Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
in this unhappy _contretemps_ taken possession of his fancy, that he
sang out a long, loud, and canorous peal of laughter, that might have
wakened the Seven Sleepers. At the sound of this resonant merriment,
within the very ears of insulted authority, I could not myself forbear
joining in it; subdued to this, not so much by the unhappy _étourderie_
of the trunk, as by the effect it had upon the groom. We both expected,
as a matter of course, that Dr. —— would sally, out of his room, for in
general, if but a mouse stirred, he sprang out like a mastiff from his
kennel. Strange to say, however, on this occasion, when the noise of
laughter had ceased, no sound, or rustling even, was to be heard in the
bedroom. Dr. —— had a painful complaint, which, sometimes keeping him
awake, made his sleep perhaps, when it did come, the deeper. Gathering
courage from the silence, the groom hoisted his burden again, and
accomplished the remainder of his descent without accident. I waited
until I saw the trunk placed on a wheelbarrow and on its road to the
carrier’s; then, “with Providence my guide,” I set off on foot,
carrying a small parcel with some articles of dress under my arm; a
favourite English poet in one pocket, and a small 12mo volume,
containing about nine plays of Euripides, in the other.
It had been my intention originally to proceed to Westmoreland, both
from the love I bore to that country and on other personal accounts.
Accident, however, gave a different direction to my wanderings, and I
bent my steps towards North Wales.
After wandering about for some time in Denbighshire, Merionethshire,
and Carnarvonshire, I took lodgings in a small neat house in B——. Here
I might have stayed with great comfort for many weeks, for provisions
were cheap at B——, from the scarcity of other markets for the surplus
produce of a wide agricultural district. An accident, however, in which
perhaps no offence was designed, drove me out to wander again. I know
not whether my reader may have remarked, but I have often remarked,
that the proudest class of people in England (or at any rate the class
whose pride is most apparent) are the families of bishops. Noblemen and
their children carry about with them, in their very titles, a
sufficient notification of their rank. Nay, their very names (and this
applies also to the children of many untitled houses) are often, to the
English ear, adequate exponents of high birth or descent. Sackville,
Manners, Fitzroy, Paulet, Cavendish, and scores of others, tell their
own tale. Such persons, therefore, find everywhere a due sense of their
claims already established, except among those who are ignorant of the
world by virtue of their own obscurity: “Not to know _them_, argues
one’s self unknown.” Their manners take a suitable tone and colouring,
and for once they find it necessary to impress a sense of their
consequence upon others, they meet with a thousand occasions for
moderating and tempering this sense by acts of courteous condescension.
With the families of bishops it is otherwise: with them, it is all
uphill work to make known their pretensions; for the proportion of the
episcopal bench taken from noble families is not at any time very
large, and the succession to these dignities is so rapid that the
public ear seldom has time to become familiar with them, unless where
they are connected with some literary reputation. Hence it is that the
children of bishops carry about with them an austere and repulsive air,
indicative of claims not generally acknowledged, a sort of _noli me
tangere_ manner, nervously apprehensive of too familiar approach, and
shrinking with the sensitiveness of a gouty man from all contact with
the οι πολλοι. Doubtless, a powerful understanding, or unusual goodness
of nature, will preserve a man from such weakness, but in general the
truth of my representation will be acknowledged; pride, if not of
deeper root in such families, appears at least more upon the surface of
their manners. This spirit of manners naturally communicates itself to
their domestics and other dependants. Now, my landlady had been a
lady’s maid or a nurse in the family of the Bishop of ——, and had but
lately married away and “settled” (as such people express it) for life.
In a little town like B——, merely to have lived in the bishop’s family
conferred some distinction; and my good landlady had rather more than
her share of the pride I have noticed on that score. What “my lord”
said and what “my lord” did, how useful he was in Parliament and how
indispensable at Oxford, formed the daily burden of her talk. All this
I bore very well, for I was too good-natured to laugh in anybody’s
face, and I could make an ample allowance for the garrulity of an old
servant. Of necessity, however, I must have appeared in her eyes very
inadequately impressed with the bishop’s importance, and, perhaps to
punish me for my indifference, or possibly by accident, she one day
repeated to me a conversation in which I was indirectly a party
concerned. She had been to the palace to pay her respects to the
family, and, dinner being over, was summoned into the dining-room. In
giving an account of her household economy she happened to mention that
she had let her apartments. Thereupon the good bishop (it seemed) had
taken occasion to caution her as to her selection of inmates, “for,”
said he, “you must recollect, Betty, that this place is in the high
road to the Head; so that multitudes of Irish swindlers running away
from their debts into England, and of English swindlers running away
from their debts to the Isle of Man, are likely to take this place in
their route.” This advice certainly was not without reasonable grounds,
but rather fitted to be stored up for Mrs. Betty’s private meditations
than specially reported to me. What followed, however, was somewhat
worse. “Oh, my lord,” answered my landlady (according to her own
representation of the matter), “I really don’t think this young
gentleman is a swindler, because ——” “You don’t _think_ me a swindler?”
said I, interrupting her, in a tumult of indignation: “for the future I
shall spare you the trouble of thinking about it.” And without delay I
prepared for my departure. Some concessions the good woman seemed
disposed to make; but a harsh and contemptuous expression, which I fear
that I applied to the learned dignitary himself, roused her indignation
in turn, and reconciliation then became impossible. I was indeed
greatly irritated at the bishop’s having suggested any grounds of
suspicion, however remotely, against a person whom he had never seen;
and I thought of letting him know my mind in Greek, which, at the same
time that it would furnish some presumption that I was no swindler,
would also (I hoped) compel the bishop to reply in the same language;
in which case I doubted not to make it appear that if I was not so rich
as his lordship, I was a far better Grecian. Calmer thoughts, however,
drove this boyish design out of my mind; for I considered that the
bishop was in the right to counsel an old servant; that he could not
have designed that his advice should be reported to me; and that the
same coarseness of mind which had led Mrs. Betty to repeat the advice
at all, might have coloured it in a way more agreeable to her own style
of thinking than to the actual expressions of the worthy bishop.
I left the lodgings the very same hour, and this turned out a very
unfortunate occurrence for me, because, living henceforward at inns, I
was drained of my money very rapidly. In a fortnight I was reduced to
short allowance; that is, I could allow myself only one meal a day.
From the keen appetite produced by constant exercise and mountain air,
acting on a youthful stomach, I soon began to suffer greatly on this
slender regimen, for the single meal which I could venture to order was
coffee or tea. Even this, however, was at length withdrawn; and
afterwards, so long as I remained in Wales, I subsisted either on
blackberries, hips, haws, &c., or on the casual hospitalities which I
now and then received in return for such little services as I had an
opportunity of rendering. Sometimes I wrote letters of business for
cottagers who happened to have relatives in Liverpool or in London;
more often I wrote love-letters to their sweethearts for young women
who had lived as servants at Shrewsbury or other towns on the English
border. On all such occasions I gave great satisfaction to my humble
friends, and was generally treated with hospitality; and once in
particular, near the village of Llan-y-styndw (or some such name), in a
sequestered part of Merionethshire, I was entertained for upwards of
three days by a family of young people with an affectionate and
fraternal kindness that left an impression upon my heart not yet
impaired. The family consisted at that time of four sisters and three
brothers, all grown up, and all remarkable for elegance and delicacy of
manners. So much beauty, and so much native good breeding and
refinement, I do not remember to have seen before or since in any
cottage, except once or twice in Westmoreland and Devonshire. They
spoke English, an accomplishment not often met with in so many members
of one family, especially in villages remote from the high road. Here I
wrote, on my first introduction, a letter about prize-money, for one of
the brothers, who had served on board an English man-of-war; and, more
privately, two love-letters for two of the sisters. They were both
interesting-looking girls, and one of uncommon loveliness. In the midst
of their confusion and blushes, whilst dictating, or rather giving me
general instructions, it did not require any great penetration to
discover that what they wished was that their letters should be as kind
as was consistent with proper maidenly pride. I contrived so to temper
my expressions as to reconcile the gratification of both feelings; and
they were as much pleased with the way in which I had expressed their
thoughts as (in their simplicity) they were astonished at my having so
readily discovered them. The reception one meets with from the women of
a family generally determines the tenor of one’s whole entertainment.
In this case I had discharged my confidential duties as secretary so
much to the general satisfaction, perhaps also amusing them with my
conversation, that I was pressed to stay with a cordiality which I had
little inclination to resist. I slept with the brothers, the only
unoccupied bed standing in the apartment of the young women; but in all
other points they treated me with a respect not usually paid to purses
as light as mine—as if my scholarship were sufficient evidence that I
was of “gentle blood.” Thus I lived with them for three days and great
part of a fourth; and, from the undiminished kindness which they
continued to show me, I believe I might have stayed with them up to
this time, if their power had corresponded with their wishes. On the
last morning, however, I perceived upon their countenances, as they
sate at breakfast, the expression of some unpleasant communication
which was at hand; and soon after, one of the brothers explained to me
that their parents had gone, the day before my arrival, to an annual
meeting of Methodists, held at Carnarvon, and were that day expected to
return; “and if they should not be so civil as they ought to be,” he
begged, on the part of all the young people, that I would not take it
amiss. The parents returned with churlish faces, and “_Dym Sassenach_”
(_no English_) in answer to all my addresses. I saw how matters stood;
and so, taking an affectionate leave of my kind and interesting young
hosts, I went my way; for, though they spoke warmly to their parents in
my behalf, and often excused the manner of the old people by saying it