ADVENTURES OF A SERENADER. 441 



How had I forgotten man-traps ? Did the interference of spring-guns 

 appear impossible ? Might not a keeper raise the neighbourhood, and 

 mine own calves be discovered the next morning, enthroned in their 

 mud and their melancholy, and holding private communion with the 

 stocks of the parish ? 



How was it that a knight, little tried, and less celebrated, should 

 undertake with effrontery so desperate an enterprise, and receive the 

 encouragement of his ladye with such equanimity ? Of a truth, and I 

 confess it freely, it was no usual or indifferent occurrence in my history, 

 to enjoy favour in such expeditions. Often as I have made similar 

 experiments, so often may I enumerate unfortunate results. Thrice did 

 I essay to melt thy tough heart, oh, most inveterate Susan Hopkins ! 

 I knew not, at the time, thy titles or thy consequence, for though my 

 gallantry was frequent and long, yet thy stubbornness was decided, and 

 thy aversion most explicit ; before it was hinted to me that thy liege 

 lord was sexton of St. Botolph's parish. Thou too, most antique Mis- 

 tress Sullivan, to whose window-curtain I paid devotion for a week and 

 a day thou whom I never saw, and scarcely ever heard of thou whom 

 I might have loved but that thy grandson did horsewhip me for the 

 attempt ; thou wilt confess, on thine own part, how little I have been 

 indebted to woman's love. Nor were these solitary failures : twice did 

 a proctor at the University deem that a disturbance of the king's peace, 

 which more truly was the ruin of my own ; when I ingeniously tried to 

 become enamoured of some female, eminent for all the local charac- 

 teristics of virtue and beauty ; when I caught a cold instead of inspira- 

 tion, and was fined six and eight-pence for being a mere idiot ! My 

 laborious and unrequited serving of one inamorata, threw me into a 

 fever. The under men-servants of another angel threw me into a horse- 

 pond and with these " offences at my back," had I no hesitation, no 

 shivering apprehensions, no uneasy disquietude, as I stood before the 

 mansion ? Most Quixotic hardihood ! Rather did I chuckle in pros- 

 pect, and actually had the impudence to indulge in speculations, how 

 the lady might be able to contrive an escape from the indignation of her 

 relations and fellows ! Without remorse did I transfer all doubts and 

 trepidations from myself, to the object of my suit ; and presumingly 

 affected a regard for the dangers of my fair patroness, in preference to 

 my own. 



The pause, however, occasioned by these ruminations, was soon con- 

 cluded. For, on a sudden, the white outline had disappeared from its 

 post ; the window was dark and desolate so I gave up my compunc- 

 tions, and recommenced my attack. Through various ditties did I wan- 

 der with much pathos. My determination to lose no ground was abso- 

 lute ; so trotted I still onward, little caring for false notes or eccentric 

 flourishes. I had arrived indeed so far at last in the expenditure of my 

 voice, that if ever a shake were set a going, instead of the contiguous 

 notes seeming like neighbours who have come to blows, the effect was 

 rather that of two speculative gentlemen, entering into partnership, 

 where there was an occasional demur on either side, an equivocal con- 

 cession, and at last a mutual blending, to the utter confusion of the par- 

 ties. I was not unrewarded for my painful exertions. A flitting some- 

 what came and went ever and anon. If it chanced that the image was 



