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the White Horse. As I pursued my solitary course a fellow started up from an hollow, who with a very short preface began to make proposals, that lost as I was I received with the indignation they deserved. As he became urgent I swooned away. When I returned to life I found the ruffian waiting my recovery, as he avowed his determination to perpetrate his purpose; looking about he suddenly ran off. Perceiving a chaise at some distance I accounted for his departure. I now found out that my pockets were rifled, and that I had not a single shilling left in the world. My strength quite exhausted, I was totally unequal to the short distance that I had to surmount; and now that my little store was plundered, I was reluctant to seek the intended asylum: to burden the scanty subsistence of hard earning industry, with the maintenance