I Now Also Began To Meet
Numbers Of People On Horseback, Which Is By No Means An Usual Method
Of Travelling.
The road now led me along a low sunken piece of ground between high
trees, so that I could not see far before me, when a fellow in a
brown frock and round hat, with a stick in his hand a great deal
stronger than mine, came up to me.
His countenance immediately
struck me as having in it something suspicious. He however passed
me; but, before I was aware, he turned back and asked me for a
halfpenny to buy, as he said, some bread, as he had eaten nothing
that day. I felt in my pocket, and found that I had no halfpence:
no, nor even a sixpence; in short, nothing but shillings. I told
him the circumstance, which I hoped would excuse me; on which he
said, with an air and manner the drift of which I could not
understand, "God bless my soul!" This drew my attention still
closer to the huge brawny fist, which grasped his stick, and that
closer attention determined me immediately to put my hand in my
pocket and give him a shilling. Meanwhile a coach came up. The
fellow thanked me and went on. Had the coach come a moment sooner,
I should not easily have given him the shilling, which, God knows, I
could not well spare. Whether this was a footpad or not, I will not
pretend to say, but he had every appearance of it.
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