As Soon As He Was In Good Circumstances, He Everywhere
Made Inquiry For His Wife, And At Last Found Out Where She Was, And
Immediately Fetched Her From Ireland.
There surely is something
pleasing in this constancy of affection in a chimney-sweeper.
She
told us, with tears in her eyes, in what a style of grandeur he had
conducted her into Lichfield; and how, in honour to her, he made a
splendid feast on the occasion. At this same Lichfield, which is
only two miles from Sutton, and through which she said the road lay
which I was to travel to-morrow, she still lived with this same
excellent husband, where they were noted for their industry, where
everybody respected them, and where, though in the lowest sphere,
they are passing through life neither uselessly nor unhappily.
The landlady, during her absence, told me as in confidence, that
this chimney-sweeper's husband, as meanly as I might fancy she now
appeared, was worth a thousand pounds, and that without reckoning in
their plate and furniture, that he always wore his silver watch, and
that when he passed through Sutton, and lodged there, he paid like a
nobleman.
She further remarked that the wife was indeed rather low-lived; but
that the husband was one of the best-behaved, politest, and civilest
men in the world. I had myself taken notice that this same dingy
companion of mine had something singularly coarse and vulgar in her
pronunciation. The word old, for example, she sounded like auld.
In other respects, I had not yet remarked any striking variety or
difference from the pronunciation of Oxford or London.
To-morrow the chimney-sweeper, said she, her husband, would not be
at home, but if I came back by the way of Lichfield, she would take
the liberty to request the honour of a visit, and to this end she
told me her name and the place of her abode.
At night the rest of the family, a son and daughter of the landlady,
came home, and paid all possible attention to their sick mother. I
supped with the family, and they here behaved to me as if we had
already lived many years together.
Happening to mention that I was, if not a scholar, yet a student,
the son told me there was at Sutton a celebrated grammar-school,
where the school-master received two hundred pounds a year settled
salary, besides the income arising from the scholars.
And this was only in a village. I thought, and not without some
shame and sorrow, of our grammar-schools in Germany, and the
miserable pay of the masters.
When I paid my reckoning the next morning, I observed the uncommon
difference here and at Windsor, Nettlebed, and Oxford. At Oxford I
was obliged to pay for my supper, bed, and breakfast at least three
shillings, and one to the waiter. I here paid for my supper, bed,
and breakfast only one shilling, and to the daughter, whom I was to
consider as chambermaid, fourpence; for which she very civilly
thanked me, and gave me a written recommendation to an inn at
Lichfield, where I should be well lodged, as the people in Lichfield
were, in general, she said, very proud. This written recommendation
was a masterpiece of orthography, and showed that in England, as
well as elsewhere, there are people who write entirely from the ear,
and as they pronounce. In English, however, it seems to look
particularly odd, but perhaps that may be the case in all languages
that are not native.
I took leave here, as one does of good friends, with a certain
promise that on my return I would certainly call on them again.
At noon I got to Lichfield, an old-fashioned town with narrow dirty
streets, where for the first time I saw round panes of glass in the
windows. The place to mime wore an unfriendly appearance; I
therefore made no use of my recommendation, but went straight
through, and only bought some bread at a baker's, which I took along
with me.
At night I reached Burton, where the famous Burton ale is brewed.
By this time I felt myself pretty well tired, and therefore proposed
to stay the night here. But my courage failed me, and I dropped the
resolution immediately on my entering the town. The houses and
everything else seemed to wear as grand an appearance, almost, as if
I had been still in London. And yet the manners of some of its
inhabitants were so thoroughly rustic and rude, that I saw them
actually pointing at me with their fingers as a foreigner. And now,
to complete my chagrin and mortification, I came to a long street,
where everybody on both sides of the way were at their doors, and
actually made me run the gauntlet through their inquiring looks.
Some even hissed at me as I passed along. All my arguments to
induce me to pluck up my courage, such as the certainty that I
should never see these people again nor they me, were of no use.
Burton became odious and almost insupportable to me; and the street
appeared as long and tired me as much, as if I had walked a mile.
This strongly-marked contemptuous treatment of a stranger, who was
travelling through their country merely from the respect he bore it,
I experienced nowhere but at Burton.
How happy did I feel when I again found myself out of their town,
although at that moment I did not know where I should find a lodging
for the night, and was, besides, excessively tired. But I pursued
my journey, and still kept in the road to Derby, along a footpath
which I knew to be right. It led across a very pleasant mead, the
hedges of which were separated by stiles, over which I was often
obliged to clamber. When I had walked some distance without meeting
with an inn on the road, and it had already begun to be dark, I at
last sat me down near a small toll-house, or a turnpike-gate, in
order to rest myself, and also to see whether the man at the
turnpike could and would lodge me.
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