This "king of shreds and
patches"--for, to the outward sense, he seems that now--has been "at
large" for days, perhaps for two or three weeks; he has been
unkennelled, and, among the lawless mountains, has felt no restraint
upon his own lawlessness, however Cyclopean. Doubtless he has met with
panthers and wolves, each one of whom will to its dying day retain
impressive recollections of the wee monster, from which they fled as a
trifle too uncanny even for them. As to his subsistence during these
rambles, it would be very difficult to say how he managed that affair,
at these, or indeed at any other times; and it may be that the prophetic
limitation of a fast to forty days is now the urgent occasion of his
return from vagabondism. One thing we may be sure of,--that he has made
plentiful use of a certain magical drug hid away in his
waistcoat-pocket. Like Wordsworth's brook, he has been wandering
purposely and at his own sweet will, or rather where his feet have taken
him; and he has laid him down to sleep wherever sleep may have chanced
to find him.
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