Didactic fiction; Domestic fiction; England -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction
The remainder of the day Mr. Booth spent in melancholy contemplation
on his present condition. He was destitute of the common necessaries of
life, and consequently unable to subsist where he was; nor was there a
single person in town to whom he could, with any reasonable hope, apply
for his delivery. Grief for some time banished the thoughts of food from
his mind; but in the morning nature began to grow uneasy for want of
her usual nourishment: for he had not eat a morsel during the last forty
hours. A penny loaf, which is, it seems, the ordinary allowance to the
prisoners in Bridewell, was now delivered him; and while he was eating
this a man brought him a little packet sealed up, informing him that it
came by a messenger, who said it required no answer.
Mr. Booth now opened his packet, and, after unfolding several pieces of
blank paper successively, at last discovered a guinea, wrapt with great
care in the inmost paper. He was vastly surprized at this sight, as he
had few if any friends from whom he could expect such a favour, slight
as it was; and not one of his friends, as he was apprized, knew of his
confinement. As there was no direction to the packet, nor a word of
writing contained in it, he began to suspect that it was delivered to
the wrong person; and being one of the most untainted honesty, he found
out the man who gave it him, and again examined him concerning the
person who brought it, and the message delivered with it. The man
assured Booth that he had made no mistake; saying, “If your name is
Booth, sir, I am positive you are the gentleman to whom the parcel I
gave you belongs.”
The most scrupulous honesty would, perhaps, in such a situation,
have been well enough satisfied in finding no owner for the guinea;
especially when proclamation had been made in the prison that Mr. Booth
had received a packet without any direction, to which, if any person had
any claim, and would discover the contents, he was ready to deliver it
to such claimant. No such claimant being found (I mean none who knew
the contents; for many swore that they expected just such a packet, and
believed it to be their property), Mr. Booth very calmly resolved to
apply the money to his own use.
The first thing after redemption of the coat, which Mr. Booth, hungry as
he was, thought of, was to supply himself with snuff, which he had long,
to his great sorrow, been without. On this occasion he presently missed
that iron box which the methodist had so dexterously conveyed out of his
pocket, as we mentioned in the last chapter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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