The Adventures of Peregrine PickleSmollett, T. (Tobias)
General
The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle
Smollett, T. (Tobias)
Adventure stories; Fiction; Picaresque literature
Next day, about one o'clock, after having seen everything remarkable in
town, and been present at the execution of two youths, who were hanged
for ravishing a w--, they took their departure from Ghent in the same
carriage which had brought them thither; and the conversation turning
upon the punishment they had seen inflicted, the Flemish beauty
expressed great sympathy and compassion for the unhappy sufferers,
who, as she had been informed, had fallen victims to the malice of the
accuser. Her sentiments were espoused by all the company, except the
French lady of pleasure, who, thinking the credit of the sisterhood
concerned in the affair, bitterly inveighed against the profligacy of
the age, and particularly the base and villainous attempts of man upon
the chastity of the weaker sex; saying, with a look of indignation
directed to the painter, that for her own part she should never be
able to manifest the acknowledgment she owed to Providence, for having
protected her last night from the wicked aims of unbridled lust. This
observation introduced a series of jokes at the expense of Pallet, who
hung his ears, and sat with a silent air of dejection, fearing that,
through the malevolence of the physician, his adventure might reach the
ears of his wife. Indeed, though we have made shift to explain the
whole transaction to the reader, it was an inextricable mystery to every
individual in the diligence, because the part which was acted by the
Capuchin was known to himself alone, and even he was utterly ignorant
of Pickle's being concerned in the affair; so that the greatest share
of the painter's sufferings were supposed to be the exaggerations of his
own extravagant imagination.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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