History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
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 more, 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 xii.
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
sufficient to check or repel them; and thus she went on cherishing a
passion of which she never once considered the consequences.
This incident relating to Molly first opened her eyes. She now first
perceived the weakness of which she had been guilty; and though it
caused the utmost perturbation in her mind, yet it had the effect of
other nauseous physic, and for the time expelled her distemper. Its
operation indeed was most wonderfully quick; and in the short
interval, while her maid was absent, so entirely removed all symptoms,
that when Mrs Honour returned with a summons from her father, she was
become perfectly easy, and had brought herself to a thorough
indifference for Mr Jones.
The diseases of the mind do in almost every particular imitate those
of the body. For which reason, we hope, that learned faculty, for whom
we have so profound a respect, will pardon us the violent hands we
have been necessitated to lay on several words and phrases, which of
right belong to them, and without which our descriptions must have
been often unintelligible.
Now there is no one circumstance in which the distempers of the mind
bear a more exact analogy to those which are called bodily, than that
aptness which both have to a relapse. This is plain in the violent
diseases of ambition and avarice. I have known ambition, when cured at
court by frequent disappointments (which are the only physic for it),
to break out again in a contest for foreman of the grand jury at an
assizes; and have heard of a man who had so far conquered avarice, as
to give away many a sixpence, that comforted himself, at last, on his
deathbed, by making a crafty and advantageous bargain concerning his
ensuing funeral, with an undertaker who had married his only child.
In the affair of love, which, out of strict conformity with the Stoic
philosophy, we shall here treat as a disease, this proneness to
relapse is no less conspicuous. Thus it happened to poor Sophia; upon
whom, the very next time she saw young Jones, all the former symptoms
returned, and from that time cold and hot fits alternately seized her
heart.
The situation of this young lady was now very different from what it
had ever been before. That passion which had formerly been so
exquisitely delicious, became now a scorpion in her bosom. She
resisted it therefore with her utmost force, and summoned every
argument her reason (which was surprisingly strong for her age) could
suggest, to subdue and expel it. In this she so far succeeded, that
she began to hope from time and absence a perfect cure. She resolved
therefore to avoid Tom Jones as much as possible; for which purpose
she began to conceive a design of visiting her aunt, to which she made
no doubt of obtaining her father's consent.
But Fortune, who had other designs in her head, put an immediate stop
to any such proceeding, by introducing an accident, which will be
related in the next chapter.
Chapter xiii.
A dreadful accident which befel Sophia. The gallant behaviour of
Jones, and the more dreadful consequence of that behaviour to the
young lady; with a short digression in favour of the female sex.
Mr Western grew every day fonder and fonder of Sophia, insomuch that
his beloved dogs themselves almost gave place to her in his
affections; but as he could not prevail on himself to abandon these,
he contrived very cunningly to enjoy their company, together with that
of his daughter, by insisting on her riding a hunting with him.
Sophia, to whom her father's word was a law, readily complied with his
desires, though she had not the least delight in a sport, which was of
too rough and masculine a nature to suit with her disposition. She had
however another motive, beside her obedience, to accompany the old
gentleman in the chase; for by her presence she hoped in some measure
to restrain his impetuosity, and to prevent him from so frequently
exposing his neck to the utmost hazard.
The strongest objection was that which would have formerly been an
inducement to her, namely, the frequent meeting with young Jones, whom
she had determined to avoid; but as the end of the hunting season now
approached, she hoped, by a short absence with her aunt, to reason
herself entirely out of her unfortunate passion; and had not any doubt
of being able to meet him in the field the subsequent season without
the least danger.
On the second day of her hunting, as she was returning from the chase,
and was arrived within a little distance from Mr Western's house, her
horse, whose mettlesome spirit required a better rider, fell suddenly
to prancing and capering in such a manner that she was in the most
imminent peril of falling. Tom Jones, who was at a little distance