I see, I see, said she, when I had brought her up, what I am to expect
from your new professions, O vilest of men!—
Have I offered to you, my beloved creature, any thing that can justify
this impatience after a more hopeful calm?
She wrung her hands. She disordered her head-dress. She tore her
ruffles. She was in a perfect phrensy.
I dreaded her returning malady: but, entreaty rather exasperating, I
affected an angry air.—I bid her expect the worst she had to fear—and
was menacing on, in hopes to intimidate her; when, dropping to my feet,
’Twill be a mercy, said she, the highest act of mercy you can do, to
kill me outright upon this spot—this happy spot, as I will, in my last
moments, call it!—Then, baring, with a still more frantic violence,
part of her enchanting neck—Here, here, said the soul-harrowing beauty,
let thy pointed mercy enter! and I will thank thee, and forgive thee
for all the dreadful past!—With my latest gasp will I forgive and thank
thee!—Or help me to the means, and I will myself put out of the way so
miserable a wretch! And bless thee for those means!
Why all this extravagant passion? Why all these exclamations? Have I
offered any new injury to you, my dearest life? What a phrensy is this!
Am I not ready to make you all the reparation that I can make you? Had
I not reason to hope—
No, no, no, no, as before, shaking her head with wild impatience, as
resolved not to attend to what I said.
My resolutions are so honourable, if you will permit them to take
effect, that I need not be solicitous where you go, if you will but
permit my visits, and receive my vows.—And God is my witness, that I
bring you not back from the door with any view to your dishonour, but
the contrary: and this moment I will send for a minister to put an end
to all your doubts and fears.
Say this, and say a thousand times more, and bind every word with a
solemn appeal to that God whom thou art accustomed to invoke to the
truth of the vilest falsehoods, and all will still be short of what
thou has vowed and promised to me. And, were not my heart to abhor
thee, and to rise against thee, for thy perjuries, as it does, I would
not, I tell thee once more, I would not, bind my soul in covenant with
such a man, for a thousand worlds!
Compose yourself, however, Madam; for your own sake, compose yourself.
Permit me to raise you up; abhorred as I am of your soul!
Nay, if I must not touch you; for she wildly slapt my hands; but with
such a sweet passionate air, her bosom heaving and throbbing as she
looked up to me, that although I was most sincerely enraged, I could
with transport have pressed her to mine.
If I must not touch you, I will not.—But depend upon it, [and I assumed
the sternest air I could assume, to try what it would do,] depend upon
it, Madam, that this is not the way to avoid the evils you dread. Let
me do what I will, I cannot be used worse—Dorcas, begone!
She arose, Dorcas being about to withdraw; and wildly caught hold of
her arm: O Dorcas! If thou art of mine own sex, leave me not, I charge
thee!—Then quitting Dorcas, down she threw herself upon her knees, in
the furthermost corner of the room, clasping a chair with her face laid
upon the bottom of it!—O where can I be safe?—Where, where can I be
safe, from this man of violence?—
This gave Dorcas an opportunity to confirm herself in her lady’s
confidence: the wench threw herself at my feet, while I seemed in
violent wrath; and embracing my knees, Kill me, Sir, kill me, Sir, if
you please!—I must throw myself in your way, to save my lady. I beg
your pardon, Sir—but you must be set on!—God forgive the
mischief-makers!—But your own heart, if left to itself, would not
permit these things—spare, however, Sir! spare my lady, I beseech
you!—bustling on her knees about me, as if I were intending to approach
her lady, had I not been restrained by her.
This, humoured by me, Begone, devil!—Officious devil, begone!—startled
the dear creature: who, snatching up hastily her head from the chair,
and as hastily popping it down again in terror, hit her nose, I
suppose, against the edge of the chair; and it gushed out with blood,
running in a stream down her bosom; she herself was too much frighted
to heed it!
Never was mortal man in such terror and agitation as I; for I instantly
concluded, that she had stabbed herself with some concealed instrument.
I ran to her in a wild agony—for Dorcas was frighted out of all her
mock interposition——
What have you done!—O what have you done!—Look up to me, my dearest
life!—Sweet injured innocence, look up to me! What have you done!—Long
will I not survive you!—And I was upon the point of drawing my sword to
dispatch myself, when I discovered—[What an unmanly blockhead does this
charming creature make me at her pleasure!] that all I apprehended was
but a bloody nose, which, as far as I know (for it could not be stopped
in a quarter of an hour) may have saved her head and her intellects.
But I see by this scene, that the sweet creature is but a pretty coward
at bottom; and that I can terrify her out of her virulence against me,
whenever I put on sternness and anger. But then, as a qualifier to the
advantage this gives me over her, I find myself to be a coward too,
which I had not before suspected, since I was capable of being so
easily terrified by the apprehensions of her offering violence to
herself.