The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune
General
The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune
Campbell, Duncan, 1680?-1730; Deaf people -- Great Britain -- Biography; Occultism -- Early works to 1900; Prophets -- Great Britain -- Biography
As soon as Mr. Campbell had wrote down the story, the fathers perused
it, and seemed mightily entertained with it. It put an end to all
farther questions, and the man whom they had been trying for a conjuror,
they joined in desiring, upon distinct pieces of paper, under their
several hands, to come frequently and visit them, as being not only a
harmless and innocent, but an extraordinary well-meaning, good, and
diverting companion. They treated him for some time afterwards during
his stay, with the friendship due to a countryman, with the civility
that is owing to a gentleman, and with the assistance and support which
belonged to a person of merit in distress. Money they had none
themselves, it seems, to give him, being Mendicants by their own
profession; but they had interest enough to get him quite free from
being prisoner; he participated of their eleemosynary table, had a cell
allowed him among them in what they call their Dormitory; he had an odd
coat and a pair of trowsers made out of some of their brown coarse
habits, by the poor unfashionable tailor, or botcher, belonging to the
convent, and at last they found means of recommending him to a master of
a French vessel that was ready to set sail, to give him a cast over the
channel to England; and to provide him with the necessaries of life till
he got to the port. This French vessel was luckier than the Dutch one
had been before to our dumb gentleman; it had a quick and prosperous
passage, and arrived at Portsmouth; and as soon as he landed there, he
having experienced the misfortunes and casualties that a man in his
condition, wanting both speech and hearing, was liable to, in places
where he was an utter stranger to everybody, resolved to make no stay,
but move on as fast as he could towards London. When he came to Hampton
town, considering the indifferent figure he made in those odd kind of
clothes, which the poor friars had equipped him with, and that his long
beard and an uncombed wig added much to the disguise, he was resolved to
put on the best face he could, in those awkward circumstances, and
stepped into the first barber's shop he came at to be trimmed and get
his wig combed and powdered. This proved a very lucky thought to him;
for as soon as he stepped into the first barber's shop, who should prove
to be the master of it, but one Tobit Yeats, who had served him in the
same capacity at London, and was but newly set up in the trade of a
barber-surgeon, at Hampton town, and followed likewise the profession of
schoolmaster. This Tobit Yeats had shaved him quite, before he knew him
in that disguise; and Mr. Campbell, though he knew him presently, had a
mind to try if he should be known himself first; at length the barber
finding him to be a dumb man, by his ordering everything with motions of
the hand and gestures of the body, looked at him very earnestly,
remembered him, and in a great surprise called for pen, ink, and paper,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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