Bildungsromans; England -- Fiction; Foundlings -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Identity (Psychology) -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
The first thing done was securing the body of Northerton, who being
delivered into the custody of six men with a corporal at their head,
was by them conducted from a place which he was very willing to leave,
but it was unluckily to a place whither he was very unwilling to go.
To say the truth, so whimsical are the desires of ambition, the very
moment this youth had attained the above-mentioned honour, he would
have been well contented to have retired to some corner of the world,
where the fame of it should never have reached his ears.
It surprizes us, and so perhaps, it may the reader, that the
lieutenant, a worthy and good man, should have applied his chief care,
rather to secure the offender, than to preserve the life of the
wounded person. We mention this observation, not with any view of
pretending to account for so odd a behaviour, but lest some critic
should hereafter plume himself on discovering it. We would have these
gentlemen know we can see what is odd in characters as well as
themselves, but it is our business to relate facts as they are; which,
when we have done, it is the part of the learned and sagacious reader
to consult that original book of nature, whence every passage in our
work is transcribed, though we quote not always the particular page
for its authority.
The company which now arrived were of a different disposition. They
suspended their curiosity concerning the person of the ensign, till
they should see him hereafter in a more engaging attitude. At present,
their whole concern and attention were employed about the bloody
object on the floor; which being placed upright in a chair, soon began
to discover some symptoms of life and motion. These were no sooner
perceived by the company (for Jones was at first generally concluded
to be dead) than they all fell at once to prescribing for him (for as
none of the physical order was present, every one there took that
office upon him).
Bleeding was the unanimous voice of the whole room; but unluckily
there was no operator at hand; every one then cried, “Call the
barber;” but none stirred a step. Several cordials was likewise
prescribed in the same ineffective manner; till the landlord ordered
up a tankard of strong beer, with a toast, which he said was the best
cordial in England.
The person principally assistant on this occasion, indeed the only one
who did any service, or seemed likely to do any, was the landlady: she
cut off some of her hair, and applied it to the wound to stop the
blood; she fell to chafing the youth's temples with her hand; and
having exprest great contempt for her husband's prescription of beer,
she despatched one of her maids to her own closet for a bottle of
brandy, of which, as soon as it was brought, she prevailed on Jones,
who was just returned to his senses, to drink a very large and
plentiful draught.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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