Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph: Extracted from her own Journal, and now first publishedSheridan, Frances Chamberlaine
General
Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph: Extracted from her own Journal, and now first published
Sheridan, Frances Chamberlaine
English fiction -- 18th century
A little incident happened to-day, which pleased my mother wonderfully.
She had been at morning prayers (as you know is her daily custom); when
returning home in her chair, one of the men happened to flip his foot,
and fell down just before Mr Faulkland's house. He was so much hurt,
that he could go no farther; and the footman immediately opening the
chair, told her she had better step into Mr Faulkland's, till he called
another, or got a man to assist in carrying her home. One of Mr
Faulkland's servants happened to be standing at the door; so that,
without any previous notice, she was immediately conducted into a
parlour, where Mr Faulkland was sitting at breakfast. She found with him
two pretty little children at his knee, to one of whom he had given some
cake; and the elder of the two, a boy of about five years old, he was
gravely lecturing, though with great gentleness, for having told a lye.
My mother asked him, with some surprise, whose children those were? He
smiled, and told her they were his coachman's; and then ordered the
footman to carry them down, bidding the little boy be sure to remember
what he had said to him.
My mother enquired, if he permitted them to be in the house? He said, he
did; and had been induced to do it from the distress he had seen their
poor father in, a few days before. He is an honest careful fellow,
continued Mr Faulkland, and has lived in my family from a boy. He was
married to a good sort of a body, who took great care of these children,
and helped to maintain them decently by her work. The poor woman died in
childbed last week; and the person who attended her in her illness (for
she had no servant) took that opportunity of robbing the lodgings; and
after plundering the poor creature of every thing that was worth
carrying away, locked up those two children, which you saw with me, and
the new-born infant, with the corpse of their mother.
The poor little wretches continued in that dismal situation all night,
having cried themselves to sleep, without being heard, though there were
some other people in the house. The morning following I happened to make
an early visit in the neighbourhood of this distressed little family,
and my coachman, who was a very affectionate husband and father, took
that opportunity of calling on his wife whom he had not been able to see
for three days. The cries of his children (now awake and almost starved)
obliged him hastily to break open the room door, where the poor fellow
was shocked with the dismal spectacle of his wife lying breathless in
her bed, the infant almost expiring at her side, and the other two poor
little famished creatures calling to their dead mother for bread.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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