Didactic fiction; Domestic fiction; England -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction
with you?" "O, anywhere: where your honour pleases," cries the
bailiff. "Then suppose we go to Brown's coffee-house," said the
prisoner. "No," answered the bailiff, "that will not do; that's in the
verge of the court." "Why then, to the nearest tavern," said Booth.
"No, not to a tavern," cries the other, "that is not a place of
security; and you know, captain, your honour is a shy cock; I have
been after your honour these three months. Come, sir, you must go to
my house, if you please." "With all my heart," answered Booth, "if it
be anywhere hereabouts." "Oh, it is but a little ways off," replied
the bailiff; "it is only in Gray's-inn-lane, just by almost." He then
called a coach, and desired his prisoner to walk in.
Booth entered the coach without any resistance, which, had he been
inclined to make, he must have plainly perceived would have been
ineffectual, as the bailiff appeared to have several followers at
hand, two of whom, beside the commander in chief, mounted with him
into the coach. As Booth was a sweet-tempered man, as well as somewhat
of a philosopher, he behaved with all the good-humour imaginable, and
indeed, with more than his companions; who, however, shewed him what
they call civility, that is, they neither struck him nor spit in his
face.
Notwithstanding the pleasantry which Booth endeavoured to preserve, he
in reality envied every labourer whom he saw pass by him in his way.
The charms of liberty, against his will, rushed on his mind; and he
could not avoid suggesting to himself how much more happy was the
poorest wretch who, without controul, could repair to his homely
habitation and to his family, compared to him, who was thus violently,
and yet lawfully, torn away from the company of his wife and children.
And their condition, especially that of his Amelia, gave his heart
many a severe and bitter pang.
At length he arrived at the bailiff's mansion, and was ushered into a
room in which were several persons. Booth desired to be alone; upon
which the bailiff waited on him up-stairs into an apartment, the
windows of which were well fortified with iron bars, but the walls had
not the least outwork raised before them; they were, indeed, what is
generally called naked; the bricks having been only covered with a
thin plaster, which in many places was mouldered away.
The first demand made upon Booth was for coach-hire, which amounted to
two shillings, according to the bailiff's account; that being just
double the legal fare. He was then asked if he did not chuse a bowl of
punch? to which he having answered in the negative, the bailiff
replied, "Nay, sir, just as you please. I don't ask you to drink, if
you don't chuse it; but certainly you know the custom; the house is
full of prisoners, and I can't afford gentlemen a room to themselves
for nothing."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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