As he did not appear with me on this occasion, so I had the liberty of taking my woman, Amy, with me, and stood where we were very well accommodated for the observation which I was to make. I told Amy what I had seen, and she was as forward to make the discovery as I was to have her, and almost as much surprised at the thing itself. In a word, the gens d'armes entered the city, as was expected, and made a most glorious show indeed, being new clothed and armed, and being to have their standards blessed by the Archbishop of Paris; on this occasion they indeed looked very gay, and as they marched very leisurely, I had time to take as critical a view, and make as nice a search among them as I pleased. Here, in a particular rank, eminent for one monstrous-sized man on the right, here, I say, I saw my gentleman again, and a very handsome jolly fellow he was, as any in the troop, though not so monstrous large as that great one I speak of, who, it seems, was, however, a gentleman of a good family in Gascoigne, and was called the giant of Gascoigne.

It was a kind of a good fortune to us, among the other circumstances of it, that something caused the troops to halt in their march, a little before that particular rank came right against that window which I stood in, so that then we had occasion to take our full view of him, at a small distance, and so as not to doubt of his being the same person.

Amy, who thought she might, on many accounts, venture with more safety to be particular than I could, asked her gentleman how a particular man, who she saw there among the gens d'armes, might be inquired after and found out; she having seen an Englishman riding there which was supposed to be dead in England for several years before she came out of London, and that his wife had married again. It was a question the gentleman did not well understand how to answer; but another person that stood by told her if she would tell him the gentleman's name, he would endeavour to find him out for her, and asked jestingly, if he was her lover? Amy put that off with a laugh, but still continued her inquiry, and in such a manner as the gentleman easily perceived she was in earnest, so he left bantering, and asked her in what part of the troop he rode. She foolishly told him his name, which she should not have done; and pointing to the cornet that troop carried, which was not then quite out

AMY FINDS OUT HER OLD MASTER.

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of sight, she let him easily know whereabouts he rode, only she could not name the captain. However, he gave her such directions afterwards, that, in short, Amy, who was an indefatigable girl found him out. It seems he had not changed his name, not supposing any inquiry would be made after him here; but, I say, Amy found him out, and went boldly to his quarters, asked for him, and he came out to her immediately.

I believe I was not more confounded at my first seeing him at Meudon than he was at seeing Amy. He started, and turned pale as death; Amy believed if he had seen her at first, in any convenient place for so villainous a purpose, he would have murdered her.

But he started, as I say above, and asked in English, with an admiration, What are you? Sir, says she, don't you know me? Yes, says he, I knew you when you were alive, but what are you now, whether ghost or substance, I know not. Be not afraid, sir, of that, says Amy, I am the same Amy that I was in your service, and do not speak to you now for any hurt, but that I saw you accidently yesterday ride among the soldiers, I thought you might be glad to hear from your friends at London. Well, Amy, says he, then (having a little recovered himself), how does everybody do? What! is your mistress here? Thus they begun :

AMY. My mistress, sir, alas! not the mistress you mean; poor gentlewoman, you left her in a sad condition.

GENT. Why that's true, Amy, but it could not be helped; I was in a sad condition myself.

AMY. I believe so, indeed, sir, or else you had not gone away as you did; for it was a very terrible condition you left them all in, that I must say.

GENT. What did they do after I was gone?

AMY. Do, sir! very miserably you may be sure; how I could it be otherwise?

GENT. Well, that's true indeed; but you may tell me, Amy, what became of them, if you please; for though I went so away, it was not because I did not love them all very well, but because I could not bear to see the poverty that was coming upon them, and which it was not in my power to help; what could I do?

AMY. Nay, I believe so, indeed, and I have heard my

your affliction

mistress say, many times, she did not doubt but was as great as her's, almost, wherever you were. GENT. Why, did she believe I was alive, then?

AMY. Yes, sir, she always said she believed you were alive, because she thought she should have heard something of you if you had been dead.

GENT. Ay, ay, my perplexity was very great, indeed, or else I had never gone away.

AMY. It was very cruel though to the poor lady, sir, my mistress; she almost broke her heart for you at first, for fear of what might befall you, and at last because she could not hear from you.

GENT. Alas! Amy, what could I do? Things were driven to the last extremity before I went; I could have done nothing but help starve them all if I had stayed; and besides, I could not bear to see it.

AMY. You know, sir, I can say little to what passed before, but I am a melancholy witness to the sad distresses of my poor mistress as long as I stayed with her, and which would grieve your heart to hear them.

[Here she tells my whole story to the time that the parish took off one of my children, and which she perceived very much affected him; and he shook his head, and said some things very bitter when he heard of the cruelty of his own relations to me.]

GENT. Well, Amy, I have heard enough so far, what did she do afterwards?

AMY. I can't give you any farther account, sir; my mistress would not let me stay with her any longer; she said she could neither pay me nor subsist me. I told her I would serve her without any wages, but I could not live without victuals, you know; so I was forced to leave her, poor lady, sore against my will, and I heard afterwards, that the landlord seized her goods, so she was, I suppose, turned out of doors: for as I went by the door, about a month after, I saw the house shut up; and, about a fortnight after that, I found there were workmen at work, fitting it up, as I suppose, for a new tenant; but none of the neighbours could tell me what was become of my poor mistress, only that they said she was so poor that it was next to begging; that some of the neighbouring gentlefolks had relieved her, or that clse she must have starved.

RELATES THE DISTRESSES OF HER MISTRESS.

77

Then she went on, and told him that after that they never heard any more of [me] her mistress, but that she had been seen once or twice in the city very shabby, and poor in clothes, and it was thought she worked with her needle for her bread.

All this the jade said with so much cunning, and managed and humoured it so well, and wiped her eyes and cried so artificially, that he took it all as it was intended he should, and once or twice she saw tears in his eyes too. He told her it was a moving, melancholy story, and it had almost broke his heart at first, but that he was driven to the last extremity, and could do nothing but stay and see them all starve, which he could not bear the thoughts of, but should have pistolled himself if any such thing had happened while he was there; that he left [me] his wife, all the money he had in the world but 25%., which was as little as he could take with him to seek his fortune in the world. He could not doubt but that his relations, seeing they were all rich, would have taken the poor children off, and not let them come to the parish; and that his wife was young and handsome, and he thought might marry again, perhaps, to her advantage; and for that very reason he never wrote to her, or let her know he was alive, that she might in a reasonable term of years marry, and perhaps mend her fortunes; that he resolved never to claim her, because he should rejoice to hear that she had settled to her mind; and that he wished there had been a law made to empower a woman to marry if her husband was not heard of in so long a time; which time, he thought, should not be above four year, which was long enough to send word in to a wife or family from any part of the world.

Amy said she could say nothing to that, but this, that she was satisfied her mistress would marry nobody unless she had certain intelligence that he had been dead from somebody that saw him buried. But, alas, says Amy, my mistress was reduced to such dismal circumstances that nobody would be so foolish to think of her, unless it had been somebody to go a begging with her.

Amy, then, seeing him so perfectly deluded, made a long and lamentable outcry how she had been deluded away to marry a poor footman; For he is no worse or better, says she, though he calls himself a lord's gentleman; and here, says Amy, he has dragged me over into a strange country to

make a beggar of me; and then she falls a howling again, and snivelling, which, by the way, was all hypocrisy, but acted so to the life as perfectly deceived him, and he gave entire credit to every word of it.

Why, Amy, says he, you are very well dressed, you don't look as if you were in danger of being a beggar. Ay, hang 'em, says Amy, they love to have fine clothes here, if they have never a sm- -k under them; but I love to have money in cash, rather than a chest full of fine clothes. Besides, sir, says she, most of the clothes I have were given me in the last place I had, when I went away from my mistress.

Upon the whole of the discourse, Amy got out of him what condition he was in, and how he lived, upon her promise to him that if ever she came to England, and should see her old mistress, she should not let her know that he was alive. Alas! sir, says Amy, I may never come to see England again as long as I live, and if I should, it would be ten thousand to one whether I shall see my old mistress, for how should I know which way to look for her, or what part of England she may be in, not I, says she; I don't so much as know how to inquire for her; and if I should, says Amy, ever be so happy as to see her, I would not do her so much mischief as to tell her where you were, sir, unless she was in a condition to help herself and you too. This farther deluded him, and made him entirely open in his conversing with her. As to his own circumstances, he told her she saw him in the highest preferment he had arrived to, or was ever like to arrive to; for having no friends or acquaintance in France, and which was worse, no money, he never expected to rise; that he could have been made a lieutenant to a troop of light horse but the week before, by the favour of an officer in the gens d'armes who was his friend; but that he must have found eight thousand livres to have paid for it, to the gentle-, man who possessed it, and had leave given him to sell. But where could I get eight thousand livres, says he, that have never been master of five hundred livres ready money at a time, since I came into France.

O dear! sir, says Amy, I am very sorry to hear you say so; I fancy if you once got up to some preferment, you would think of my old mistress again, and do something for her; poor lady, says Amy, she wants it to be sure; and then she falls a crying again; it is a sad thing indeed, says