- end_line
- 8424
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.842Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 8346
- text
- I came to a green bank, deliriously shaded by a fine old tree with
broad branching arms, that stretched themselves over the road, like a
hen gathering her brood under her wings. Down on the green grass I
threw myself and there lay my head, like a last year’s nut. People
passed by, on foot and in carriages, and little thought that the sad
youth under the tree was the great-nephew of a late senator in the
American Congress.
Presently, I started to my feet, as I heard a gruff voice behind me
from the field, crying out—“What are you doing there, you young
rascal?—run away from the work’us, have ye? Tramp, or I’ll set Blucher
on ye!”
And who was Blucher? A cut-throat looking dog, with his black
bull-muzzle thrust through a gap in the hedge. And his master? A sturdy
farmer, with an alarming cudgel in his hand.
“Come, are you going to start?” he cried.
“Presently,” said I, making off with great dispatch. When I had got a
few yards into the middle of the highroad (which belonged as much to me
as it did to the queen herself), I turned round, like a man on his own
premises, and said— “Stranger! if you ever visit America, just call at
our house, and you’ll always find there a dinner and a bed. Don’t
fail.”
I then walked on toward Liverpool, full of sad thoughts concerning the
cold charities of the world, and the infamous reception given to
hapless young travelers, in broken-down shooting-jackets.
On, on I went, along the skirts of forbidden green fields; until
reaching a cottage, before which I stood rooted.
So sweet a place I had never seen: no palace in Persia could be
pleasanter; there were flowers in the garden; and six red cheeks, like
six moss-roses, hanging from the casement. At the embowered doorway,
sat an old man, confidentially communing with his pipe: while a little
child, sprawling on the ground, was playing with his shoestrings. A
hale matron, but with rather a prim expression, was reading a journal
by his side: and three charmers, three Peris, three Houris! were
leaning out of the window close by.
Ah! Wellingborough, don’t you wish you could step in?
With a heavy heart at his cheerful sigh, I was turning to go, when—is
it possible? the old man called me back, and invited me in.
“Come, come,” said he, “you look as if you had walked far; come, take a
bowl of milk. Matilda, my dear” (how my heart jumped), “go fetch some
from the dairy.” And the white-handed angel did meekly obey, and handed
_me—me,_ the vagabond, a bowl of bubbling milk, which I could hardly
drink down, for gazing at the dew on her lips.
As I live, I could have married that charmer on the spot!
She was by far the most beautiful rosebud I had yet seen in England.
But I endeavored to dissemble my ardent admiration; and in order to do
away at once with any unfavorable impressions arising from the close
scrutiny of my miserable shooting-jacket, which was now taking place, I
declared myself a Yankee sailor from Liverpool, who was spending a
Sunday in the country.
“And have you been to church to-day, young man?” said the old lady,
looking daggers.
“Good madam, I have; the little church down yonder, you know—a most
excellent sermon—I am much the better for it.”
I wanted to mollify this severe looking old lady; for even my short
experience of old ladies had convinced me that they are the hereditary
enemies of all strange young men.
I soon turned the conversation toward America, a theme which I knew
would be interesting, and upon which I could be fluent and agreeable. I
strove to talk in Addisonian English, and ere long could see very
plainly that my polished phrases were making a surprising impression,
though that miserable shooting-jacket of mine was a perpetual drawback
to my claims to gentility.
- title
- Chunk 3