This day I obliged Pacolet to entertain me with matters which regarded persons of his own character and occupation.  We chose to take our walk on Tower Hill; and as we were coming from thence in order to stroll as far as Garraway’s,[461] I observed two men, who had but just landed, coming from the waterside.  I thought there was something uncommon in their mien and aspect; but though they seemed by their visage to be related, yet was there a warmth in their manner, as if they differed very much in their sentiments of the subject on which they were talking.  One of them seemed to have a natural confidence, mixed with an ingenious freedom in his gesture, his dress very plain, but very graceful and becoming:  the other, in the midst of an overbearing carriage, betrayed (by frequently looking round him) a suspicion that he was not enough regarded by those he met, or that he feared they would make some attack upon him.  This person was much taller than his companion, and added to that height the advantage of a feather in his hat, and heels to his shoes so monstrously high, that he had three or four times fallen down, had he not been supported by his friend.  They made a full stop as they came within a few yards of the place where we stood.  The plain gentleman bowed to Pacolet; the other looked on him with some displeasure:  upon which I asked him, who they both were, when he thus informed me of their persons and circumstances.

“You may remember, Mr. Isaac, that I have often told you, there are beings of a superior rank to mankind, who frequently visit the habitations of men, in order to call them from some wrong pursuits in which they are actually engaged, or divert them from methods which will lead them into errors for the future.  He that will carefully reflect upon the occurrences of his life, will find he has been sometimes extricated out of difficulties, and received favours where he could never have expected such benefits; as well as met with cross events from some unseen hand, which have disappointed his best laid designs.  Such accidents arrive from the interventions of aerial beings, as they are benevolent or hurtful to the nature of man, and attend his steps in the tracts of ambition, of business, and of pleasure.  Before I ever appeared to you in the manner I do now, I have frequently followed you in your evening walks, and have often, by throwing some accident in your way, as the passing by of a funeral, or the appearance of some other solemn object, given your imagination a new turn, and changed a night you had destined to mirth and jollity, into an exercise of study and contemplation.  I was the old soldier who met you last summer in Chelsea Fields, and pretended that I had broken my wooden leg, and could not get home; but I snapped it short off on purpose, that you might fall into the reflections you did on that subject, and take me into your hack.  If you remember, you made yourself very merry on that fracture, and asked me, whether I thought I should next winter feel cold in the toes of that leg?  As is usually observed, that those who lose limbs, are sensible of pains in the extreme parts, even after those limbs are cut off.  However, my keeping you then in the story of the battle of the Boyne, prevented an assignation, which would have led you into more disasters than I then related.