the fifty pounds, which I forthwith carried to the brewer, who
was monstrously civil, saying that he hoped any little misunderstanding
we had had would not prevent our being good friends in future. That
ain't all, the people of the neighbouring country hearing as if by art
witchcraft that I had licked Hunter, and was on good terms with the
brewer, forthwith began to come in crowds to look at me, pay me homage,
and be my customers. Moreover, fifty scoundrels who owed me money, and
who would have seen me starve rather than help me as long as they
considered me a down pin, remembered their debts, and came and paid me
more than they owed. That ain't all; the brewer, being about to
establish a stage-coach and three, to run across the country, says it
shall stop and change horses at my house, and the passengers breakfast
and sup as it goes and returns. He wishes me--whom he calls the best man
in England--to give his son lessons in boxing, which he says he considers
a fine manly English art, and a great defence against
Popery--notwithstanding that only a month ago, when he considered me a
down pin, he was in the habit of railing against it as a blackguard
practice, and against me as a blackguard for following it: so I am going
to commence with young hopeful to-morrow.'

'I really cannot help congratulating you on your good fortune,' said I.

'That ain't all,' said the landlord. 'This very morning the folks of our
parish made me churchwarden, {116} which they would no more have done a
month ago, when they considered me a down pin, than they--'

'Mercy upon us!' said I, 'if fortune pours in upon you in this manner,
who knows but that within a year they may make you justice of the peace.'

'Who knows, indeed!' said the landlord. 'Well, I will prove myself
worthy of my good luck by showing the grateful mind--not to those who
would be kind to me now, but to those who were, when the days were rather
gloomy. My customers shall have abundance of rough language, but I'll
knock any one down who says anything against the clergyman who lent me
the fifty pounds, or against the Church of England, of which he is parson
and I am churchwarden. I am also ready to do anything in reason for him
who paid me for the ale he drank, when I shouldn't have had the heart to
collar him for the money had he refused to pay; who never jeered or
flouted me like the rest of my customers when I was a down pin--and
though he refused to fight cross _fo