could get into a scrape of that
kind in my life, but this _tomb of the lovers_ would, somehow or other,
come in at the close —nay such a kind of empire had it establish’d over
me, that I could seldom think or speak of _Lyons_—and sometimes not so
much as see even a _Lyons-waistcoat_, but this remnant of antiquity
would present itself to my fancy; and I have often said in my wild way
of running on——tho’ I fear with some irreverence——“I thought this
shrine (neglected as it was) as valuable as that of _Mecca_, and so
little short, except in wealth, of the _Santa Casa_ itself, that some
time or other, I would go a pilgrimage (though I had no other business
at _Lyons_) on purpose to pay it a visit.”
In my list, therefore, of _Videnda_ at _Lyons_, this, tho’ _last_,—was
not, you see, _least_ ; so taking a dozen or two of longer strides than
usual cross my room, just whilst it passed my brain, I walked down
calmly into the _basse cour_, in order to sally forth; and having
called for my bill—as it was uncertain whether I should return to my
inn, I had paid it——had moreover given the maid ten sous, and was just
receiving the dernier compliments of Monsieur _Le Blanc_, for a
pleasant voyage down the _Rhône_——when I was stopped at the gate——