I had never quitted the
lady’s hand all this time, and had held it so long, that it
would have been indecent to have let it go, without first
pressing it to my lips: the blood and spirits, which had suffered
a revulsion from her, crowded back to her as I did it.
Now the two travellers, who had spoke to me in the coach-yard,
happening at that crisis to be passing by, and observing our
communications, naturally took it into their heads that we must
be man and wife at least; so, stopping as soon as they
came up to the door of the Remise, the one of them who was the
Inquisitive Traveller, ask’d us, if we set out for Paris
the next morning?—I could only answer for myself, I said;
and the lady added, she was for Amiens.—We dined there
yesterday, said the Simple Traveller.—You go directly
through the town, added the other, in your road to Paris. I
was going to return a thousand thanks for the intelligence,
that Amiens was in the road to Paris, but, upon pulling
out my poor monk’s little horn box to take a pinch of
snuff, I made them a quiet bow, and wishing them a good passage
to Dover.—They left us alone.—
—Now where would be the harm, said I to myself, if I
were to beg of this distressed lady to accept of half of my
chaise?—and what mighty mischief could ensue?
Every dirty passion, and bad propensity in my nature took the
alarm, as I stated the proposition.—It will oblige you to
have a third horse, said Avarice, which will put twenty livres
out of your pocket;—You know not what she is, said
Caution;—or what scrapes the affair may draw you into,
whisper’d Cowardice.—
Depend upon it, Yorick! said Discretion, ’twill be said
you went off with a mistress, and came by assignation to Calais
for that purpose;—
—You can never after, cried Hypocrisy aloud, show your
face in the world;—or rise, quoth Meanness, in the
church;—or be any thing in it, said Pride, but a lousy
prebendary.
But ’tis a civil thing, said I;—and as I generally
act from the first impulse, and therefore seldom listen to these
cabals, which serve no purpose, that I know of, but to encompass
the heart with adamant—I turned instantly about to the
lady.—
—But she had glided off unperceived, as the cause was
pleading, and had made ten or a dozen paces down the street, by
the time I had made the determination; so I set off after her
with a long stride, to make her the proposal, with the best
address I was master of: but observing she walk’d with her cheek half resting upon the palm
of her hand,—with the slow short-measur’d step of
thoughtfulness,—and with her eyes, as she went step by
step, fixed upon the ground, it struck me she was trying the same
cause herself.—God help her! said I, she has some
mother-in-law, or tartufish aunt, or nonsensical old woman, to
consult upon the occasion, as well as myself: so not caring to
interrupt the process, and deeming it more gallant to take her at
discretion than by surprise, I faced about and took a short turn
or two before the door of the Remise, whilst she walk’d
musing on one side.
