 of
guilt, and here the forlornness that waits upon innocence! - I was to blame to
imagine that my case was singular in that respect. I only mention it to show how
the most trivial circumstance contributes to embitter the cup to the man of
adversity. The thought however was a transient one. I had learned this lesson
from my sufferings, not to indulge in the luxury of discontent. As my mind
recovered its tranquillity, I began to enquire whether the phenomenon I had just
seen could have any relation to myself. But, though my mind was extremely
inquisitive and versatile in this respect, I could discover no sufficient ground
upon which to build a judgment.
    At night I entered a little public house at the extremity of a village, and,
seating myself in a corner of the kitchen, asked for some bread and cheese.
While I was sitting at my repast, three or four labourers came in for a little
refreshment after their work. Ideas respecting the inequality of rank pervade
every order in society; and, as my appearance was meaner and more contemptible
than theirs, I found it expedient to give way to these gentry of a village
alehouse, and remove to an obscurer station. I was surprised and not a little
startled to find them fall almost immediately into conversation about my
history, whom with a slight variation of circumstances they styled the notorious
housebreaker, Kit Williams.
    Damn the fellow, said one of them, one never hears of any thing else. O' my
life, I think he makes talk for the whole county.
    That is very true, replied another. I was at the market town today to sell
some oats for my master, and there was a hue and cry, some of them thought they
had got him, but it was a false alarm.
    That hundred guineas is a fine thing, rejoined the first. I should be glad
if so be as how it fell in my way.
    For the matter of that, said the traveller, I should like a hundred guineas
as well as another. But I cannot be of your mind for all that. I should never
think money would do me any good, that had been the means of bringing a
Christian creature to the gallows.
    Poh, that is all my granny! Some folks must be hanged to keep the wheels of
our state folks a-going. Beside, I could forgive the fellow all his other
robberies, but that he should have been so hardened as to break the house of his
own master at last, that is too bad.
    Lord, lord, replied the other, I
