This I Actually
Prepared To Do, And Laid My Head On The Table In Order To Sleep.
When the people in the kitchen thought that I was asleep, I heard
them taking about me, and guessing who or what I might be.
One
woman alone seemed to take my part, and said, "I daresay he is a
well-bred gentleman;" another scouted that notion, merely because,
as she said, "I had come on foot;" and "depend on it," said she, "he
is some poor travelling creature!" My ears yet ring with the
contemptuous tone with which she uttered, "poor travelling
creature!" It seems to express all the wretchedness of one who
neither has house nor home - a vagabond and outcast of society.
At last, when these unfeeling people saw that I was determined, at
all events, to stay there all night, they gave me a bed, but not
till I had long given up all hopes of getting one. And in the
morning, when they asked me a shilling for it, I gave them half-a-
crown, adding, with something of an air, that I would have no
change. This I did, though perhaps foolishly, to show them that I
was not quite "A POOR CREATURE." And now they took leave of me with
great civility and many excuses; and I now continued my journey much
at my ease.
When I had passed Matlock I did not go again towards Derby, but took
the road to the left towards Nottingham.
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