Just As In Germany, No One Will Bear The Name Of A SCOUNDREL, Or
KNAVE, Or As In All Quarrels, The Bestowing Such Epithets On Our
Adversary Is The Signal For Fighting, So The Term Of A LIAR In
England Is The Most Offensive, And Is Always Resented By Blows.
A
man would never forgive himself, nor be forgiven, who could bear to
be called a LIAR.
Our Jackey in London once looked at me with astonishment, on my
happening to say to him in a joke, you ARE A LIAR. I assure you I
had much to do before I could pacify him.
If one may form a judgment of the character of the whole nation,
from such little circumstances as this, I must say this rooted
hatred of the word liar appears to me to be no bad trait in the
English.
But to return to my travelling companion, who further told me that
he was obliged to earn his livelihood, at some distance from home,
and that he was now returning for the first time, for these two
months, to his family.
He showed me a row of trees near the town which he said his father
had planted, and which, therefore, he never could look at but with
emotion, though he passed them often as he went backwards and
forwards on his little journeys to and from his birthplace. His
father, he added, had once been a rich man, but had expended all his
fortune to support one son. Unfortunately for himself as well as
his family, his father had gone to America and left the rest of his
children poor, notwithstanding which, his memory was still dear to
him, and he was always affected by the sight of these trees.
Tideswell consists of two rows of low houses, built of rough grey
stone. My guide, immediately on our entrance into the place, bade
me take notice of the church, which was very handsome, and
notwithstanding its age, had still some pretensions to be considered
as an edifice built in the modern taste.
He now asked me whether he should show me to a great inn or to a
cheap one, and as I preferred the latter, he went with me himself to
a small public-house, and very particularly recommended me to their
care as his fellow-traveller, and a clever man not without learning.
The people here also endeavoured to accommodate me most
magnificently, and for this purpose gave me some toasted cheese,
which was Cheshire cheese roasted and half melted at the fire.
This, in England it seems, is reckoned good eating, but,
unfortunately for me, I could not touch a bit of it; I therefore
invited my landlord to partake of it, and he indeed seemed to feast
on it. As I neither drank brandy nor ale, he told me I lived far
too sparingly for a foot traveller; he wondered how I had strength
to walk so well and so far.
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