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Page 9
Bless me, thought Israel, all of a tremble, I shall certainly be caught
now; I have broken into some nobleman's park.
But, hurrying forward again, he came to a turnpike road, and then knew
that, all comely and shaven as it was, this was simply the open country
of England; one bright, broad park, paled in with white foam of the
sea. A copse skirting the road was just bursting out into bud. Each
unrolling leaf was in very act of escaping from its prison. Israel
looked at the budding leaves, and round on the budding sod, and up at
the budding dawn of the day. He was so sad, and these sights were so
gay, that Israel sobbed like a child, while thoughts of his mountain
home rushed like a wind on his heart. But conquering this fit, he
marched on, and presently passed nigh a field, where two figures were
working. They had rosy cheeks, short, sturdy legs, showing the blue
stocking nearly to the knee, and were clad in long, coarse, white
frocks, and had on coarse, broad-brimmed straw hats. Their faces were
partly averted.
"Please, ladies," half roguishly says Israel, taking off his hat, "does
this road go to London?"
At this salutation, the two figures turned in a sort of stupid
amazement, causing an almost corresponding expression in Israel, who now
perceived that they were men, and not women. He had mistaken them, owing
to their frocks, and their wearing no pantaloons, only breeches hidden
by their frocks.
"Beg pardon, ladies, but I thought ye were something else," said Israel
again.
Once more the two figures stared at the stranger, and with added
boorishness of surprise.
"Does this road go to London, gentlemen?"
"Gentlemen--egad!" cried one of the two.
"Egad!" echoed the second.
Putting their hoes before them, the two frocked boors now took a good
long look at Israel, meantime scratching their heads under their plaited
straw hats.
"Does it, gentlemen? Does it go to London? Be kind enough to tell a poor
fellow, do."
"Yees goin' to Lunnun, are yees? Weel--all right--go along."
And without another word, having now satisfied their rustic curiosity,
the two human steers, with wonderful phlegm, applied themselves to their
hoes; supposing, no doubt, that they had given all requisite
information.
Shortly after, Israel passed an old, dark, mossy-looking chapel, its
roof all plastered with the damp yellow dead leaves of the previous
autumn, showered there from a close cluster of venerable trees, with
great trunks, and overstretching branches. Next moment he found himself
entering a village. The silence of early morning rested upon it. But few
figures were seen. Glancing through the window of a now noiseless
public-house, Israel saw a table all in disorder, covered with empty
flagons, and tobacco-ashes, and long pipes; some of the latter broken.
After pausing here a moment, he moved on, and observed a man over the
way standing still and watching him. Instantly Israel was reminded that
he had on the dress of an English sailor, and that it was this probably
which had arrested the stranger's attention. Well knowing that his
peculiar dress exposed him to peril, he hurried on faster to escape the
village; resolving at the first opportunity to change his garments. Ere
long, in a secluded place about a mile from the village, he saw an old
ditcher tottering beneath the weight of a pick-axe, hoe and shovel,
going to his work; the very picture of poverty, toil and distress. His
clothes were tatters.
Making up to this old man, Israel, after a word or two of salutation,
offered to change clothes with him. As his own clothes were prince-like
compared to the ditchers, Israel thought that however much his
proposition might excite the suspicion of the ditcher, yet self-interest
would prevent his communicating the suspicions. To be brief, the two
went behind a hedge, and presently Israel emerged, presenting the most
forlorn appearance conceivable; while the old ditcher hobbled off in an
opposite direction, correspondingly improved in his aspect; though it
was rather ludicrous than otherwise, owing to the immense bagginess of
the sailor-trowsers flapping about his lean shanks, to say nothing of
the spare voluminousness of the pea-jacket. But Israel--how deplorable,
how dismal his plight! Little did he ween that these wretched rags he
now wore, were but suitable to that long career of destitution before
him: one brief career of adventurous wanderings; and then, forty torpid
years of pauperism. The coat was all patches. And no two patches were
alike, and no one patch was the color of the original cloth. The
stringless breeches gaped wide open at the knee; the long woollen
stockings looked as if they had been set up at some time for a target.
Israel looked suddenly metamorphosed from youth to old age; just like an
old man of eighty he looked. But, indeed, dull, dreary adversity was now
in store for him; and adversity, come it at eighteen or eighty, is the
true old age of man. The dress befitted the fate.
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