They were no sooner withdrawn than I cast my eye upon the old man, and
found something extremely venerable and interesting in his appearance.
His form was above the middle size. It indicated that his strength had
been once considerable; nor was it at this time by any means
annihilated. His hair was in considerable quantity, and was as white as
the drifted snow. His complexion was healthful and ruddy, at the same
time that his face was furrowed with wrinkles. In his eye there was
remarkable vivacity, and his whole countenance was strongly expressive
of good-nature. The boorishness of his rank in society was lost in the
cultivation his mind had derived from habits of sensibility and
benevolence.
The view of his figure immediately introduced a train of ideas into my
mind, respecting the advantage to be drawn from the presence of such a
person. The attempt to take any step without his consent was hopeless;
for, though I should succeed with regard to him, he could easily give
the alarm to other persons, who would, no doubt, be within call. Add to
which, I could scarcely have prevailed on myself to offer any offence to
a person whose first appearance so strongly engaged my affection and
esteem. In reality my thoughts were turned into a different channel. I
was impressed with an ardent wish to be able to call this man my
benefactor. Pursued by a train of ill fortune, I could no longer
consider myself as a member of society. I was a solitary being, cut off
from the expectation of sympathy, kindness, and the good-will of
mankind. I was strongly impelled, by the situation in which the present
moment placed me, to indulge in a luxury which my destiny seemed to have
denied. I could not conceive the smallest comparison between the idea of
deriving my liberty from the spontaneous kindness of a worthy and
excellent mind, and that of being indebted for it to the selfishness and
baseness of the worst members of society. It was thus that I allowed
myself in the wantonness of refinement, even in the midst of
destruction.
Guided by these sentiments, I requested his attention to the
circumstances by which I had been brought into my present situation. He
immediately signified his assent, and said he would cheerfully listen to
any thing I thought proper to communicate. I told him, the persons who
had just left me in charge with him had come to this town for the
purpose of apprehending some person who had been guilty of robbing the
mail; that they had chosen to take me up under this warrant, and had
conducted me before a justice of the peace; that they had soon detected
their mistake, the person in question being an Irishman, and differing
from me both in country and stature; but that, by collusion between them
and the justice, they were permitted to retain me in custody, and
pretended to undertake to conduct me to Warwick to confront me with my
accomplice; that, in searching me at the justice's, they had found a sum
of money in my possession which excited their cupidity, and that they
had just been proposing to me to give me my liberty upon condition of my
surrendering this sum into their hands. Under these circumstances, I
requested him to consider, whether he would wish to render himself the
instrument of their extortion. I put myself into his hands, and solemnly
averred the truth of the facts I had just stated. If he would assist me
in my escape, it could have no other effect than to disappoint the base
passions of my conductors. I would upon no account expose him to any
real inconvenience; but I was well assured that the same generosity that
should prompt him to a good deed, would enable him effectually to
vindicate it when done; and that those who detained me, when they had
lost sight of their prey, would feel covered with confusion, and not
dare to take another step in the affair.
The old man listened to what I related with curiosity and interest. He
said that he had always felt an abhorrence to the sort of people who had
me in their hands; that he had an aversion to the task they had just
imposed upon him, but that he could not refuse some little disagreeable
offices to oblige his daughter and son-in-law. He had no doubt, from my
countenance and manner, of the truth of what I had asserted to him. It
was an extraordinary request I had made, and he did not know what had
induced me to think him the sort of person to whom, with any prospect of
success, it might be made. In reality however his habits of thinking
were uncommon, and he felt more than half inclined to act as I desired.
One thing at least he would ask of me in return, which was to be
faithfully informed in some degree respecting the person he was desired
to oblige. What was my name?
The question came upon me unprepared. But, whatever might be the
consequence, I could not bear to deceive the person by whom it was put,
and in the circumstances under which it was put. The practice of
perpetual falsehood is too painful a task. I replied, that my name was
Williams.
He paused. His eye was fixed upon me. I saw his complexion alter at the
repetition of that word. He proceeded with visible anxiety.
My Christian name?
Caleb.
Good God! it could not be ----? He conjured me by every thing that was
sacred to answer him faithfully to one question more. I was not--no, it
was impossible--the person who had formerly lived servant with Mr.
Falkland, of ----?
I told him that, whatever might be the meaning of his question, I would
answer him truly. I was the individual he mentioned.
As I uttered these words the old man rose from his seat. He was sorry
that fortune had been so unpropitious to him, as for him ever to have
set eyes upon me! I was a monster with whom the very earth groaned!
I entreated that he would suffer me to explain this new
misapprehension, as he had done in the former instance. I had no doubt
that I should do it equally to his satisfaction.
No! no! no! he would upon no consideration admit, that his ears should
suffer such contamination. This case and the other were very different.
There was no criminal upon the face of the earth, no murderer, half so
detestable as the person who could prevail upon himself to utter the
charges I had done, by way of recrimination, against so generous a
master.--The old man was in a perfect agony with the recollection.
At length he calmed himself enough to say, he should never cease to
grieve that he had held a moment's parley with me. He did not know what
was the conduct severe justice required of him; but, since he had come
into the knowledge of who I was only by my own confession, it was
irreconcilably repugnant to his feelings to make use of that knowledge
to my injury. Here therefore all relation between us ceased; as indeed
it would be an abuse of words to consider me in the light of a human
creature. He would do me no mischief; but, on the other hand, he would
not, for the world, be in any way assisting and abetting me.
I was inexpressibly affected at the abhorrence this good and benevolent
creature expressed against me. I could not be silent; I endeavoured once
and again to prevail upon him to hear me. But his determination was
unalterable. Our contest lasted for some time, and he at length
terminated it by ringing the bell, and calling up the waiter. A very
little while after, my conductors entered, and the other persons
withdrew.
It was a part of the singularity of my fate that it hurried me from one
species of anxiety and distress to another, too rapidly to suffer any
one of them to sink deeply into my mind. I am apt to believe, in the
retrospect, that half the calamities I was destined to endure would
infallibly have overwhelmed and destroyed me. But, as it was, I had no
leisure to chew the cud upon misfortunes as they befel me, but was under
the necessity of forgetting them, to guard against peril that the next
moment seemed ready to crush me.
The behaviour of this incomparable and amiable old man cut me to the
heart. It was a dreadful prognostic for all my future life. But, as I
have just observed, my conductors entered, and another subject called
imperiously upon my attention. I could have been content, mortified as I
was at this instant, to have been shut up in some impenetrable solitude,
and to have wrapped myself in inconsolable misery. But the grief I
endured had not such power over me as that I could be content to risk
the being led to the gallows. The love of life, and still more a hatred
against oppression, steeled my heart against that species of inertness.
In the scene that had just passed I had indulged, as I have said, in a
wantonness and luxury of refinement. It was time that indulgence should
be brought to a period. It was dangerous to trifle any more upon the
brink of fate; and, penetrated as I was with sadness by the result of my
last attempt, I was little disposed to unnecessary circumambulation.
I was exactly in the temper in which the gentlemen who had me in their
power would have desired to find me. Accordingly we entered immediately
upon business; and, after some chaffering, they agreed to accept eleven
guineas as the price of my freedom. To preserve however the chariness of
their reputation, they insisted upon conducting me with them for a few
miles on the outside of a stage-coach. They then pretended that the road
they had to travel lay in a cross country direction; and, having
quitted the vehicle, they suffered me, almost as soon as it was out of
sight, to shake off this troublesome association, and follow my own
inclinations. It may be worth remarking by the way, that these fellows
outwitted themselves at their own trade. They had laid hold of me at
first under the idea of a prize of a hundred guineas; they had since
been glad to accept a composition of eleven: but if they had retained me
a little longer in their possession, they would have found the
possibility of acquiring the sum that had originally excited their
pursuit, upon a different score.
The mischances that had befallen me, in my late attempt to escape from
my pursuers by sea, deterred me from the thought of repeating that
experiment. I therefore once more returned to the suggestion of hiding
myself, at least for the present, amongst the crowds of the metropolis.
Meanwhile, I by no means thought proper to venture by the direct route,
and the less so, as that was the course which would be steered by my
late conductors; but took my road along the borders of Wales. The only
incident worth relating in this place occurred in an attempt to cross
the Severn in a particular point. The mode was by a ferry; but, by some
strange inadvertence, I lost my way so completely as to be wholly unable
that night to reach the ferry, and arrive at the town which I had
destined for my repose.
This may seem a petty disappointment, in the midst of the overwhelming
considerations that might have been expected to engross every thought of
my mind. Yet it was borne by me with singular impatience. I was that day
uncommonly fatigued. Previously to the time that I mistook, or at least
was aware of the mistake of the road, the sky had become black and
lowring, and soon after the clouds burst down in sheets of rain. I was
in the midst of a heath, without a tree or covering of any sort to
shelter me. I was thoroughly drenched in a moment. I pushed on with a
sort of sullen determination. By and by the rain gave place to a storm
of hail. The hail-stones were large and frequent. I was ill defended by
the miserable covering I wore, and they seemed to cut me in a thousand
directions. The hail-storm subsided, and was again succeeded by a heavy
rain. By this time it was that I had perceived I was wholly out of my
road. I could discover neither man nor beast, nor habitation of any
kind. I walked on, measuring at every turn the path it would be proper
to pursue, but in no instance finding a sufficient reason to reject one
or prefer another. My mind was bursting with depression and anguish. I
muttered imprecations and murmuring as I passed along. I was full of
loathing and abhorrence of life, and all that life carries in its train.
After wandering without any certain direction for two hours, I was
overtaken by the night. The scene was nearly pathless, and it was vain
to think of proceeding any farther.
Here I was, without comfort, without shelter, and without food. There
was not a particle of my covering that was not as wet as if it had been
fished from the bottom of the ocean. My teeth chattered. I trembled in
every limb. My heart burned with universal fury. At one moment I
stumbled and fell over some unseen obstacle; at another I was turned
back by an impediment I could not overcome.
There was no strict connection between these casual inconveniences and
the persecution under which I laboured. But my distempered thoughts
confounded them together. I cursed the whole system of human existence.
I said, "Here I am, an outcast, destined to perish with hunger and cold.
All men desert me. All men hate me. I am driven with mortal threats
from the sources of comfort and existence. Accursed world! that hates
without a cause, that overwhelms innocence with calamities which ought
to be spared even to guilt! Accursed world! dead to every manly
sympathy; with eyes of horn, and hearts of steel! Why do I consent to
live any longer? Why do I seek to drag on an existence, which, if
protracted, must be protracted amidst the lairs of these human tigers?"
This paroxysm at length exhausted itself. Presently after, I discovered
a solitary shed, which I was contented to resort to for shelter. In a
corner of the shed I found some clean straw. I threw off my rags, placed
them in a situation where they would best be dried, and buried myself
amidst this friendly warmth. Here I forgot by degrees the anguish that
had racked me. A wholesome shed and fresh straw may seem but scanty
benefits; but they offered themselves when least expected, and my whole
heart was lightened by the encounter. Through fatigue of mind and body,
it happened in this instance, though in general my repose was remarkably
short, that I slept till almost noon of the next day. When I rose, I
found that I was at no great distance from the ferry, which I crossed,
and entered the town where I intended to have rested the preceding
night.
It was market-day. As I passed near the cross, I observed two people
look at me with great earnestness: after which one of them exclaimed, "I
will be damned if I do not think that this is the very fellow those men
were enquiring for who set off an hour ago by the coach for ----." I was
extremely alarmed at this information; and, quickening my pace, turned
sharp down a narrow lane. The moment I was out of sight I ran with all
the speed I could exert, and did not think myself safe till I was
several miles distant from the place where this information had reached
my ears. I have always believed that the men to whom it related were the
very persons who had apprehended me on board the ship in which I had
embarked for Ireland; that, by some accident, they had met with the
description of my person as published on the part of Mr. Falkland; and
that, from putting together the circumstances, they had been led to
believe that this was the very individual who had lately been in their
custody. Indeed it was a piece of infatuation in me, for which I am now
unable to account, that, after the various indications which had
occurred in that affair, proving to them that I was a man in critical
and peculiar circumstances, I should have persisted in wearing the same
disguise without the smallest alteration. My escape in the present case
was eminently fortunate. If I had not lost my way in consequence of the
hail-storm on the preceding night, or if I had not so greatly overslept
myself this very morning, I must almost infallibly have fallen into the
hands of these infernal blood-hunters.
The town they had chosen for their next stage, the name of which I had
thus caught in the market-place, was the town to which, but for this
intimation, I should have immediately proceeded. As it was, I determined
to take a road as wide of it as possible. In the first place to which I
came, in which it was practicable to do so, I bought a great coat, which
I drew over my beggar's weeds, and a better hat. The hat I slouched over
my face, and covered one of my eyes with a green-silk shade. The
handkerchief, which I had hitherto worn about my head, I now tied about
the lower part of my visage, so as to cover my mouth. By degrees I
discarded every part of my former dress, and wore for my upper garment
a kind of carman's frock, which, being of the better sort, made me look
like the son of a reputable farmer of the lower class. Thus equipped, I
proceeded on my journey, and, after a thousand alarms, precautions, and
circuitous deviations from the direct path, arrived safely in London.