I am a vagabond; I have been away from home no less than five
distinct times in the last year. The Queen sets us the example: we are
moving on from top to bottom. Little dirty Jack, who abides in Clement's
Inn gateway, and blacks my boots for a penny, takes his month's
hop-picking every year as a matter of course. Why shouldn't he? I'm
delighted at it. I love vagabonds, only I prefer poor to rich ones.
Couriers and ladies'-maids, imperials and travelling carriages, are an
abomination unto me; I cannot away with them. But for dirty Jack, and
every good fellow who, in the words of the capital French song, moves
about,
"Comme le limacon,
Portant tout son bagage,
Ses meubles, sa maison,"
on his own back, why, good luck to them, and many a merry roadside
adventure, and steaming supper in the chimney corners of roadside inns,
Swiss chalets, Hottentot kraals, or wherever else they like to go. So,
having succeeded in contradicting myself in my first chapter (which
gives me great hopes that you will all go on, and think me a good fellow
notwithstanding my crotchets), I shall here shut up for the present,
and consider my ways; having resolved to "sar' it out," as we say in the
Vale, "holus bolus" just as it comes, and then you'll probably get the
truth out of me.
CHAPTER II--THE "VEAST."
"And the King commandeth and forbiddeth, that from
henceforth neither fairs nor markets be kept in Churchyards,
for the honour of the Church.
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