Page:Guy Mannering Vol 1.djvu/349

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
GUY MANNERING.
339

fair of Cuddyboram, he would have told something that might have thrown light upon the inconsistencies of this singular man's character. He repeated to me more than once, 'I have that to say which will alter your hard opinion of our late Colonel.’ But death pressed him too hard; and if he owed me any atonement, which some of his expressions seemed to imply, he died before it could be made.

"I propose to make a farther excursion through this country while this fine frosty weather serves, and Dudley, almost as good a walker as myself, goes with me for some part of the way. We part on the borders of Cumberland, when he must return to his lodging in Marybone, up three pair of stairs, and labour at what he calls the commercial part of his profession. There cannot, he says, be such a difference betwixt any two portions of existence, as between that in which the artist, if an enthusiast, collects the subjects of his drawings, and that which must necessari-