Fresh calamities.
The next morning the sun rose with peculiar warmth for the season; so
that we agreed to breakfast together on the honeysuckle bank: where,
while we sate, my youngest daughter, at my request, joined her voice to
the concert on the trees about us. It was in this place my poor Olivia
first met her seducer, and every object served to recall her sadness.
But that melancholy, which is excited by objects of pleasure, or
inspired by sounds of harmony, sooths the heart instead of corroding
it. Her mother too, upon this occasion, felt a pleasing distress, and
wept, and loved her daughter as before. ‘Do, my pretty Olivia,’ cried
she, ‘let us have that little melancholy air your pappa was so fond of,
your sister Sophy has already obliged us. Do child, it will please your
old father.’ She complied in a manner so exquisitely pathetic as moved
me.
When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can sooth her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom—is to die.
As she was concluding the last stanza, to which an interruption in her
voice from sorrow gave peculiar softness, the appearance of Mr
Thornhill’s equipage at a distance alarmed us all, but particularly
encreased the uneasiness of my eldest daughter, who, desirous of
shunning her betrayer, returned to the house with her sister. In a few
minutes he was alighted from his chariot, and making up to the place
where I was still sitting, enquired after my health with his usual air
of familiarity. ‘Sir,’ replied I, ‘your present assurance only serves
to aggravate the baseness of your character; and there was a time when
I would have chastised your insolence, for presuming thus to appear
before me. But now you are safe; for age has cooled my passions, and my
calling restrains them.’
‘I vow, my dear sir,’ returned he, ‘I am amazed at all this; nor can I
understand what it means! I hope you don’t think your daughter’s late
excursion with me had any thing criminal in it.’
‘Go,’ cried I, ‘thou art a wretch, a poor pitiful wretch, and every way
a lyar; but your meanness secures you from my anger! Yet sir, I am
descended from a family that would not have borne this! And so, thou
vile thing, to gratify a momentary passion, thou hast made one poor
creature wretched for life, and polluted a family that had nothing but
honour for their portion.’
‘If she or you,’ returned he, ‘are resolved to be miserable, I cannot
help it. But you may still be happy; and whatever opinion you may have
formed of me, you shall ever find me ready to contribute to it. We can
marry her to another in a short time, and what is more, she may keep
her lover beside; for I protest I shall ever continue to have a true
regard for her.’
I found all my passions alarmed at this new degrading proposal; for
though the mind may often be calm under great injuries, little villainy
can at any time get within the soul, and sting it into rage.—‘Avoid my
sight, thou reptile,’ cried I, ‘nor continue to insult me with thy
presence. Were my brave son at home, he would not suffer this; but I am
old, and disabled, and every way undone.’
‘I find,’ cried he, ‘you are bent upon obliging me to talk in an
harsher manner than I intended. But as I have shewn you what may be
hoped from my friendship, it may not be improper to represent what may
be the consequences of my resentment. My attorney, to whom your late
bond has been transferred, threatens hard, nor do I know how to prevent
the course of justice, except by paying the money myself, which, as I
have been at some expences lately, previous to my intended marriage, is
not so easy to be done. And then my steward talks of driving for the
rent: it is certain he knows his duty; for I never trouble myself with
affairs of that nature. Yet still I could wish to serve you, and even
to have you and your daughter present at my marriage, which is shortly
to be solemnized with Miss Wilmot; it is even the request of my
charming Arabella herself, whom I hope you will not refuse.’
‘Mr Thornhill,’ replied I, ‘hear me once for all: as to your marriage
with any but my daughter, that I never will consent to; and though your
friendship could raise me to a throne, or your resentment sink me to
the grave, yet would I despise both. Thou hast once wofully,
irreparably, deceived me. I reposed my heart upon thine honour, and
have found its baseness. Never more, therefore, expect friendship from
me. Go, and possess what fortune has given thee, beauty, riches,
health, and pleasure. Go, and leave me to want, infamy, disease, and
sorrow. Yet humbled as I am, shall my heart still vindicate its
dignity, and though thou hast my forgiveness, thou shalt ever have my
contempt.’
‘If so,’ returned he, ‘depend upon it you shall feel the effects of
this insolence, and we shall shortly see which is the fittest object of
scorn, you or me.’—Upon which he departed abruptly.
My wife and son, who were present at this interview, seemed terrified
with the apprehension. My daughters also, finding that he was gone,
came out to be informed of the result of our conference, which, when
known, alarmed them not less than the rest. But as to myself, I
disregarded the utmost stretch of his malevolence: he had already
struck the blow, and now I stood prepared to repel every new effort.
Like one of those instruments used in the art of war, which, however
thrown, still presents a point to receive the enemy.
We soon, however, found that he had not threatened in vain; for the
very next morning his steward came to demand my annual rent, which, by
the train of accidents already related, I was unable to pay. The
consequence of my incapacity was his driving my cattle that evening,
and their being appraised and sold the next day for less than half
their value. My wife and children now therefore entreated me to comply
upon any terms, rather than incur certain destruction. They even begged
of me to admit his visits once more, and used all their little
eloquence to paint the calamities I was going to endure. The terrors of
a prison, in so rigorous a season as the present, with the danger, that
threatened my health from the late accident that happened by the fire.
But I continued inflexible.
‘Why, my treasures,’ cried I, ‘why will you thus attempt to persuade me
to the thing that is not right! My duty has taught me to forgive him;
but my conscience will not permit me to approve. Would you have me
applaud to the world what my heart must internally condemn? Would you
have me tamely sit down and flatter our infamous betrayer; and to avoid
a prison continually suffer the more galling bonds of mental
confinement! No, never. If we are to be taken from this abode, only let
us hold to the right, and wherever we are thrown, we can still retire
to a charming apartment, when we can look round our own hearts with
intrepidity and with pleasure!’
In this manner we spent that evening. Early the next morning, as the
snow had fallen in great abundance in the night, my son was employed in
clearing it away, and opening a passage before the door. He had not
been thus engaged long, when he came running in, with looks all pale,
to tell us that two strangers, whom he knew to be officers of justice,
were making towards the house.
Just as he spoke they came in, and approaching the bed where I lay,
after previously informing me of their employment and business, made me
their prisoner, bidding me prepare to go with them to the county gaol,
which was eleven miles off.
‘My friends,’ said I, ‘this is severe weather on which you have come to
take me to a prison; and it is particularly unfortunate at this time,
as one of my arms has lately been burnt in a terrible manner, and it
has thrown me into a slight fever, and I want cloaths to cover me, and
I am now too weak and old to walk far in such deep snow: but if it must
be so—’
I then turned to my wife and children, and directed them to get
together what few things were left us, and to prepare immediately for
leaving this place. I entreated them to be expeditious, and desired my
son to assist his elder sister, who, from a consciousness that she was
the cause of all our calamities, was fallen, and had lost anguish in
insensibility. I encouraged my wife, who, pale and trembling, clasped
our affrighted little ones in her arms, that clung to her bosom in
silence, dreading to look round at the strangers. In the mean time my
youngest daughter prepared for our departure, and as she received
several hints to use dispatch, in about an hour we were ready to
depart.