'There are the wolves,' said he; 'and then it is known you are an
Englishman. The English have always long purses, and it might very well
enter into some one's head to deal you an ill blow some night.'
I told him I was not much afraid of such accidents; and at any rate
judged it unwise to dwell upon alarms or consider small perils in the
arrangement of life. Life itself, I submitted, was a far too risky
business as a whole to make each additional particular of danger worth
regard. 'Something,' said I, 'might burst in your inside any day of the
week, and there would be an end of you, if you were locked into your room
with three turns of the key.'
'Cependant,' said he, 'coucher dehors!'
'God,' said I, 'is everywhere.'
'Cependant, coucher dehors!' he repeated, and his voice was eloquent of
terror.
He was the only person, in all my voyage, who saw anything hardy in so
simple a proceeding; although many considered it superfluous. Only one,
on the other hand, professed much delight in the idea; and that was my
Plymouth Brother, who cried out, when I told him I sometimes preferred
sleeping under the stars to a close and noisy ale-house, 'Now I see that
you know the Lord!'
The merchant asked me for one of my cards as I was leaving, for he said I
should be something to talk of in the future, and desired me to make a
note of his request and reason; a desire with which I have thus complied.
