In a few hours Harley reached the inn where he proposed breakfasting, but the fulness of his heart would not suffer him to eat a morsel.  He walked out on the road, and gaining a little height, stood gazing on that quarter he had left.  He looked for his wonted prospect, his fields, his woods, and his hills:  they were lost in the distant clouds!  He pencilled them on the clouds, and bade them farewell with a sigh!

He sat down on a large stone to take out a little pebble from his shoe, when he saw, at some distance, a beggar approaching him.  He had on a loose sort of coat, mended with different-coloured rags, amongst which the blue and the russet were the predominant.  He had a short knotty stick in his hand, and on the top of it was stuck a ram’s horn; his knees (though he was no pilgrim) had worn the stuff of his breeches; he wore no shoes, and his stockings had entirely lost that part of them which should have covered his feet and ankles; in his face, however, was the plump appearance of good humour; he walked a good round pace, and a crook-legged dog trotted at his heels.

“Our delicacies,” said Harley to himself, “are fantastic; they are not in nature! that beggar walks over the sharpest of these stones barefooted, whilst I have lost the most delightful dream in the world, from the smallest of them happening to get into my shoe.”  The beggar had by this time come up, and, pulling off a piece of hat, asked charity of Harley; the dog began to beg too:  —­it was impossible to resist both; and, in truth, the want of shoes and stockings had made both unnecessary, for Harley had destined sixpence for him before.  The beggar, on receiving it, poured forth blessings without number; and, with a sort of smile on his countenance, said to Harley “that if he wanted to have his fortune told”—­Harley turned his eye briskly on the beggar:  it was an unpromising look for the subject of a prediction, and silenced the prophet immediately.  “I would much rather learn,” said Harley, “what it is in your power to tell me:  your trade must be an entertaining one; sit down on this stone, and let me know something of your profession; I have often thought of turning fortune-teller for a week or two myself.”

“Master,” replied the beggar, “I like your frankness much; God knows I had the humour of plain-dealing in me from a child, but there is no doing with it in this world; we must live as we can, and lying is, as you call it, my profession, but I was in some sort forced to the trade, for I dealt once in telling truth.

“I was a labourer, sir, and gained as much as to make me live:  I never laid by indeed:  for I was reckoned a piece of a wag, and your wags, I take it, are seldom rich, Mr. Harley.”

“So,” said Harley, “you seem to know me.”

“Ay, there are few folks in the country that I don’t know something of:  how should I tell fortunes else?”

“True; but to go on with your story:  you were a labourer, you say, and a wag; your industry, I suppose, you left with your old trade, but your humour you preserve to be of use to you in your new.”