on his post and ready at my summons.  This behaviour infused some confidence into me, and I now repeated my request that he would go with me to the town below; but he answered, it would be better advised to take some repast before I undertook the journey, which I should find much longer than it appeared.  I consented, and he set forth a greater variety of fruits than before, of which I ate very plentifully.  My collation being ended, I renewed the mention of my walk, but he still persisted in dissuading me, telling me that I was not yet strong enough; that I could repose myself nowhere with greater safety than in his cave; and that, for his part, he could have no greater happiness than that of attending me, adding, with a sigh, it was a happiness he should envy any other more than all the gifts of fortune.  You may imagine I began now to entertain suspicions; but he presently removed all doubt by throwing himself at my feet and expressing the warmest passion for me.  I should have now sunk with despair had he not accompanied these professions with the most vehement protestations that he would never offer me any other force but that of entreaty, and that he would rather die the most cruel death by my coldness than gain the highest bliss by becoming the occasion of a tear of sorrow to these bright eyes, which he said were stars, under whose benign influence alone he could enjoy, or indeed suffer life.”  She was repeating many more compliments he made her, when a horrid uproar, which alarmed the whole gate, put a stop to her narration at present.  It is impossible for me to give the reader a better idea of the noise which now arose than by desiring him to imagine I had the hundred tongues the poet once wished for, and was vociferating from them all at once, by hollowing, scolding, crying, swearing, bellowing, and, in short, by every different articulation which is within the scope of the human organ.

CHAPTER TEN

A horrible uproar in the gate.

But however great an idea the reader may hence conceive of this uproar, he will think the occasion more than adequate to it when he is informed that our hero (I blush to name it) had discovered an injury done to his honour, and that in the tenderest point.  In a word, reader (for thou must know it, though it give thee the greatest horror imaginable), he had caught Fireblood in the arms of his lovely Laetitia.

As the generous bull who, having long depastured among a number of cows, and thence contracted an opinion that these cows are all his own property, if he beholds another bull bestride a cow within his walks, he roars aloud, and threatens instant vengeance with his horns, till the whole parish are alarmed with his bellowing; not with less noise nor less dreadful menaces did the fury of Wild burst forth and terrify the whole gate.  Long time did rage render his voice inarticulate to the hearer; as when, at a visiting day, fifteen