History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
ever, as the great person just above-mentioned is supposed to have
made some persons eat.
Having premised thus much, we will now detain those who like our bill
of fare no longer from their diet, and shall proceed directly to serve
up the first course of our history for their entertainment.
Chapter ii.
A short description of squire Allworthy, and a fuller account of Miss
Bridget Allworthy, his sister.
In that part of the western division of this kingdom which is commonly
called Somersetshire, there lately lived, and perhaps lives still, a
gentleman whose name was Allworthy, and who might well be called the
favourite of both nature and fortune; for both of these seem to have
contended which should bless and enrich him most. In this contention,
nature may seem to some to have come off victorious, as she bestowed
on him many gifts, while fortune had only one gift in her power; but
in pouring forth this, she was so very profuse, that others perhaps
may think this single endowment to have been more than equivalent to
all the various blessings which he enjoyed from nature. From the
former of these, he derived an agreeable person, a sound constitution,
a solid understanding, and a benevolent heart; by the latter, he was
decreed to the inheritance of one of the largest estates in the
county.
This gentleman had in his youth married a very worthy and beautiful
woman, of whom he had been extremely fond: by her he had three
children, all of whom died in their infancy. He had likewise had the
misfortune of burying this beloved wife herself, about five years
before the time in which this history chuses to set out. This loss,
however great, he bore like a man of sense and constancy, though it
must be confest he would often talk a little whimsically on this head;
for he sometimes said he looked on himself as still married, and
considered his wife as only gone a little before him, a journey which
he should most certainly, sooner or later, take after her; and that he
had not the least doubt of meeting her again in a place where he
should never part with her more--sentiments for which his sense was
arraigned by one part of his neighbours, his religion by a second, and
his sincerity by a third.
He now lived, for the most part, retired in the country, with one
sister, for whom he had a very tender affection. This lady was now
somewhat past the age of thirty, an aera at which, in the opinion of
the malicious, the title of old maid may with no impropriety be
assumed. She was of that species of women whom you commend rather for
good qualities than beauty, and who are generally called, by their own
sex, very good sort of women--as good a sort of woman, madam, as you
would wish to know. Indeed, she was so far from regretting want of
beauty, that she never mentioned that perfection, if it can be called
one, without contempt; and would often thank God she was not as
handsome as Miss Such-a-one, whom perhaps beauty had led into errors
which she might have otherwise avoided. Miss Bridget Allworthy (for
that was the name of this lady) very rightly conceived the charms of
person in a woman to be no better than snares for herself, as well as
for others; and yet so discreet was she in her conduct, that her
prudence was as much on the guard as if she had all the snares to
apprehend which were ever laid for her whole sex. Indeed, I have
observed, though it may seem unaccountable to the reader, that this
guard of prudence, like the trained bands, is always readiest to go on
duty where there is the least danger. It often basely and cowardly
deserts those paragons for whom the men are all wishing, sighing,
dying, and spreading every net in their power; and constantly attends
at the heels of that higher order of women for whom the other sex have
a more distant and awful respect, and whom (from despair, I suppose,
of success) they never venture to attack.
Reader, I think proper, before we proceed any farther together, to
acquaint thee that I intend to digress, through this whole history, as
often as I see occasion, of which I am myself a better judge than any
pitiful critic whatever; and here I must desire all those critics to
mind their own business, and not to intermeddle with affairs or works
which no ways concern them; for till they produce the authority by
which they are constituted judges, I shall not plead to their
jurisdiction.
Chapter iii.
An odd accident which befel Mr Allworthy at his return home. The
decent behaviour of Mrs Deborah Wilkins, with some proper
animadversions on bastards.
I have told my reader, in the preceding chapter, that Mr Allworthy
inherited a large fortune; that he had a good heart, and no family.
Hence, doubtless, it will be concluded by many that he lived like an
honest man, owed no one a shilling, took nothing but what was his own,
kept a good house, entertained his neighbours with a hearty welcome at
his table, and was charitable to the poor, i.e. to those who had
rather beg than work, by giving them the offals from it; that he died
immensely rich and built an hospital.
And true it is that he did many of these things; but had he done
nothing more I should have left him to have recorded his own merit on
some fair freestone over the door of that hospital. Matters of a much
more extraordinary kind are to be the subject of this history, or I
should grossly mis-spend my time in writing so voluminous a work; and
you, my sagacious friend, might with equal profit and pleasure travel
through some pages which certain droll authors have been facetiously
pleased to call _The History of England_.
Mr Allworthy had been absent a full quarter of a year in London, on
some very particular business, though I know not what it was; but
judge of its importance by its having detained him so long from home,
whence he had not been absent a month at a time during the space of
many years. He came to his house very late in the evening, and after a
short supper with his sister, retired much fatigued to his chamber.
Here, having spent some minutes on his knees--a custom which he never
broke through on any account--he was preparing to step into bed, when,
upon opening the cloathes, to his great surprize he beheld an infant,
wrapt up in some coarse linen, in a sweet and profound sleep, between
his sheets. He stood some time lost in astonishment at this sight;
but, as good nature had always the ascendant in his mind, he soon
began to be touched with sentiments of compassion for the little
wretch before him. He then rang his bell, and ordered an elderly
woman-servant to rise immediately, and come to him; and in the
meantime was so eager in contemplating the beauty of innocence,
appearing in those lively colours with which infancy and sleep always
display it, that his thoughts were too much engaged to reflect that he
was in his shirt when the matron came in. She had indeed given her
master sufficient time to dress himself; for out of respect to him,
and regard to decency, she had spent many minutes in adjusting her
hair at the looking-glass, notwithstanding all the hurry in which she
had been summoned by the servant, and though her master, for aught she
knew, lay expiring in an apoplexy, or in some other fit.
It will not be wondered at that a creature who had so strict a regard
to decency in her own person, should be shocked at the least deviation
from it in another. She therefore no sooner opened the door, and saw
her master standing by the bedside in his shirt, with a candle in his
hand, than she started back in a most terrible fright, and might
perhaps have swooned away, had he not now recollected his being
undrest, and put an end to her terrors by desiring her to stay without
the door till he had thrown some cloathes over his back, and was
become incapable of shocking the pure eyes of Mrs Deborah Wilkins,
who, though in the fifty-second year of her age, vowed she had never
beheld a man without his coat. Sneerers and prophane wits may perhaps
laugh at her first fright; yet my graver reader, when he considers the
time of night, the summons from her bed, and the situation in which
she found her master, will highly justify and applaud her conduct,
unless the prudence which must be supposed to attend maidens at that
period of life at which Mrs Deborah had arrived, should a little
lessen his admiration.
When Mrs Deborah returned into the room, and was acquainted by her
master with the finding the little infant, her consternation was
rather greater than his had been; nor could she refrain from crying
out, with great horror of accent as well as look, “My good sir! what's
to be done?” Mr Allworthy answered, she must take care of the child
that evening, and in the morning he would give orders to provide it a
nurse. “Yes, sir,” says she; “and I hope your worship will send out
your warrant to take up the hussy its mother, for she must be one of
the neighbourhood; and I should be glad to see her committed to
Bridewell, and whipt at the cart's tail. Indeed, such wicked sluts
cannot be too severely punished. I'll warrant 'tis not her first, by
her impudence in laying it to your worship.” “In laying it to me,
Deborah!” answered Allworthy: “I can't think she hath any such design.
I suppose she hath only taken this method to provide for her child;
and truly I am glad she hath not done worse.” “I don't know what is
worse,” cries Deborah, “than for such wicked strumpets to lay their
sins at honest men's doors; and though your worship knows your own
innocence, yet the world is censorious; and it hath been many an
honest man's hap to pass for the father of children he never begot;
and if your worship should provide for the child, it may make the
people the apter to believe; besides, why should your worship provide
for what the parish is obliged to maintain? For my own part, if it was
an honest man's child, indeed--but for my own part, it goes against me
to touch these misbegotten wretches, whom I don't look upon as my
fellow-creatures. Faugh! how it stinks! It doth not smell like a
Christian. If I might be so bold to give my advice, I would have it
put in a basket, and sent out and laid at the churchwarden's door. It
is a good night, only a little rainy and windy; and if it was well
wrapt up, and put in a warm basket, it is two to one but it lives till
it is found in the morning. But if it should not, we have discharged
our duty in taking proper care of it; and it is, perhaps, better for
such creatures to die in a state of innocence, than to grow up and
imitate their mothers; for nothing better can be expected of them.”
There were some strokes in this speech which perhaps would have
offended Mr Allworthy, had he strictly attended to it; but he had now
got one of his fingers into the infant's hand, which, by its gentle
pressure, seeming to implore his assistance, had certainly out-pleaded
the eloquence of Mrs Deborah, had it been ten times greater than it
was. He now gave Mrs Deborah positive orders to take the child to her
own bed, and to call up a maid-servant to provide it pap, and other
things, against it waked. He likewise ordered that proper cloathes
should be procured for it early in the morning, and that it should be
brought to himself as soon as he was stirring.
Such was the discernment of Mrs Wilkins, and such the respect she bore
her master, under whom she enjoyed a most excellent place, that her
scruples gave way to his peremptory commands; and she took the child
under her arms, without any apparent disgust at the illegality of its
birth; and declaring it was a sweet little infant, walked off with it
to her own chamber.
Allworthy here betook himself to those pleasing slumbers which a heart
that hungers after goodness is apt to enjoy when thoroughly satisfied.