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Updated: June 10, 2025
His mother was immediately going to chastise his familiarity, but the worthy man prevented her; and taking the child, all ragged as he was, upon his knee, 'What, Bill, you chubby rogue, cried he, 'do you remember your old friend Burchell; and Dick too, my honest veteran, are you here, you shall find I have not forgot you. So saying, he gave each a large piece of gingerbread, which the poor fellows eat very heartily, as they had got that morning but a very scanty breakfast.
Thornhill having been there to inform them that their journey to town was entirely over. The two ladies, having heard reports of us from some malicious person, were that day set out for London. We were not long in finding who it was that had been so base as to asperse the character of a family so harmless as ours. One of our boys found a letter-case which we knew to belong to Mr. Burchell.
The next morning we all set forward together: my family on horseback, while Mr Burchell, our new companion, walked along the foot-path by the road-side, observing, with a smile, that as we were ill mounted, he would be too generous to attempt leaving us behind. As the floods were not yet subsided, we were obliged to hire a guide, who trotted on before, Mr Burchell and I bringing up the rear.
It seemed to follow they had made a long, perhaps an all-night, stage; and that the driver, at that early hour of a little after eight in the morning, already felt himself belated. I looked for the name of the proprietor on the shaft, and started outright. Fortune had favoured the careless: it was Burchell Fenn! "A wet morning, my man," said I.
The following is another fearful instance of their power and vengeance, related by Mr. Burchell, a South African traveller. "Carl Krieger was a fearless hunter, and being an excellent marksman, often ventured into the most dangerous situations.
We had still a regard for Mr Burchell, though his late rude behaviour was in some measure displeasing; nor could we now avoid communicating our happiness to him, and asking his advice: although we seldom followed advice, we were all ready enough to ask it. When he read the note from the two ladies, he shook his head, and observed, that an affair of this sort demanded the utmost circumspection.
And if in the preceding Meditation we have succeeded in proving to you that by far the greater number of men live in the most absolute indifference to their personal honor, in the matter of marriage, is it reasonable to believe that any considerable number of them are sufficiently rich, sufficiently intellectual, sufficiently penetrating to waste, like Burchell in the Vicar of Wakefield, one or two years in studying and watching the girls whom they mean to make their wives, when they pay so little attention to them after conjugal possession during that period of time which the English call the honeymoon, and whose influence we shall shortly discuss?
I therefore directed my steps towards Thornhill Castle. He soon appeared, with the most open, familiar air, and seemed perfectly amazed at my daughter's elopement, protesting upon his honour that he was quite a stranger to it. A man, however, averred that my daughter and Mr. Burchell had been seen driving very fast towards the Wells, about thirty miles distant.
My wife very strenuously insisted upon the advantages that would result from it. Mr Burchell, on the contrary, dissuaded her with great ardor, and I stood neuter. His present dissuasions seemed but the second part of those which were received with so ill a grace in the morning.
I thought I perceived Mr Burchell at some distance from me; but, as if he dreaded an interview, upon my approaching him, he mixed among a crowd, and I saw him no more. I now reflected that it would be to no purpose to continue my pursuit farther, and resolved to return home to an innocent family, who wanted my assistance.
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