discovered who she was. However, as this mistake of the landlord
sufficiently accounted for those passages which Sophia had before
mistaken, she acquired some ease on that account; nor could she,
upon the whole, forbear smiling. This enraged Honour, and she cries,
"Indeed, madam, I did not think your ladyship would have made a
laughing matter of it. To be called whore by such an impudent low
rascal. Your ladyship may be angry with me, for aught I know, for
taking your part, since proffered service, they say, stinks; but to be
sure I could never bear to hear a lady mine called whore.- Nor will I
bear it. I am sure your ladyship is as virtuous a lady as ever sat
foot on English ground, and I will claw any villain's eyes out who
dares for to offer to presume for to say the least word to the
contrary. Nobody ever could say the least ill of the character of
any lady that ever I waited upon."
Hinc illae, lachrymae: in plain truth, Honour had as much love for
her mistress as most servants have, that is to say- But besides this,
her pride obliged her to support the character of the lady she
waited on; for she thought her own was in a very close manner
connected with it. In proportion as the character of her mistress
was raised, hers likewise, as she conceived, was raised with it;
and, on the contrary, she thought the one could not be lowered without
the other.
On this subject, reader, I must stop a moment, to tell thee a story.
"The famous Nell Gwynn, stepping one day, from a house where she had
made a short visit, into her coach, saw a great mob assembled, and her
footman all bloody and dirty; the fellow, being asked by his
mistress the reason of his being in that condition, answered, 'I
have been fighting, madam, with an impudent rascal who called your
ladyship a wh-re.' 'You blockhead,' replied Mrs. Gwynn, 'at this
rate you must fight every day of your life; why, you fool, all the
world knows it.' 'Do they?' cries the fellow, in a muttering voice,
after he had shut the coachdoor, 'they shan't call me a whore's
footman for all that.'
Thus the passion of Mrs. Honour appears natural enough, even if it
were to be no otherwise accounted for; but, in reality, there was
another cause of her anger; for which we must beg leave to remind
our reader of a circumstance mentioned in the above simile. There
are indeed certain liquors, which, being applied to our passions, or
to fire, produce effects the very reverse of those produced by
water, as they serve to kindle and inflame, rather than to extinguish.
Among these, the generous liquor called punch is one. It was not,
therefore, without reason, that the learned Dr. Cheney used to call
drinking punch pouring liquid fire down your throat.
Now, Mrs. Honour had unluckily poured so much of this liquid fire
down her throat, that the smoke of it began to ascend into her
pericranium, and blinded the eyes of Reason, which is there supposed
to keep her residence, while the fire itself from the stomach easily
reached the heart, and there inflamed the noble passion of pride. So
that, upon the whole, we shall cease to wonder at the violent rage
of the waiting-woman; though at first sight we must confess the
cause seems inadequate to the effect.
Sophia, and her cousin both, did all in their power to extinguish
these flames, which had roared so loudly all over the house. They at
length prevailed; or, to carry the metaphor one step farther, the
fire, having consumed all the fuel which the language affords, to wit,
every reproachful term in it, at last went out of its own accord.
But, though tranquillity was restored abovestairs, it was not so
below; where my landlady, highly resenting the injury done to the
beauty of her husband by the flesh-spades of Mrs. Honour, called aloud
for revenge and justice. As to the poor man, who had principally
suffered in the engagement, he was perfectly quiet. Perhaps the
blood which he lost might have cooled his anger: for the enemy had not
only applied her nails to his cheeks, but likewise her fist to his
nostrils, which lamented the blow with tears of blood in great
abundance. To this we may add reflections on his mistake; but indeed
nothing so effectually silenced his resentment as the manner in
which he now discovered his error; for as to the behaviour of Mrs.
Honour, it had the more confirmed him in his opinion; but he was now
assured by a person of great figure, and who was attended by a great
equipage, that one of the ladies was a woman of fashion, and his
intimate acquaintance.
By the orders of this person, the landlord now ascended, and
acquainted our fair travellers that a great gentleman below desired to
do them the honour of waiting on them. Sophia turned pale and trembled
at this message, though the reader will conclude it was too civil,
notwithstanding the landlord's blunder, to have come from her
father; but fear hath the common fault of a justice of peace, and is
apt to conclude hastily from every slight circumstance, without
examining the evidence on both sides.
To ease the reader's curiosity, therefore, rather than his
apprehensions, we proceed to inform him that an Irish peer had arrived
very late that evening at the inn, in his way to London. This
nobleman, having sallied from his supper at the hurricane before
commemorated, had seen the attendant of Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and upon a
short enquiry, was informed that her lady, with whom he was very
particularly acquainted, was above. This information he had no
sooner received, than he addressed himself to the landlord, pacified
him, and sent him upstairs with compliments rather civiller than those
which were delivered.
It may perhaps be wondered at, that the waiting-woman herself was
not the messenger employed on this occasion; but we are sorry to say
she was not at present qualified for that, or indeed for any other
office. The rum (for so the landlord chose to call the distillation
from malt) had basely taken the advantage of the fatigue which the
poor woman had undergone, and had made terrible depredations on her
noble faculties, at a time when they were very unable to resist the
attack.
We shall not describe this tragical scene too fully; but we
thought ourselves obliged, by that historic integrity which we
profess, shortly to hint a matter which we would otherwise have been
glad to have spared. Many historians, indeed, for want of this
integrity, or of diligence, to say no worse, often leave the reader to
find out these little circumstances in the dark, and sometimes to
his great confusion and perplexity.
Sophia was very soon eased of her causeless fright by the entry of
the noble peer, who was not only an intimate acquaintance of Mrs.
Fitzpatrick, but in reality a very particular friend of that lady.
To say truth, it was by his assistance that she had been enabled to
escape from her husband; for this nobleman had the same gallant
disposition with those renowned knights of whom we read in heroic
story, and had delivered many an imprisoned nymph from durance. He was
indeed as bitter an enemy to the savage authority too often
exercised by husbands and fathers, over the young and lovely of the
other sex, as ever knighterrant was to the barbarous power of
enchanters; nay, to say truth, I have often suspected that those
very enchanters with which romance everywhere abounds, were in reality
no other than the husbands of those days; and matrimony itself was,
perhaps, the enchanted castle in which the nymphs were said to be
confined.
This nobleman had an estate in the neighbourhood of Fitzpatrick, and
had been for sometime acquainted with the lady. No sooner,
therefore, did he hear of her confinement, than he earnestly applied
himself to procure her liberty; which he presently effected, not by
storming the castle, according to the example of antient heroes, but
by corrupting the governor, in conformity with the modern art of
war, in which craft is held to be preferable to valour, and gold is
found to be more irresistible than either lead or steel.
This circumstance, however, as the lady did not think it material
enough to relate to her friend, we would not at that time impart it to
the reader. We rather chose to leave him a while under a supposition
that she had found, or coined, or by some very extraordinary,
perhaps supernatural means, had possessed herself of the money with
which she had bribed her keeper, than to interrupt her narrative by
giving a hint of what seemed to her of too little importance to be
mentioned.
The peer, after a short conversation, could not forbear expressing
some surprize at meeting the lady in that place; nor could he
refrain from telling her he imagined she had been gone to Bath. Mrs.
Fitzpatrick very freely answered, "That she had been prevented in
her purpose by the arrival of a person she need not mention. In
short," says she, "I was overtaken by my husband (for I need not
affect to conceal what the world knows too well already). I had the
good fortune to escape in a most surprizing manner, and am now going
to London with this young lady, who is a near relation of mine, and
who hath escaped from as great a tyrant as my own."
His lordship, concluding that this tyrant was likewise a husband,
made a speech full of compliments to both the ladies, and as full of
invectives against his own sex; nor indeed did he avoid some oblique
glances at the matrimonial institution itself, and at the unjust
powers given by it to man over the more sensible and more
meritorious part of the species. He ended his oration with an offer of
his protection, and of his coach and six, which was instantly accepted
by Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and at last, upon her persuasions, by Sophia.
Matters being thus adjusted, his lordship took his leave, and the
ladies retired to rest, where Mrs. Fitzpatrick entertained her
cousin with many high encomiums on the character of the noble peer,
and enlarged very particularly on his great fondness for his wife;
saying, she believed he was almost the only person of high rank who
was entirely constant to the marriage bed. "Indeed," added she, "my
dear Sophy, that is a very rare virtue amongst men of condition. Never
expect it when you marry; for, believe me, if you do, you will
certainly be deceived."
A gentle sigh stole from Sophia at these words, which perhaps
contributed to form a dream of no very pleasant kind; but, as she
never revealed this dream to any one, so the reader cannot expect to
see it related here.
Chapter 9
The morning introduced in some pretty writing. A stage-coach. The
civility of chambermaids. The heroic temper of Sophia. Her generosity.
The return to it. The departure of the company, and their arrival at
London; with some remarks for the use of travellers
Those members of society, who are born to furnish the blessings of
life, now began to light their candles, in order to pursue their daily
labours, for the use of those who are born to enjoy these blessings.
The sturdy hind now attends the levee of his fellow-labourer the ox;
the cunning artificer, the diligent mechanic, spring from their hard
mattress; and now the bonny housemaid begins to repair the
disordered drum-room, while the riotous authors of that disorder, in
broken interrupted slumbers, tumble and toss, as if the hardness of
down disquieted their repose.
In simple phrase, the clock had no sooner struck seven, than the
ladies were ready for their journey; and, at their desire, his
lordship and his equipage were prepared to attend them.
And now a matter of some difficulty arose; and this was how his
lordship himself should be conveyed; for though in stage-coaches,
where passengers are properly considered as so much luggage, the
ingenious coachman stows half a dozen with perfect ease into the place
of four; for well he contrives that the fat hostess, or well-fed
alderman, may take up no more room than the slim miss, or taper
master; it being the nature of guts, when well squeezed, to give
way, and to lie in a narrow compass; yet in these vehicles, which
are called, for distinction's sake, gentlemen's coaches, though they
are often larger than the others, this method of packing is never
attempted.
His lordship would have put a short end to the difficulty, by very
gallantly desiring to mount his horse; but Mrs. Fitzpatrick would by
no means consent to it. It was therefore concluded that the Abigails
should, by turns, relieve each other on one of his lordship's
horses, which was presently equipped with a side-saddle for that
purpose.
Everything being settled at the inn, the ladies discharged their
former guides, and Sophia made a present to the landlord, partly to
repair the bruise which he had received under herself, and partly on
account of what he had suffered under the hands of her enraged
waiting-woman. And now Sophia first discovered a loss which gave her
some uneasiness; and this was of the hundred-pound bank-bill which her
father had given her at their last meeting; and which, within a very
inconsiderable trifle, was all the treasure she was at present
worth. She searched everywhere, and shook and tumbled all her things
to no purpose, the bill was not to be found: and she was at last fully
persuaded that she had lost it from her pocket when she had the
misfortune of tumbling from her horse in the dark lane, as before
recorded: a fact that seemed the more probable, as she now recollected
some discomposure in her pockets which had happened at that time,
and the great difficulty with which she had drawn forth her
handkerchief the very instant before her fall, in order to relieve the
distress of Mrs. Fitzpatrick.
Misfortunes of this kind, whatever inconveniencies they may be
attended with, are incapable of subduing a mind in which there is
any strength, without the assistance of avarice. Sophia, therefore,
though nothing could be worse timed than this accident at such a
