out on this occasion, which I never saw either before or since. To
this hour, what its contents were is a thing to me unknown. What is
still more strange, the very persons who oblige you to take these
statute-book oaths publickly confess that to obey most of them is
impossible. They relate to obsolete customs, the very means of
practising which are wanting. Some for example swear to have mass said
for the soul of the founder of the college; and others, though men of
good estates, swear themselves not worth five pounds per annum. Of
these particulars however I was ignorant, and the whole was hurried
over so much in the way of form, and without inquiry of any kind,
that it seemed like the mere dictate of good manners to do what I was
bidden.

Warned by the information which Turl had communicated, and disgusted
by what I myself had seen and partaken of, I industriously for
sometime avoided Hector Mowbray, who as it happened was too much
engaged in his own pursuits to molest me. In about three weeks however
he came to me one morning, rallied me in his coarse way, asked if I
had entered myself of the glums, and insisted that I should go with
him and take a ride to Abingdon. The chaise would be ready in half an
hour, and he would introduce me to the finest girl in all England.
Thinking his language equivocal and suspecting his intentions, I
ventured to ask if she were a modest woman? He burst into a loud
laugh and exclaimed (I shall omit his oaths) 'Modest! to be sure!
as modest as any of her sex.' This did not satisfy me; I continued
to interrogate and he to laugh, but still swearing there was not a
modester woman in all England. A strong inclination to take exercise,
my own active curiosity, and the boisterous bawling and obstinacy of
Hector at length prevailed, and I yielded. I walked with him to the
inn, the chaise was ready, and we stepped into it and galloped away.