I became guide now; and did as Mr. Western is advising the Ministers to do, _retraced_ my steps. We went back about half the way that we had come, when we saw two men, who showed us the way that we ought to go. At the end of about a mile, we fortunately found the turnpike-road; not, indeed, at the _foot_, but on the _tip-top_ of that very Hindhead, on which I had so repeatedly _vowed_ I would not go! We came out on the turnpike some hundred yards on the Liphook side of the buildings called _the Hut_; so that we had the whole of three miles of hill to come down at not much better than a foot pace, with a good pelting rain at our backs. It is odd enough how differently one is affected by the same sight, under different circumstances. At the "_Holly Bush_" at Headly there was a room full of fellows in white smock frocks, drinking and smoking and talking, and I, who was then dry and warm, _moralized_ within myself on their _folly_ in spending their time in such a way. But, when I got down from Hindhead to the public-house at Road-Lane, with my skin soaking and my teeth chattering, I thought just such another group, whom I saw through the window sitting round a good fire with pipes in their mouths, the _wisest assembly_ I had ever set my eyes on. A real _Collective Wisdom_. And, I most solemnly declare, that I felt a greater veneration for them than I have ever felt even for the _Privy Council_, notwithstanding the Right Honorable Charles Wynn and the Right Honorable Sir John Sinclair belong to the latter. It was now but a step to my friend's house, where a good fire and a change of clothes soon put all to rights, save and except the having come over Hindhead after all my resolutions. This mortifying circumstance; this having been _beaten_, lost the guide the _three shillings_ that I had agreed to give him. "Either," said I, "you did not know the way well, or you did: if the former, it was dishonest in you to undertake to guide me: if the latter, you have wilfully led me miles out of my way." He grumbled; but off he went. He certainly deserved nothing; for he did not know the way, and he prevented some other man from earning and receiving the money. But, had he not caused me to _get upon Hindhead_, he would have had the three shillings. I had, at one time, got my hand in my pocket; but the thought of having been _beaten_ pulled it out again.