Didactic fiction; Domestic fiction; England -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction
They were no sooner gone than Booth asked the lady why she would refuse
the chariot of a gentleman who had behaved with such excessive respect?
She looked earnestly upon him, and cried, “How unkind is that question!
do you imagine I would go and leave you in such a situation? thou
knowest but little of Calista. Why, do you think I would accept this
hundred pounds from a man I dislike, unless it was to be serviceable
to the man I love? I insist on your taking it as your own and using
whatever you want of it.”
Booth protested in the solemnest manner that he would not touch a
shilling of it, saying, he had already received too many obligations at
her hands, and more than ever he should be able, he feared, to repay.
“How unkind,” answered she, “is every word you say, why will you mention
obligations? love never confers any. It doth everything for its own
sake. I am not therefore obliged to the man whose passion makes him
generous; for I feel how inconsiderable the whole world would appear to
me if I could throw it after my heart.”
Much more of this kind past, she still pressing the bank-note upon
him, and he as absolutely refusing, till Booth left the lady to dress
herself, and went to walk in the area of the prison.
Miss Matthews now applied to the governor to know by what means she
might procure the captain his liberty. The governor answered, “As he
cannot get bail, it will be a difficult matter; and money to be sure
there must be; for people no doubt expect to touch on these occasions.
When prisoners have not wherewithal as the law requires to entitle
themselves to justice, why they must be beholden to other people to give
them their liberty; and people will not, to be sure, suffer others to
be beholden to them for nothing, whereof there is good reason; for how
should we all live if it was not for these things?” “Well, well,”
said she, “and how much will it cost?” “How much!” answered he,--“How
much!--why, let me see.”--Here he hesitated some time, and then answered
“That for five guineas he would undertake to procure the captain his
discharge. “That being the sum which he computed to remain in the lady’s
pocket; for, as to the gentleman’s, he had long been acquainted with the
emptiness of it.
Miss Matthews, to whom money was as dirt (indeed she may be thought not
to have known the value of it), delivered him the bank-bill, and bid
him get it changed; for if the whole, says she, will procure him his
liberty, he shall have it this evening.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account