Having been left in the easy circumstances which I have
described, I determined to follow no business, but to pass my life
in a strictly domestic manner, and to be very, very happy. Amongst
other property derived from my father were several horses, which I
disposed of in this neighbourhood, with the exception of two
remarkably fine ones, which I determined to take to the next fair
at Horncastle, the only place where I expected to be able to obtain
what I considered to be their full value. At length the time
arrived for the commencement of the fair, which was within three
months of the period which my beloved and myself had fixed upon for
the celebration of our nuptials. To the fair I went, a couple of
trusty men following me with the horses. I soon found a purchaser
for the animals, a portly, plausible person, of about forty,
dressed in a blue riding coat, brown top boots, and leather
breeches. There was a strange-looking urchin with him, attired in
nearly similar fashion, with a beam in one of his eyes, who called
him father. The man paid me for the purchase in bank-notes--three
fifty-pound notes for the two horses. As we were about to take
leave of each other, he suddenly produced another fifty-pound note,
inquiring whether I could change it, complaining, at the same time,
of the difficulty of procuring change in the fair.
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