274 ANECDOTE OF A HIGHWAYMAN. 



giddy, unthinking part of mankind ; — spirits, Sir, which would 

 not hesitate a moment in flying for refuge in instant death, in 

 order to evade the arrows of misfortune, and conclude their own 

 miseries, but who cannot see a wife, a child, or a parent, bereft 

 of the necessaries of life, without resolving at any risk to allevi- 

 ate their difficulties? There is a species of distress which does 

 not always strike the wealthy, which they cannot often find out, 

 and which prudent men when they do see it often laugh at and 

 revile; they tell the sufferer that he is poor and miserable only 

 because he deserves to be so, that while he has legs to support 

 him and arms able to work, he has no right to expect relief f 

 that it would be injustice and bad policy to bestow on imaginary 

 poverty, refined indolence, and culpable affectation, the meed 

 due only to irretrievable calamity and indigent infirmity. Your 

 appearance. Sir, from the moment you approached me, and 

 your conversation sifice, have strongly prepossessed me in your 

 favour, and I am resolved, without fear or reserve, to inform you 

 of a secret, which I never meant should have passed my lips; 

 it will account for that anxiety and dejection, which cannot have 

 escaped your observation. I am a wretched being of that class, 

 which, as I have just said, the gay overlook, the prudent cen- 

 sure, and the ignorant despise; I was reduce<l by a union of 

 folly and misfortune, from ease and affluence, to a total depriva- 

 tion of the means of existence; I cannot dig ; I am ashamed to 

 beg ; but this is the least part of my affliction, as one desperate, 

 (I do not say justifiable) step, would at one remove me from the 

 evils I endure, but the pangs of vvant are aggravated by the 

 bitter reflection, that a beloved wife, an aged parent, and three 

 lovely children are involved in the same ruin. Too proud to 

 appeal to the humanity, I resolved to work upon the fears of 

 mankind, and I have for some time supported my family by 

 force of arms. I confess without scruple that to procure a purse 



at all events is the business of my present journey be not 



alarmed, Sir, at the avowal,'' cried the stranger, seeing tiie cler- 

 gyman somewhat terrified at his words, " be not alarmed ; I 

 would cut off my right hand rather than abuse the confidence 

 you have placed in me. It is on individuals of a very different 

 description that I mean to raise contributions, on tiie luxurious, 

 the \vealthy, and the indolent, who parting with a little loose 

 cash are deprived of only a minute portion of their superfluity 

 which tli'y w )uld otherwise dissipate in folly or vice." 



