The Adventures of Roderick Random
apothecary cried, “Ah, coquin! vere is my shild?” “The lady,” said I,
“is above stairs, unhurt by me, and will, a few months hence, I believe
reward your concern.” Here she called to them, and desired they would
let the wretch go, and trouble themselves no further about him. To
which request her father consented, observing, nevertheless, that my
conversation was ‘very mysterious.’
Finding it impossible to vindicate my innocence, I left the house
immediately, and went to the schoolmaster, with an intention of
clearing myself to him, and asking his advice with regard to my future
conduct; but, to my inexpressible vexation, he was gone to the country,
where he would stay two or three days. I returned with a design of
consulting some acquaintance I had acquired in the neighbourhood; but
my story had taken air through the officiousness of the servants, and
not one of my friends would vouchsafe me a hearing. Thus I found
myself, by the iniquity of mankind, in a much more deplorable condition
than ever: for though I had been formerly as poor, my reputation was
without blemish, and my health unimpaired till now; but at present my
good name was lost, my money gone, my friends were alienated, my body
was infected by an odious distemper; and my faithful Strap, who alone
could yield me pity and assistance, absent I knew not where.
The first resolution I could take in this melancholy conjuncture, was
to remove my clothes to the house of the person with whom I had
formerly lodged, where I remained two days in hopes of getting another
place by the interest of Mr. Concordance, to whom I made no doubt of
being able to vindicate my character; but in this supposition I
reckoned without my best, for Lavement took care to be beforehand with
me; and when I attempted to explain the whole affair to the
schoolmaster, I found him so prepossessed against me, that he would
scarce hear me to an end; but when I had finished my justification,
shook his head, and beginning with his usual exclamation said, “That
won’t go down with me. I am very sorry I should have the misfortune of
being concerned in the affair, but, however, shall be more cautious for
the future. I will trust no man from henceforward—no, not my father who
begat me, nor the brother who lay with me in my mother’s womb: should
Daniel rise from the dead, I would think him an impostor; and were the
genius of truth to appear, would question its veracity!” I told him,
that one day it was possible he might be convinced of the injury I had
suffered, and repent of his premature determination. To which remark he
answered, the proof of my innocence would make his bowels vibrate with
joy; “but till that shall happen,” continued he, “I must beg to have no
manner of connection with you—my reputation is at stake. I shall be
looked upon as your accomplice and abettor—people will say Jonathan
Wild was but a type of me—boys will hoot at me as I pass along; and the
cinder-wenches belch forth reproaches wafted in a gale impregnated with
gin: I shall be notorious—the very butt of slander, and sink of
infamy!” I was not in a humour to relish the climax of expressions upon
which this gentleman valued himself in all his discourses; but, without
any ceremony, took my leave, cursed with every sentiment of horror
which my situation could suggest. I considered, however, in the
intervals of my despondence, that I must, in some shape suit my expense
to my calamitous circumstances, and with that view hired an apartment
in a garret near St. Giles’s, at the rate of nine-pence per week.
I one day, when I sat in this solitary retreat musing upon the
unhappiness of my fate, was alarmed by a groan that issued from a
chamber contiguous to mine, into which I immediately ran, and found a
woman stretched on a miserable truckle bed, without any visible signs
of life. Having applied a smelling bottle to her nose, the blood began
to revisit her cheeks, and she opened her eyes; but, good heaven! what
were the emotions of my soul, when I discovered her to be the same
individual lady who had triumphed over my heart, and to whose fate I
had almost been inseparably joined! Her deplorable situation filled my
breast with compassion. She knew me immediately; and, straining me
gently in her arms, shed a torrent of tears, which I could not help
increasing. At length, casting a languishing look at me, she pronounced
with a feeble voice, “Dear Mr. Random, I do not deserve this concern at
your hands: I am a vile creature, who had a base design upon your
person—suffer me, to expiate that, and all my other crimes, by a
miserable death, which will not fail to overtake me in a few hours.” I
encouraged her as much as I could, told her I forgave all her
intentions with regard to me; and that, although my circumstances were
extremely low, I would share my last farthing with her. I begged in the
meantime to know the immediate cause of that fit from which she had
just recovered, and said, I would endeavour by my skill to prevent any
more such attacks. She seemed very much affected with this expression,
took my hand, and pressed it to her lips, saying, “You are too
generous! I wish I could live to express my gratitude—but alas! I
perish for want.” Then shutting her eyes, she relapsed into another
swoon. Such extremity of distress must have waked the most obdurate
heart to sympathy and compassion; what effect then must it have had on
mine, that was naturally prone to every tender passion? I ran
downstairs, and sent my landlady to a chemist’s shop for some cinnamon
water, while I, returning to this unfortunate creature’s chamber, used
all the means in my power to bring her to herself; this aim with much
difficulty I accomplished, and made her drink a glass of the cordial to
recruit her spirits: then I prepared a little mulled red wine and a
toast, which having taken, she found herself thoroughly revived, and
informed me, that she had not tasted food for eight and forty hours
before. As I was impatient to know the occasion and nature of her
calamity, she gave me to understand, that she was a woman of the town
by profession; that in the course of her adventures she found herself
dangerously infected with a distemper, to which all of her class are
particularly subject; that her malady gaining ground every day, she
became loathsome to herself and offensive to others: when she resolved
to retire to some obscure corner where she might be cured with as
little noise and expense as possible; that she had accordingly chosen
this place of retreat, and put herself into the hands of an advertising
doctor, who having fleeced her of all the money she had, or could
procure, left her three days ago in a worse condition than that in
which he found her; that except the clothes on her back, she had pawned
or sold everything that belonged to her to satisfy that rapacious
quack, and quiet the clamour of her landlady, who still persisted in
her threats to turn her out into the street. After having moralised
upon these particulars, I proposed that she should lodge in the same
room with me, an expedient that would save some money: and assured her,
I would undertake to cure her as well as my own, during which she
should partake of all the conveniences that I could afford to myself.
She embraced my offer with unfeigned acknowledgment, and I began to put
it in practice immediately. I found her not only an agreeable
companion, whose conversation greatly alleviated my chagrin, but also a
careful nurse, who served me with the utmost fidelity and affection.
One day, while I testified my surprise that a woman of her beauty, good
sense, and education (for she had a large portion of each), could be
reduced to such an infamous and miserable way of life, she answered
with a sigh, “These very advantages were the cause of my undoing.” This
remarkable reply inflamed my curiosity to such a degree, that I begged
she would favour me with the particulars of her story, and she complied
in these words.
CHAPTER XXII
The History of Miss Williams
‘My father was an eminent merchant in the city who having, in the
course of trade, suffered very considerable losses, retired in his old
age with his wife to a small estate in the country, which he had
purchased with the remains of his fortune. At that time, I being but
eight years of age, was left in town for the convenience of education,
boarded with an aunt, who was a rigid presbyterian, and confined me so
closely to what she called the duties of religion, that in time I grew
weary of her doctrines, and by degrees received an aversion for the
good books, she daily recommended to my perusal. As I increased in age,
and appeared with a person not disagreeable, I contracted a good deal
of acquaintance among my own sex; one of whom, after having lamented
the restraint I was under from the narrowness of my aunt’s sentiments,
told me I must now throw off the prejudices of opinion imbibed under
her influence and example, and learn to think for myself; for which
purpose she advised me to read Shaftsbury, Tindal, Hobbes, and all the
authors that are remarkable for their deviation from the old way of
thinking, and by comparing one with the other, I should soon be able to
form a system of my own. I followed her advice; and whether it was
owing to my prepossession against what I had formerly read, or the
clearness of argument in these my new instructors, I know not; but I
studied them with pleasure, and in a short time became a professed
freethinker. Proud of my improvement, I argued in all companies, and
that with such success, that I soon acquired the reputation of a
philosopher, and few people durst undertake me in a dispute. I grew
vain upon my good fortune, and at length pretended to make my aunt a
proselyte to my opinion; but she no sooner perceived my drift than,
taking the alarm, she wrote to my father an account of my heresy, and
conjured him, as he tendered the good of my soul, to remove me
immediately from the dangerous place where I had contracted such sinful
principles. Accordingly, my father ordered me into the country, where I
arrived in the fifteenth year of my age, and, by his command gave him a
detail of all the articles of my faith, which he did not find so
unreasonable as they had been represented. Finding myself suddenly
deprived of the company and pleasures of the town, I grew melancholy
and it was some time before I could relish my situation. But solitude
became every day more and more familiar to me and I consoled myself in
my retreat with the enjoyment of a good library, at such times as were
not employed in the management of the family (for my mother had been
dead three years), in visiting, or some other party of rural diversion.
Having more imagination than judgment, I addicted myself too much to
poetry and romance; and, in short, was looked upon as a very
extraordinary person by everybody in the country where I resided.
‘I had one evening strayed, with a book in my hand, into a wood that
bordered on the high road, at a little distance from my father’s house,
when a certain drunken squire, riding by, perceived me, and crying,
“Holloa, there’s a charming creature!” alighted in a moment, caught me
in his arms, and treated me so rudely that I shrieked as loud as I
could, and in the meantime opposed his violence with all the strength
that rage and resentment could inspire. During this struggle, another
horseman came up, who, seeing a lady so unworthily used, dismounted,
and flew to my assistance. The squire, mad with disappointment, or
provoked with the reproaches of the other gentleman, quitted me, and
running to his horse, drew a pistol from the saddle, and fired it at my
protector, who happily receiving no damage, went up, and, with the