If ever I
take a wife she shall be of my own village, in Como, whither I hope
to return, as soon as I have picked up a few more pounds."
"Whether the Austrians are driven away or not?" said I.
"Whether the Austrians are driven away or not - for to my mind
there is no country like Como, signore."
I ordered breakfast; whilst taking it in the room above I saw
through the open window the Italian trudging forth on his journey,
a huge box on his back, and a weather-glass in his hand - looking
the exact image of one of those men, his country people, whom forty
years before I had known at N-. I thought of the course of time,
sighed and felt a tear gather in my eye.
My breakfast concluded, I paid my bill, and after inquiring the way
to Bangor, and bidding adieu to the kind landlady and her daughter,
set out from Cerrig y Drudion. My course lay west, across a flat
country, bounded in the far distance by the mighty hills I had seen
on the preceding evening. After walking about a mile I overtook a
man with a game leg, that is a leg which, either by nature or
accident not being so long as its brother leg, had a patten
attached to it, about five inches high, to enable it to do duty
with the other - he was a fellow with red shock hair and very red
features, and was dressed in ragged coat and breeches and a hat
which had lost part of its crown, and all its rim, so that even
without a game leg he would have looked rather a queer figure.
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