Sam continued to sit on the large stone, meditating upon what
was best to be done, and revolving in his mind a plan for knocking
at all the doors within five miles of Bristol, taking them at a
hundred and fifty or two hundred a day, and endeavouring to
find Miss Arabella by that expedient, when accident all of a
sudden threw in his way what he might have sat there for a
twelvemonth and yet not found without it.
Into the lane where he sat, there opened three or four garden
gates, belonging to as many houses, which though detached from
each other, were only separated by their gardens. As these were
large and long, and well planted with trees, the houses were not
only at some distance off, but the greater part of them were
nearly concealed from view. Sam was sitting with his eyes fixed
upon the dust-heap outside the next gate to that by which the
groom had disappeared, profoundly turning over in his mind the
difficulties of his present undertaking, when the gate opened, and
a female servant came out into the lane to shake some bedside carpets.
Sam was so very busy with his own thoughts, that it is probable
he would have taken no more notice of the young woman than
just raising his head and remarking that she had a very neat and
pretty figure, if his feelings of gallantry had not been most
strongly roused by observing that she had no one to help her, and
that the carpets seemed too heavy for her single strength.
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