The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Volume 02Smollett, T. (Tobias)
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The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Volume 02
Smollett, T. (Tobias)
Adventure stories; Gothic fiction
The good priest who had married Renaldo was not a little scandalised at
this ferocious behaviour in a clergyman, and could not help saying aloud,
he was a disgrace to the cloth when the horseman looking up to the
window, replied, "Sir, may I be d--n'd, if any man in England has a
greater respect for the cloth than I have; but at present I am quite
distracted." So saying, he whipped up the horses, and had actually
disentangled the hearse from those who surrounded it, when he was opposed
by another troop, one of whom alighted with great expedition, and cut the
harness so as that he could not possibly proceed. Finding himself thus
driven to bay, he leaped upon the ground, and exercised his weapon with
such amazing strength and agility, that several of his antagonists were
left motionless on the field, before he was overpowered and disarmed by
dint of numbers, who assailed him on all sides.
The mad parson being thus taken prisoner, an elderly person, of a very
prepossessing appearance, went up to the hearse, and, unbolting the door,
a young lady sprung out, and shrieking, ran directly to the public-house,
to the infinite astonishment and affright of the whole family, who
believed it was the spirit of the deceased person, whose body lay in the
carriage. Renaldo, who was with difficulty restrained from interposing
in behalf of the clergyman against such odds, no sooner perceived this
apparition, than, supposing her to be some distressed damsel, his
Quixotism awoke, he descended in an instant, and rushed into the house,
among those that pursued the fair phantom. Don Diego and the physician
took the same road, while the real clergyman and Joshua tarried with the
ladies, who were, by this time, very much interested in the event.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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