The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 5 of 5)Burney, Fanny
History
The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 5 of 5)
Burney, Fanny
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Refugees -- Fiction; Historical fiction; Refugees -- Fiction; War stories
The man, at first, could find no vent for his rage, except horrid oaths,
and tremendous imprecations; but, when he was positively seized, with a
menace of being bound hand and foot, if he offered any opposition, he
swore that his wife, at least, should accompany him; and put forth his
hand towards the chaise, to drag out Juliet.
But Juliet was saved from his grasp by the landlady; who humanely, upon
seeing her almost expiring condition, had entered the carriage, during
the dispute, with a viol of sal volatile.
The horseman, who was a peace-officer, said that he had no orders to
arrest any woman. She might come, or stay, as she pleased.
The foreigner vociferously claimed her; uttering execrations against all
who unlawfully withheld her; or would abet her elopement. He would then
have passed round to the other door of the chaise, to seize her by
force; but the peace-officer, who was habitually deaf to any appeal, and
resolute against any resistance; compelled him, though storming, raging,
and swearing, his face distorted with fury, his under-jaw dropt, and his
mouth foaming, to re-enter the inn.
Juliet received neither relief nor fresh pain from what passed. Though
no longer fainting, terrour and excess of misery operated so powerfully
upon her nerves, that his cries assailed her ears but as outrage upon
outrage; and, though clinging to the landlady, with instinctive entreaty
for support, she was so disordered by her recent fainting, and so
absorbed in the belief that she was lost, that she knew not what had
happened; nor suspected any impediment to her forced journey; till the
landlady, now quitting her, advised her to have a room and lie down;
saying that no wife could be expected to follow such a brute of a
husband to jail.
Amazed, she enquired what was meant; and was answered, that her husband
was in the hands of justice.
The violence of the changed, yet mixed sensations, with which she was
now assailed, made every pulse throb with so palpitating a rapidity,
that she felt as if life itself was seeking a vent through every
swelling vein. But, when again she was pressed to enter the house, and
not to accompany her husband to prison; she shuddered, her head was
bowed down with shame; and, making a motion that supplicated for
silence, she seemed internally torn asunder with torturing incertitude
how to act.
During this instant,--it was scarcely more,--of irresolution, the
landlady alighted, and the chaise was driven abruptly from the door. But
Juliet had scarcely had time for new alarm, ere she found that she had
only been removed to make way for another carriage; from the window of
which she caught a glimpse of Sir Jaspar Herrington.
Nor had she escaped his eye; her straw-bonnet having fallen off, without
being missed, while she fainted, her head was wholly without shade.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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