HE IS EXPOSED TO A MOST PERILOUS INCIDENT IN THE COURSE OF HIS INTRIGUE
WITH THE DAUGHTER.
He was rejoiced to find her so easily satisfied in such a momentous
concern, for the principal aim of the intrigue was to make her necessary
to his interested views, and even, if possible, an associate in the
fraudulent plans he had projected upon her father; consequently he
considered this relaxation in her virtue as an happy omen of his future
success. All the obstacles to their mutual enjoyment being thus removed,
our adventurer was by his mistress indulged with an assignation in her
own chamber, which, though contiguous to that of her stepmother, was
provided with a door that opened into a common staircase, to which he had
access at all hours of the night.
He did not neglect the rendezvous, but, presenting himself at the
appointed time, which was midnight, made the signal they had agreed upon,
and was immediately admitted by Wilhelmina, who waited for hire with a
lover's impatience. Fathom was not deficient in those expressions of
rapture that are current on those occasions; but, on the contrary, became
so loud in the transports of self-congratulation, that his voice reached
the ears of the vigilant stepmother, who wakening the jeweller from his
first nap, gave him to understand that some person was certainly in close
conversation with his daughter; and exhorted him to rise forthwith, and
vindicate the honour of his family.
The German, who was naturally of a phlegmatic habit, and never went to
bed without a full dose of the creature, which added to his
constitutional drowsiness, gave no ear to his wife's intimation, until
she had repeated it thrice, and used other means to rouse him from the
arms of slumber. Meanwhile Fathom and his inamorata overheard her
information, and our hero would have made his retreat immediately,
through the port by which he entered, had not his intention been
overruled by the remonstrances of the young lady, who observed that the
door was already fast bolted, and could not possibly be opened without
creating a noise that would confirm the suspicion of her parents; and
that over and above this objection he would, in sallying from that door,
run the risk of being met by her father, who in all probability would
present himself before it, in order to hinder our hero's escape. She
therefore conveyed him softly into her closet, where she assured him he
might remain with great tranquillity, in full confidence that she would
take such measures as would effectually screen him from detection.
He was fain to depend upon her assurance, and accordingly ensconced
himself behind her dressing-table; but he could not help sweating with
apprehension, and praying fervently to God for his deliverance, when he
heard the jeweller thundering at the door, and calling to his daughter
for admittance. Wilhelmina, who was already undressed, and had purposely
extinguished the light, pretended to be suddenly waked from her sleep,
and starting up, exclaimed in a tone of surprise and affright, "Jesu,
Maria! what is the matter?"--"Hussy!" replied the German in a terrible
accent, "open the door this instant; there is a man in your bedchamber,
and, by the lightning and thunder! I will wash away the stain he has cast
upon my honour with the schellum's heart's-blood."
Not at all intimidated by this boisterous threat, she admitted him
without hesitation, and, with a shrillness of voice peculiar to herself,
began to hold forth upon her own innocence and his unjust suspicion,
mingling in her harangue sundry oblique hints against her mother-in-law,
importing, that some people were so viciously inclined by their own
natures, that she did not wonder at their doubting the virtue of other
people; but that these people despised the insinuations of such people,
who ought to be more circumspect in their own conduct, lest they
themselves should suffer reprisals from those people whom they had so
maliciously slandered.
Having uttered these flowers of rhetoric, which were calculated for the
hearing of her step-dame, who stood with a light at her husband's back,
the young lady assumed an ironical air, and admonished her father to
search every corner of her apartment. She even affected to assist his
inquiry; with her own hands pulled out a parcel of small drawers, in
which her trinkets were contained; desired him to look into her
needlecase and thimble, and, seeing his examination fruitless, earnestly
intreated him to rummage her closet also, saying, with a sneer, that, in
all probability, the dishonourer would be found in that lurking-place.
The manner in which she pretended to ridicule his apprehensions made an
impression upon the jeweller, who was very well disposed to retreat into
his own nest, when his wife, with a certain slyness in her countenance,
besought him to comply with his daughter's request, and look into that
same closet, by which means Wilhelmina's virtue would obtain a complete
triumph.
Our adventurer, who overheard the conversation, was immediately seized
with a palsy of fear. He trembled at every joint, the sweat trickled
down his forehead, his teeth began to chatter, his hair to stand on end;
and he, in his heart, bitterly cursed the daughter's petulance, the
mother's malice, together with his own precipitation, by which he was
involved in an adventure so pregnant with danger and disgrace. Indeed,
the reader may easily conceive his disorder, when he heard the key
turning in the lock, and the German swearing that he would make him food
for the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air.
Fathom had come unprepared with weapons of defence, was naturally an
economist of his person, and saw himself on the brink of forfeiting not
only the promised harvest of his double intrigue, but also the reputation
of a man of honour, upon which all his future hopes depended. His agony
was therefore unspeakable, when the door flew open; and it was not till
after a considerable pause of recollection, that he perceived the candle
extinguished by the motion of the air produced from the German's sudden
irruption. This accident, which disconcerted him so much as to put a
full stop to his charge, was very favourable to our hero, who, summoning
all his presence of mind, crept up into the chimney, while the jeweller
stood at the door, waiting for his wife's return with another light; so
that, when the closet was examined, there was nothing found to justify
the report which the stepmother had made; and the father, after having
made a slight apology to Wilhelmina for his intrusion, retired with his
yoke-fellow into their own chamber.
The young lady, who little thought that her papa would have taken her at
her word, was overwhelmed with confusion and dismay, when she saw him
enter the closet; and, had her lover been discovered, would, in all
probability, have been the loudest in his reproach, and, perhaps, have
accused him of an intention to rob the house; but she was altogether
astonished when she found he had made shift to elude the inquiry of her
parents, because she could not conceive the possibility of his escaping
by the window, which was in the third storey, at a prodigious distance
from the ground; and how he should conceal himself in the apartment, was
a mystery which she could by no means unfold. Before her father and
mother retired, she lighted her lamp, on pretence of being afraid to be
in the dark, after the perturbation of spirits she had undergone; and her
room was no sooner evacuated of such troublesome visitants, than she
secured the doors, and went in quest of her lover.
Accordingly, every corner of the closet underwent a new search, and she
called upon his name with a soft voice, which she thought no other person
would overhear. But Ferdinand did not think proper to gratify her
impatience, because he could not judge of the predicament in which he
stood by the evidence of all his senses, and would not relinquish his
post, until he should be better certified that the coast was clear.
Meanwhile, his Dulcinea, having performed her inquiry to no purpose,
imagined there was something preternatural in the circumstance of his
vanishing so unaccountably, and began to cross herself with great
devotion. She returned to her chamber, fixed the lamp in the fireplace,
and, throwing herself upon the bed, gave way to the suggestions of her
superstition, which were reinforced by the silence that prevailed, and
the gloomy glimmering of the light. She reflected upon the trespass she
had already committed in her heart, and, in the conjectures of her fear,
believed that her lover was no other than the devil himself, who had
assumed the appearance of Fathom, in order to tempt and seduce her
virtue.
While her imagination teemed with those horrible ideas, our adventurer,
concluding, from the general stillness, that the jeweller and his wife
were at last happily asleep, ventured to come forth from his
hiding-place, and stood before his mistress all begrimed with soot.
Wilhelmina, lifting up her eyes, and seeing this sable apparition, which
she mistook for Satan in propria persona, instantly screamed, and began
to repeat her pater-noster with an audible voice. Upon which Ferdinand,
foreseeing that her parents would be again alarmed, would not stay to
undeceive her and explain himself, but, unlocking the door with great
expedition, ran downstairs, and luckily accomplished his escape. This
was undoubtedly the wisest measure he could have taken; for he had not
performed one half of his descent toward the street, when the German was
at his daughter's bedside, demanding to know the cause of her
exclamation. She then gave him an account of what she had seen, with all
the exaggerations of her own fancy, and, after having weighed the
circumstances of her story, he interpreted the apparition into a thief,
who had found means to open the door that communicated with the stair;
but, having been scared by Wilhelmina's shriek, had been obliged to
retreat before he could execute his purpose.
Our hero's spirits were so wofully disturbed by this adventure, that, for
a whole week, he felt no inclination to visit his inamorata, and was not
without apprehension that the affair had terminated in an explanation
very little to his advantage. He was, however, delivered from this
disagreeable suspense, by an accidental meeting with the jeweller
himself, who kindly chid him for his long absence, and entertained him in
the street with an account of the alarm which his family had sustained,
by a thief who broke into Wilhelmina's apartment. Glad to find his
apprehension mistaken, he renewed his correspondence with the family,
and, in a little time, found reason to console himself for the jeopardy
and panic he had undergone.