The narrow escape of Molly Seagrim, with some observations for which
we have been forced to dive pretty deep into nature
Tom Jones had ridden one of Mr. Western's horses that morning in the
chase; so that having no horse of his own in the squire's stable, he
was obliged to go home on foot: this he did so expeditiously that he
ran upwards of three miles within the half-hour.
Just as he arrived at Mr. Allworthy's outward gate, he met the
constable and company with Molly in their possession, whom they were
conducting to that house where the inferior sort of people may learn
one good lesson, viz., respect and deference to their superiors; since
it must show them the wide distinction Fortune intends between those
persons who are to be corrected for their faults, and those who are
not; which lesson if they do not learn, I am afraid they very rarely
learn any other good lesson, or improve their morals, at the House
of Correction.
A lawyer may perhaps think Mr. Allworthy exceeded his authority a
little in this instance. And, to say the truth, I question, as here
was no regular information before him, whether his conduct was
strictly regular. However, as his intention was truly upright, he
ought to be excused in foro conscientiae; since so many arbitrary acts
are daily committed by magistrates who have not this excuse to plead
for themselves.
Tom was no sooner informed by the constable whither they were
proceeding (indeed he pretty well guessed it of himself), than he
caught Molly in his arms, and embracing her tenderly before them
all, swore he would murder the first man who offered to lay hold of
her. He bid her dry her eyes and be comforted; for, wherever she went,
he would accompany her. Then turning to the constable, who stood
trembling with his hat off, he desired him, in a very mild voice, to
return with him for a moment only to his father (for so he now
called Allworthy); for he durst, he said, be assured, that, when he
had alledged what he had to say in her favour, the girl would be
discharged.
The constable, who, I make no doubt, would have surrendered his
prisoner had Tom demanded her, very readily consented to this request.
So back they all went into Mr. Allworthy's hall; where Tom desired
them to stay till his return, and then went himself in pursuit of
the good man. As soon as he was found, Tom threw himself at his
feet, and having begged a patient hearing, confessed himself to be the
father of the child of which Molly was then big. He entreated him to
have compassion on the poor girl, and to consider, if there was any
guilt in the case, it lay principally at his door.
"If there is any guilt in the case!" answered Allworthy warmly: "Are
you then so profligate and abandoned a libertine to doubt whether
the breaking the laws of God and man, the corrupting and ruining a
poor girl be guilt? I own, indeed, it doth lie principally upon you;
and so heavy it is, that you ought to expect it should crush you."
"Whatever may be my fate," says Tom, "let me succeed in my
intercessions for the poor girl. I confess I have corrupted her! but
whether she shall be ruined, depends on you. For Heaven's sake, sir,
revoke your warrant, and do not send her to a place which must
unavoidably prove her destruction."
Allworthy bid him immediately call a servant. Tom answered there was
no occasion; for he had luckily met them at the gate, and relying upon
his goodness, had brought them all back into his hall, where they
now waited his final resolution, which upon his knees he besought
him might be in favour of the girl; that she might be permitted to
go home to her parents, and not be exposed to a greater degree of
shame and scorn than must necessarily fall upon her. "I know," said
he, "that is too much. I know I am the wicked occasion of it. I will
endeavour to make amends, if possible; and if you shall have hereafter
the goodness to forgive me, I hope I shall deserve it."
Allworthy hesitated some time, and at last said, "Well, I will
discharge my mittimus.- You may send the constable to me." He was
instantly called, discharged, and so was the girl.
It will be believed that Mr. Allworthy failed not to read Tom a very
severe lecture on this occasion; but it is unnecessary to insert it
here, as we have faithfully transcribed what he said to Jenny Jones in
the first book, most of which may be applied to the men, equally
with the women. So sensible an effect had these reproofs on the
young man, who was no hardened sinner that he retired to his own room,
where he passed the evening alone, in much melancholy contemplation.
Allworthy was sufficiently offended by this transgression of
Jones; for notwithstanding the assertions of Mr. Western, it is
certain this worthy man had never indulged himself in any loose
pleasures with women, and greatly condemned the vice of incontinence
in others. Indeed, there is much reason to imagine that there was
not the least truth in what Mr. Western affirmed, especially as he
laid the scene of those impurities at the university, where Mr.
Allworthy had never been. In fact, the good squire was a little too
apt to indulge that kind of pleasantry which is generally called
rhodomontade: but which may, with as much propriety, be expressed by a
much shorter word; and perhaps we too often supply the use of this
little monosyllable by others; since very much of what frequently
passes in the world for wit and humour, should, in the strictest
purity of language, receive that short appellation, which, in
conformity to the well-bred laws of custom, I here suppress.
But whatever detestation Mr. Allworthy had to this or to any other
vice, he was not so blinded by it but that he could discern any virtue
in the guilty person, as clearly indeed as if there had been no
mixture of vice in the same character. While he was angry therefore
with the incontinence of Jones, he was no less pleased with the honour
and honesty of his self-accusation. He began now to form in his mind
the same opinion of this young fellow, which, we hope, our reader
may have conceived. And in balancing his faults with his
perfections, the latter seemed rather to preponderate.
It was to no purpose, therefore, that Thwackum, who was
immediately charged by Mr. Blifil with the story, unbended all his
rancour against poor Tom. Allworthy gave a patient hearing to their
invectives, and then answered coldly: "That young men of Tom's
complexion were too generally addicted to this vice; but he believed
that youth was sincerely affected with what he had said to him on
the occasion, and he hoped he would not transgress again." So that, as
the days of whipping were at an end, the tutor had no other vent but
his own mouth for his gall, the usual poor resource of impotent
revenge.
But Square, who was a less violent, was a much more artful man;
and as he hated Jones more perhaps than Thwackum himself did, so he
contrived to do him more mischief in the mind of Mr. Allworthy.
The reader must remember the several little incidents of the
partridge, the horse, and the Bible, which were recounted in the
second book. By all which Jones had rather improved than injured the
affection which Mr. Allworthy was inclined to entertain for him. The
same, I believe, must have happened to him with every other person who
hath any idea of friendship, generosity, and greatness of spirit, that
is to say, who hath any traces of goodness in his mind.
Square himself was not unacquainted with the true impression which
those several instances of goodness had made on the excellent heart of
Allworthy; for the philosopher very well knew what virtue was,
though he was not always perhaps steady in its pursuit; but as for
Thwackum, from what reason I will not determine, no such thoughts ever
entered into his head: he saw Jones in a bad light, and he imagined
Allworthy saw him in the same, but that he was resolved, from pride
and stubbornness of spirit, not to give up the boy whom he had once
cherished; since by so doing, he must tacitly acknowledge that his
former opinion of him had been wrong.
Square therefore embraced this opportunity of injuring Jones in
the tenderest part, by giving a very bad turn to all these
before-mentioned occurrences. "I am sorry, sir," said he, "to own I
have been deceived as well as yourself. I could not, I confess, help
being pleased with what I ascribed to the motive of friendship, though
it was carried to an excess, and all excess is faulty and vicious: but
in this I made allowance for youth. Little did I suspect that the
sacrifice of truth, which we both imagined to have been made to
friendship, was in reality a prostitution of it to a depraved and
debauched appetite. You now plainly see whence all the seeming
generosity of this young man to the family of the gamekeeper
proceeded. He supported the father in order to corrupt the daughter,
and preserved the family from starving, to bring one of them to
shame and ruin. This is friendship! this is generosity! As Sir Richard
Steele says, 'Gluttons who give high prices for delicacies, are very
worthy to be called generous.' In short I am resolved, from this
instance, never to give way to the weakness of human nature nor to
think anything virtue which doth not exactly quadrate with the
unerring rule of right."
The goodness of Allworthy had prevented those considerations from
occurring to himself; yet were they too plausible to be absolutely and
hastily rejected, when laid before his eyes by another. Indeed what
Square had said sunk very deeply into his mind, and the uneasiness
which it there created was very visible to the other; though the
good man would not acknowledge this, but made a very slight answer,
and forcibly drove off the discourse to some other subject. It was
well perhaps for poor Tom, that no such suggestions had been made
before he was pardoned; for they certainly stamped in the mind of
Allworthy the first bad impression concerning Jones.
Chapter 12
Containing much clearer matters; but which flowed from the same
fountain with those in the preceding chapter
The reader will be pleased, I believe, to return with me to
Sophia. She passed the night, after we saw her last, in no very
agreeable manner. Sleep befriended her but little, and dreams less. In
the morning, when Mrs. Honour, her maid, attended her at the usual
hour, she was found already up and drest.
Persons who live two or three miles' distance in the country are
considered as next-door neighbours, and transactions at the one
house fly with incredible celerity to the other. Mrs. Honour,
therefore, had heard the whole story of Molly's shame; which she,
being of a very communicative temper, had no sooner entered the
apartment of her mistress, than she began to relate in the following
manner:-
"La, ma'am, what doth your la'ship think? the girl that your la'ship
saw at church on Sunday, whom you thought so handsome; though you
would not have thought her so handsome neither, if you had seen her
nearer, but to be sure she hath been carried before the justice for
being big with child. She seemed to me to look like a confident
slut: and to be sure she hath laid the child to young Mr. Jones. And
all the parish says Mr. Allworthy is so angry with young Mr. Jones,
that he won't see him. To be sure, one can't help pitying the poor
young man, and yet he doth not deserve much pity neither, for
demeaning himself with such kind of trumpery. Yet he is so pretty a
gentleman, I should be sorry to have him turned out of doors. I
dares to swear the wench was as willing as he; for she was always a
forward kind of body. And when wenches are so coming, young men are
not so much to be blamed neither; for to be sure they do no more
than what is natural. Indeed it is beneath them to meddle with such
dirty draggle-tails; and whatever happens to them, it is good enough
for them. And yet, to be sure, the vile baggages are most in fault.
I wishes, with all my heart, they were well to be whipped at the
cart's tail; for it is pity they should be the ruin of a pretty
young gentleman; and nobody can deny but that Mr. Jones is one of
the most handsomest young men that ever-"
She was running on thus, when Sophia, with a more peevish voice than
she had ever spoken to her in before, cried, "Prithee, why dost thou
trouble me with all this stuff? What concern have I in what Mr.
Jones doth? I suppose you are all alike. And you seem to me to be
angry it was not your own case."
"I, ma'am!" answered Mrs. Honour, "I am sorry your ladyship should
have such an opinion of me. I am sure nobody can say any such thing of
me. All the young fellows in the world may go to the divil for me.
Because I said he was a handsome man? Everybody says it as well as
I. To be sure, I never thought as it was any harm to say a young man
was handsome; but to be sure I shall never think him so any more
now; for handsome is that handsome does. A beggar wench!--"
"Stop thy torrent of impertinence," cries Sophia, "and see whether
my father wants me at breakfast."
Mrs. Honour then flung out of the room, muttering much to herself,
of which "Marry come up, I assure you," was all that could be
plainly distinguished.
Whether Mrs. Honour really deserved that suspicion, of which her
mistress gave her a hint, is a matter which we cannot indulge our
reader's curiosity by resolving. We will, however, make him amends
in disclosing what passed in the mind of Sophia.
The reader will be pleased to recollect, that a secret affection for
Mr. Jones had insensibly stolen into the bosom of this young lady.
That it had there grown to a pretty great height before she herself
had discovered it. When she first began to perceive its symptoms,
the sensations were so sweet and pleasing, that she had not resolution
