The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding (top young adult novels TXT) 📕

repeated the lad; “the squire’s son, I think they call ’un.”⁠—“Whither? which way did he go?” says Sophia.⁠—“Why, a little o’ one side o’ Bristol, about twenty miles off,” answered the lad.⁠—“Guide me,” says Sophia, “to the same place, and I’ll give thee a guinea, or two, if one is not sufficient.”⁠—“To be certain,” said the boy, “it is honestly worth two, when your ladyship considers what a risk I run; but, however, if your ladyship will promise me the two guineas, I’ll e’en venture: to be certain it is a sinful thing to ride about my measter’s horses; but one comfort is, I can only be turned away, and two guineas will partly make me amends.”

The bargain being thus struck, the lad turned aside into the Bristol road, and Sophia set forward in pursuit of Jones, highly contrary to the remonstrances of Mrs. Honour, who had much more desire to see London than to see Mr. Jones: for indeed she was not his friend with her mistress, as he had been guilty of some neglect in certain pecuniary civilities, which are by custom due to the waiting-gentlewoman in all love affairs, and more especially in those of a clandestine kind. This we impute rather to the carelessness of his temper than to any want of generosity; but perhaps she derived it from the latter motive. Certain it is that she hated him very bitterly on that account, and resolved to take every opportunity of injuring him with her mistress. It was therefore highly unlucky for her, that she had gone to the very same town and inn whence Jones had started, and still more unlucky was she in having stumbled on the same guide, and on this accidental discovery which Sophia had made.

Our travellers arrived at Hambrook17 at the break of day, where Honour was against her will charged to enquire the route which Mr. Jones had taken. Of this, indeed, the guide himself could have informed them; but Sophia, I know not for what reason, never asked him the question.

When Mrs. Honour had made her report from the landlord, Sophia, with much difficulty, procured some indifferent horses, which brought her to the inn where Jones had been confined rather by the misfortune of meeting with a surgeon than by having met with a broken head.

Here Honour, being again charged with a commission of enquiry, had no sooner applied herself to the landlady, and had described the person of Mr. Jones, than that sagacious woman began, in the vulgar phrase, to smell a rat. When Sophia therefore entered the room, instead of answering the maid, the landlady, addressing herself to the mistress, began the following speech: “Good lack-a-day! why there now, who would have thought it? I protest the loveliest couple that ever eye beheld. I-fackins, madam, it is no wonder the squire run on so about your ladyship. He told me indeed you was the finest lady in the world, and to be sure so you be. Mercy on him, poor heart! I bepitied him, so I did, when he used to hug his pillow, and call it his dear Madam Sophia. I did all I could to dissuade him from going to the wars: I told him there were men enow that were good for nothing else but to be killed, that had not the love of such fine ladies.”⁠—“Sure,” says Sophia, “the good woman is distracted.”⁠—“No, no,” cries the landlady, “I am not distracted. What, doth your ladyship think I don’t know then? I assure you he told me all.”⁠—“What saucy fellow,” cries Honour, “told you anything of my lady?”⁠—“No saucy fellow,” answered the landlady, “but the young gentleman you enquired after, and a very pretty young gentleman he is, and he loves Madam Sophia Western to the bottom of his soul.”⁠—“He love my lady! I’d have you to know, woman, she is meat for his master.”⁠—“Nay, Honour,” said Sophia, interrupting her, “don’t be angry with the good woman; she intends no harm.”⁠—“No, marry, don’t I,” answered the landlady, emboldened by the soft accents of Sophia; and then launched into a long narrative too tedious to be here set down, in which some passages dropped that gave a little offence to Sophia, and much more to her waiting-woman, who hence took occasion to abuse poor Jones to her mistress the moment they were alone together, saying, “that he must be a very pitiful fellow, and could have no love for a lady, whose name he would thus prostitute in an alehouse.”

Sophia did not see his behaviour in so very disadvantageous a light, and was perhaps more pleased with the violent raptures of his love (which the landlady exaggerated as much as she had done every other circumstance) than she was offended with the rest; and indeed she imputed the whole to the extravagance, or rather ebullience, of his passion, and to the openness of his heart.

This incident, however, being afterwards revived in her mind, and placed in the most odious colours by Honour, served to heighten and give credit to those unlucky occurrences at Upton, and assisted the waiting-woman in her endeavours to make her mistress depart from that inn without seeing Jones.

The landlady finding Sophia intended to stay no longer than till her horses were ready, and that without either eating or drinking, soon withdrew; when Honour began to take her mistress to task (for indeed she used great freedom), and after a long harangue, in which she reminded her of her intention to go to London, and gave frequent hints of the impropriety of pursuing a young fellow, she at last concluded with this serious exhortation: “For heaven’s sake, madam, consider what you are about, and whither you are going.”

This advice to a lady who had already rode near forty miles, and in no very agreeable season, may seem foolish enough. It may be supposed she had well considered and resolved this already; nay, Mrs. Honour, by the hints she threw out, seemed to think so; and