get their livelihood by people of fashion, contract as much
insolence to the rest of mankind, as if they really belonged to that
rank themselves.
Chapter 8
Jones arrives at Gloucester, and goes to the Bell; the character
of that house, and of a petty-fogger which he there meets with
Mr. Jones and Partridge, or Little Benjamin (which epithet of Little
was perhaps given him ironically, he being in reality near six feet
high), having left their last quarters in the manner before described,
travelled on to Gloucester without meeting any adventure worth
relating.
Being arrived here, they chose for their house of entertainment
the sign of the Bell, an excellent house indeed, and which I do most
seriously recommend to every reader who shall visit this antient city.
The master of it is brother to the great preacher Whitefield; but is
absolutely untainted with the pernicious principles of Methodism, or
of any other heretical sect. He is indeed a very honest plain man,
and, in my opinion, not likely to create any disturbance either in
church or state. His wife hath, I believe, had much pretension to
beauty, and is still a very fine woman. Her person and deportment
might have made a shining figure in the politest assemblies; but
though she must be conscious of this and many other perfections, she
seems perfectly contented with, and resigned to, that state of life to
which she is called; and this resignation is entirely owing to the
prudence and wisdom of her temper; for she is at present as free
from any Methodistical notions as her husband: I say at present; for
she freely confesses that her brother's documents made at first some
impression upon her, and that she had put herself to the expense of
a long hood, in order to attend the extraordinary emotions of the
Spirit; having found, during an experiment of three weeks, no
emotions, she says, worth a farthing, she very wisely laid by her
hood, and abandoned the sect. To be concise, she is a very friendly
good-natured woman; and so industrious to oblige, that the guests must
be of very morose disposition who are not extremely well satisfied
in her house.
Mrs. Whitefield happened to be in the yard when Jones and his
attendant marched in. Her sagacity soon discovered in the air of our
heroe something which distinguished him from the vulgar. She ordered
her servants, therefore, immediately to show him into a room, and
presently afterwards invited him to dinner with herself; which
invitation he very thankfully accepted; for indeed much less agreeable
company than that of Mrs. Whitefield, and a much worse entertainment
than she had provided, would have been welcome after so long fasting
and so long a walk.
Besides Mr. Jones and the good governess of the mansion, there sat
down at table an attorney of Salisbury, indeed very same who had
brought the news of Blifil's death to Mr. Allworthy, and whose name,
which I think we did not before mention, was Dowling: there was
likewise present another person, who stiled himself a lawyer, and
who lived somewhere near Linlinch, in Somersetshire. This fellow, I
say, stiled himself a lawyer, but was indeed a most vile petty-fogger,
without sense or knowledge of any kind; one of those who may be termed
train-bearers to the law; a sort of supernumeraries in the profession,
who are the hackneys of attorneys, and will ride more miles for
half-a-crown than a postboy.
During the time of dinner, the Somersetshire lawyer recollected
the face of Jones, which he had seen at Mr. Allworthy's; for he had
often visited in that gentleman's kitchen. He therefore took
occasion to enquire after the good family there with that
familiarity which would have become an intimate friend or acquaintance
of Mr. Allworthy; and indeed he did all in his power to insinuate
himself to be such, though he had never had the honour of speaking
to any person in that family higher than the butler. Jones answered
all his questions with much civility, though he never remembered to
have seen the petty-fogger before; and though he concluded, from the
outward appearance and behaviour of the man, that he usurped a freedom
with his betters, to which he was by no means intitled.
As the conversation of fellows of this kind is of all others the
most detestable to men of any sense, the cloth was no sooner removed
than Mr. Jones withdrew, and a little barbarously left poor Mrs.
Whitefield to do a penance, which I have often heard Mr. Timothy
Harris, and other publicans of good taste, lament, as the severest lot
annexed to their calling, namely, that of being obliged to keep
company with their guests.
Jones had no sooner quitted the room, than the petty-fogger, in a
whispering tone, asked Mrs. Whitefield, "If she knew who that fine
spark was?" She answered, "She had never seen the gentleman
before."- "The gentleman, indeed!" replied the petty-fogger; "a
pretty gentleman, truly! Why, he's the bastard of a fellow who was
hanged for horse-stealing. He was dropt at Squire Allworthy's door,
where one of the servants found him in a box so full of rainwater,
that he would certainly have been drowned, had he not been reserved
for another fate."- "Ay, ay, you need not mention it, I protest: we
understand what that fate is very well," cries Dowling, with a most
facetious grin.- "Well," continued the other, "the squire ordered him
to be taken in; for he is a timbersome man everybody knows, and was
afraid of drawing himself into a scrape; and there the bastard was
bred up, and fed, and cloathified all to the world like any gentleman;
and there he got one of the servant-maids with child, and persuaded
her to swear it to the squire himself; and afterwards he broke the arm
of one Mr. Thwackum a clergyman, only because he reprimanded him for
following whores; and afterwards he snapt a pistol at Mr. Blifil
behind his back; and once, when Squire Allworthy was sick, he got a
drum, and beat it all over the house to prevent him from sleeping; and
twenty other pranks he hath played, for all which, about four or
five days ago, just before I left the country, the squire stripped him
stark naked, and turned him out of doors."
"And very justly too, I protest," cries Dowling; "I would turn my
own son out of doors, if he was guilty of half as much. And pray
what is the name of this pretty gentleman?"
"The name o' un?" answered Petty-fogger; "why, he is called Thomas
Jones."
"Jones!" answered Dowling a little eagerly; "what, Mr. Jones that
lived at Mr. Allworthy's? was that the gentleman that dined with
us?"- "The very same," said the other. "I have heard of the
gentleman," cries Dowling, "often; but I never heard any ill character
of him."- "And I am sure," says Mrs. Whitefield, "if half what this
gentleman hath said be true, Mr. Jones hath the most deceitful
countenance I ever saw; for sure his looks promise something very
different; and I must say, for the little I have seen of him, he is as
civil a well-bred man as you would wish to converse with."
Petty-fogger calling to mind that he had not been sworn, as he
usually was, before he gave his evidence, now bound what he had
declared with so many oaths and imprecations that the landlady's
ears were shocked, and she put a stop to his swearing, by assuring him
of her belief. Upon which he said, "I hope, madam, you imagine I would
scorn to tell such things of any man, unless I knew them to be true.
What interest have I in taking away the reputation of a mam who
never injured me? I promise you every syllable of what I have said
is fact, and the whole country knows it."
As Mrs. Whitefield had no reason to suspect that the petty-fogger
had any motive or temptation to abuse Jones, the reader cannot blame
her for believing what he so confidently affirmed with many oaths. She
accordingly gave up her skill in physiognomy, and henceforwards
conceived so ill an opinion of her guest, that she heartily wished him
out of her house.
This dislike was now farther increased by a report which Mr.
Whitefield made from the kitchen, where Partridge had informed the
company, "that though he carried the knapsack, and contented himself
with staying among servants, while Tom Jones (as he called him) was
regaling in the parlour, he was not his servant, but only a friend and
companion, and as good a gentleman as Mr. Jones himself."
Dowling sat all this while silent, biting his fingers, making faces,
grinning, and looking wonderfully arch; at last he opened his lips,
and protested that the gentleman looked like another sort of man. He
then called for his bill with the utmost haste, declared he must be at
Hereford that evening, lamented his great hurry of business, and
wished he could divide himself into twenty pieces, in order to be at
once in twenty places.
The petty-fogger now likewise departed, and then Jones desired the
favour of Mrs. Whitefield's company to drink tea with him; but she
refused, and with a manner so different from that with which she had
received him at dinner, that it a little surprized him. And now he
soon perceived her behaviour totally changed; for instead of that
natural affability which we have before celebrated, she wore a
constrained severity on her countenance, which was so disagreeable
to Mr. Jones, that he resolved, however late, to quit the house that
evening.
He did indeed account somewhat unfairly for this sudden change;
for besides some hard and unjust surmises concerning female fickleness
and mutability, he began to suspect that he owed this want of civility
to his want of horses; a sort of animals which, as they dirty no
sheets, are thought in inns to pay better for their beds than their
riders, and are therefore considered as the more desirable company;
but Mrs. Whitefield, to do her justice, had a much more liberal way of
thinking. She was perfectly well-bred, and could be very civil to a
gentleman, though he walked on foot. In reality, she looked on our
heroe as a sorry scoundrel, and therefore treated him as such, for
which not even Jones himself, had he known as much as the reader,
could have blamed her; nay, on the contrary, he must have approved her
conduct, and have esteemed her the more for the disrespect shown
towards himself. This is indeed a most aggravating circumstance, which
attends depriving men unjustly of their reputation; for a man who is
conscious of having an ill character, cannot justly be angry with
those who neglect and slight him; but ought rather to despise such
as affect his conversation, unless where a perfect intimacy must
have convinced them that their friend's character hath been falsely
and injuriously aspersed.
This was not, however, the case of Jones; for as he was a perfect
stranger to the truth, so he was with good reason offended at the
treatment he received. He therefore paid his reckoning and departed,
highly against the will of Mr. Partridge, who having remonstrated much
against it to no purpose, at last condescended to take up his knapsack
and to attend his friend.
Chapter 9
Containing several dialogues between Jones and Partridge, concerning
love, cold, hunger, and other matters; with the lucky and narrow
escape of Partridge, as he was on the very brink of making a fatal
discovery to his friend
The shadows began now to descend larger from the high mountains; the
feathered creation had betaken themselves to their rest. Now the
highest order of mortals were sitting down to their dinners, and the
lowest order to their suppers. In a word, the clock struck five just
as Mr. Jones took his leave of Gloucester; an hour at which (as it was
now mid-winter) the dirty fingers of Night would have drawn her
sable curtain over the universe, had not the moon forbid her, who now,
with a face broad and as red as those of some jolly mortals, who, like
her, turn night into day, began to rise from her bed, where she had
slumbered away the day, in order to sit up all night. Jones had not
travelled far before he paid his compliments to that beautiful planet,
and, turning to his companion, asked him if he had ever beheld so
delicious an evening? Partridge making no ready answer to his
question, he proceeded to comment on the beauty of the moon, and
repeated some passages from Milton, who hath certainly excelled all
other poets in his description of the heavenly luminaries. He then
told Partridge the story from the Spectator, of two lovers who had
agreed to entertain themselves when they were at a great distance from
each other, by repairing, at a certain fixed hour, to look at the
moon; thus pleasing themselves with the thought that they were both
employed in contemplating the same object at the same time. "Those
lovers," added he, "must have had souls truly capable of feeling all
the tenderness of the sublimest of all human passions."- "Very
probably," cries Partridge: "but I envy them more, if they had
bodies incapable of feeling cold; for I am almost frozen to death, and
am very much afraid I shall lose a piece of my nose before we get to
another house of entertainment. Nay, truly, we may well expect some
judgment should happen to us for our folly in running away so by night
from one of the most excellent inns I ever set my foot into. I am sure
I never saw more good things in my life, and the greatest lord in
the land cannot live better in his own house than he may there. And to
forsake such a house, and go a rambling about the country, the Lord
knows whither, per devia rura viarum, I say nothing for my part; but
some people might not have charity enough to conclude we were in our
sober senses."- "Fie upon it, Mr. Partridge!" says Jones, "have a
better heart; consider you are going to face an enemy; and are you
afraid of facing a little cold? I wish, indeed, we had a guide to
