Page:The Ladies' Cabinet of Fashion, Music & Romance 1832.pdf/11

Rh as I began to be accustomed to the saddle, the pains in my bones subsided, and feeling myself easy, I no longer suspected people of laughing at my awkwardness. In the warm season I was out into the country to see the sun rise, and in the winter I galloped in the very teeth of the north-west wind, till I defied Jack Frost, and snapt my fingers at the freezing point. My health daily improved-my spirits expanded their wings, and fluttered like birds released from their iron cages-and my nerves were actually braced up to the trial of looking a woman full in the face, an enormity I was never capable of before. Between my vexations in managing my business, and my rides on horseback, I was a new man, and had an idea of proposing my horse as a member of the College of Physicians, had I not apprehended they might think I was joking.

Still there were intervals in which my old infirmity, of sitting becalmed at home doing nothing, and nursing blue devils, would come over me like a spider's web, and condemn me to my chair as if by enchantment. These relapses were terrible, and discouraged me beyond measure, for I began to fear that I never should be radically cured. Sitting thus stultified, one summer evening, I was startled by a smart slap on my shoulder, and a heavy exclamation of, " what Tom, at your old tricks-hey ! -giving audience to the blues." This was spoken by a merry, careless fellow, who was always full of what the world calls troubles, and who, every body said, was to be pitied, because he had a wife and twelve children, and was not worth a groat. But he belied the world, and his destiny to boot, was always as busy as a bee by day, and as merry as a lark in the evening, and the more children he had the blither was he. Nature had decreed he should be a happy man ; and fortune had coöperated with her in making him poor. "Come," said he, "what are you sitting here for, biting your lips, and eating up your own soul- for want of something else. Why don't you sally out somewhere, and do something?' "What can I do- and where shall I go- I know nobody abroad- and have no ties at home-no fire-side to cheer me of 66 Why, become either a beau bachelor, or get evenings." married at once, which is better."

"Married! pshaw." "Aye married-if your wife turns out a scold, that is all you want. You will have a motive for going abroad. If she is amiable, that is still better-then you will have a motive for staying at home." "Faith, there is something in that."