master might have made some difference, methinks, between me and the
other servants. I suppose he hath left me mourning; but, i'fackins! if
that be all, the devil shall wear it for him, for me. I'd have his
worship know I am no beggar. I have saved five hundred pound in his
service, and after all to be used in this manner.- It is a fine
encouragement to servants to be honest; and to be sure, if I have
taken a little something now and then, others have taken ten times
as much; and now we are all put in a lump together. If so be that it
be so, the legacy may go to the devil with him that gave it. No, I
won't give it up neither, because that will please some folks. No,
I'll buy the gayest gown I can get, and dance over the old
curmudgeon's grave in it. This is my reward for taking his part so
often, when all the country have cried shame of him, for breeding up
his bastard in that manner; but he is going now where he must pay
for all. It would have become him better to have repented of his
sins on his deathbed, than to glory in them, and give away his
estate out of his own family to a misbegotten child. Found in his bed,
forsooth! a pretty story! ay, ay, that hide know where to find. Lord
forgive him! I warrant he hath many more bastards to answer for, if
the truth was known. One comfort is, they will all be known where he
is a going now.- 'The servants will find some token to remember me
by.' Those were the very words; I shall never forget them, if I was to
live a thousand years. Ay, ay, I shall remember you for huddling me
among the servants. One would have thought he might have mentioned my
name as well as that of Square; but he is a gentleman forsooth, though
he had not clothes on his back when he came hither first. Marry come
up with such gentlemen! though he hath lived here this many years, I
don't believe there is arrow a servant in the house ever saw the
colour of his money. The devil shall wait upon such a gentleman for
me." Much more of the like kind she muttered to herself; but this
taste shall suffice to the reader.
Neither Thwackum nor Square were much better satisfied with their
legacies. Though they breathed not their resentment so loud, yet
from the discontent which appeared in their countenances, as well as
from the following dialogue, we collect that no great pleasure reigned
in their minds.
About an hour after they had left the sickroom, Square met
Thwackum in the hall and accosted him thus: "Well, sir, have you heard
any news of your friend since we parted from him?"- "If you mean Mr.
Allworthy," answered Thwackum, "I think you might rather give him
the appellation of your friend; for he seems to me to have deserved
that title."- "The title is as good on your side," replied Square,
"for his bounty, such as it is, hath been equal to both."- "I should
not have mentioned it first," cries Thwackum, "but since you begin, I
must inform you I am of a different opinion. There is a wide
distinction between voluntary favours and rewards. The duty I have
done in this family, and the care I have taken in the education of his
two boys, are services for which some men might have expected a
greater return. I would not have you imagine I am therefore
dissatisfied; for St. Paul hath taught me to be content with the
little I have. Had the modicum been less, I should have known my duty.
But though the Scriptures obliges me to remain contented, it doth not
enjoin me to shut my eyes to my own merit, nor restrain me from seeing
when I am injured by an unjust comparison."- "Since you provoke me,"
returned Square, "that injury is done to me; nor did I ever imagine
Mr. Allworthy had held my friendship so light, as to put me in balance
with one who received his wages. I know to what it is owing; it
proceeds from those narrow principles which you have been so long
endeavouring to infuse into him, in contempt of everything which is
great and noble. The beauty and loveliness of friendship is too strong
for dim eyes, nor can it be perceived by any other medium than that
unerring rule of right, which you have so often endeavoured to
ridicule, that you have perverted your friend's understanding."- "I
wish," cries Thwackum, in a rage, "I wish, for the sake of his soul,
your damnable doctrines have not perverted his faith. It is to this
I impute his present behaviour, so unbecoming a Christian. Who but
an atheist could think of leaving the world without having first
made up his account? without confessing his sins, and receiving that
absolution which he knew he had one in the house duly authorized to
give him? He will feel the want of these necessaries when it is too
late, when he is arrived at that place where there is wailing and
gnashing of teeth. It is then he will find in what mighty stead that
heathen goddess, that virtue, which you and all other deists of the
age adore, will stand him. He will then summon his priest, when
there is none to be found, and will lament the want of that
absolution, without which no sinner can be safe."- "If it be so
material," says Square, "why don't you present it him of your own
accord?" "It hath no virtue," cries Thwackum, "but to those who have
sufficient grace to require it. But why do I talk thus to a heathen
and an unbeliever? It is you that taught him this lesson, for which
you have been well rewarded in this world, as I doubt not your
disciple will soon be in the other."- "I know not what you mean by
reward," said Square; "but if you hint at that pitiful memorial of our
friendship, which he hath thought fit to bequeath me, I despise it;
and nothing but the unfortunate situation of my circumstances should
prevail on me to accept it."
The physician now arrived, and began to inquire of the two
disputants, how we all did above-stairs? "In a miserable way,"
answered Thwackum. "It is no more than I expected," cries the
doctor: "but pray what symptoms have appeared since I left you?"- "No
good ones, I am afraid," replied Thwackum: "after what past at our
departure, I think there were little hopes." The bodily physician,
perhaps, misunderstood the curer of souls; and before they came to
an explanation, Mr. Blifil came to them with a most melancholy
countenance, and acquainted them that he brought sad news, that his
mother was dead at Salisbury; that she had been seized on the road
home with the gout in her head and stomach, which had carried her
off in a few hours. "Good-lack-a-day!" says the doctor. "One cannot
answer for events; but I wish I had been at hand, to have been
called in. The gout is a distemper which it is difficult to treat; yet
I have been remarkably successful in it." Thwackum and Square both
condoled with Mr. Blifil for the loss of his mother, which the one
advised him to bear like a man, and the other like a Christian. The
young gentleman said he knew very well we were all mortal, and he
would endeavour to submit to his loss as well as he could. That he
could not, however, help complaining a little against the peculiar
severity of his fate, which brought the news of so great a calamity to
him by surprize, and that at a time when he hourly expected the
severest blow he was capable of feeling from the malice of fortune. He
said, the present occasion would put to the test those excellent
rudiments which he had learnt from Mr. Thwackum and Mr. Square; and it
would be entirely owing to them, if he was enabled to survive such
misfortunes.
It was now debated whether Mr. Allworthy should be informed of the
death of his sister. This the doctor violently opposed; in s sister. n
which, I believe, the whole college would agree with him: but Mr.
Blifil said, he had received such positive and repeated orders from
his uncle, never to keep any secret from him for fear of the
disquietude which it might give him, that he durst not think of
disobedience, whatever might be the consequence. He said, for his
part, considering the religious and philosophic temper of his uncle,
he could not agree with the doctor in his apprehensions. He was
therefore resolved to communicate it to him: for if his uncle
recovered (as he heartily prayed he might) he knew he would never
forgive an endeavour to keep a secret of this kind from him.
The physician was forced to submit to these resolutions, which the
two other learned gentlemen very highly commended. So together moved
Mr. Blifil and the doctor toward the sickroom; where the physician
first entered, and approached the bed, in order to feel his
patient's pulse, which he had no sooner done, than he declared he
was much better; that the last application had succeeded to a miracle,
and had brought the fever to intermit: so that, he said, there
appeared now to be as little danger as he had before apprehended there
were hopes.
To say the truth, Mr. Allworthy's situation had never been so bad as
the great caution of the doctor had represented it: but as a wise
general never despises his enemy, however inferior that enemy's
force may be, so neither doth a wise physician ever despise a
distemper, however inconsiderable. As the former preserves the same
strict discipline, places the same guards, and employs the same
scouts, though the enemy be never so weak; so the latter maintains the
same gravity of countenance, and shakes his head with the same
significant air, let the distemper be never so trifling. And both,
among many other good ones, may assign this solid reason for their
conduct, that by these means the greater glory redounds to them if
they gain the victory, and the less disgrace if by any unlucky
accident they should happen to be conquered.
Mr. Allworthy had no sooner lifted up his eyes, and thanked Heaven
for these hopes of his recovery, than Mr. Blifil drew near, with a
very dejected aspect, and having applied his handkerchief to his
eye, either to wipe away his tears, or to do as Ovid somewhere
expresses himself on another occasion,
Si nullus erit, tamen excute nullum,
If there be none, then wipe away that none,
he communicated to his uncle what the reader hath been just before
acquainted with.
Allworthy received the news with concern, with patience, and with
resignation. He dropt a tender tear, then composed his countenance,
and at last cried, "The Lord's will be done in everything."
He now enquired for the messenger; but Blifil told him it had been
impossible to detain him a moment; for he appeared by the great
hurry he was in to have some business of importance on his hands; that
he complained of being hurried and driven and torn out of his life,
and repeated many times, that if he could divide himself into four
quarters, he knew how to dispose of every one.
Allworthy then desired Blifil to take care of the funeral. He
said, he would have his sister deposited in his own chapel; and as
to the particulars, he left them to his own discretion, only
mentioning the person whom he would have employed on this occasion.
Chapter 9
Which, among other things, may serve as a comment on that saying
of AEschines, that "drunkenness shows the mind of a man, as a
mirrour reflects his person"
The reader may perhaps wonder at hearing nothing of Mr. Jones in.
the last chapter. In fact, his behaviour was so different from that of
the persons there mentioned, that we chose not to confound his name
with theirs.
When the good man had ended his speech, Jones was the last who
deserted the room. Thence he retired to his own apartment, to give
vent to his concern; but the restlessness of his mind would not suffer
him to remain long there; he slipped softly therefore to Allworthy's
chamber-door, where he listened a considerable time without hearing
any kind of motion within, unless a violent snoring, which at last his
fears misrepresented as groans. This so alarmed him, that he could not
forbear entering the room; where he found the good man in the bed,
in a sweet composed sleep, and his nurse snoring in the
above-mentioned hearty manner, at the bed's feet. He immediately
took the only method of silencing this thorough bass, whose music he
feared might disturb Mr. Allworthy; and then sitting down by the
nurse, he remained motionless till Blifil and the doctor came in
together and waked the sick man, in order that the doctor might feel
his pulse, and that the other might communicate to him that piece of
news, which, had Jones been apprized of it, would have had great
difficulty of finding its way to Mr. Allworthy's ear at such a season.
When he first heard Blifil tell his uncle this story, Jones could
hardly contain the wrath which kindled in him at the other's
indiscretion, especially as the doctor shook his head, and declared
his unwillingness to have the matter mentioned to his patient. But
as his passion did not so far deprive him of all use of his
understanding, as to hide from him the consequences which any
violent expression towards Blifil might have on the sick, this
apprehension stilled his rage at the present; and he grew afterwards
so satisfied with finding that this news had, in fact, produced no
mischief, that he suffered his anger to die in his own bosom,
without ever mentioning it to Blifil.
The physician dined that day at Mr. Allworthy's; and having after
dinner visited his patient, he returned to the company, and told them,
that he had now the satisfaction to say, with assurance, that his
patient was out of all danger: that he had brought his fever to a
perfect intermission, and doubted not by throwing in the bark to
prevent its return.
This account so pleased Jones, and threw him into such immoderate
excess of rapture, that he might be truly said to be drunk with joy-
an intoxication which greatly forwards the effects of wine; and as he
