The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

I could scarcely govern my passion. "Ungrateful wretch!" I cried. "Begone, and no longer pollute my dwelling with thy baseness!"

So saying, I threw him his pocket-book, which he took up with a smile, and left us astonished at the serenity of his assurance.

III.--The Elopement

The visits of Mr. Thornhill now became more frequent and longer; but all the schemes of Olivia and her mother to bring him to a declaration came to nothing. And although Olivia considered his fine sentiments as instances of the most exalted passion, it seemed to me plain that they had more of love than matrimony in them.

One evening as I sat by the fireside, thanking Heaven for tranquillity, health, and competence, and thinking myself happier than the greatest monarch upon earth, I noticed that Olivia was absent.

"Where is my darling Olivia?" I asked. Just as I spoke, my boy Dick came running in.

"Oh, papa, papa, she is gone from us; she is gone from us for ever!"

"Gone, child?"

"Yes; she is gone off with two gentlemen in a postchaise, and one of them kissed her. And she cried very much, but he persuaded her, and she went into the chaise."

"Now, then," cried I, "may Heaven's everlasting fury light upon him and his! Thus to rob me of my child! Bring me my pistols; I'll pursue the traitor. Old as I am, he shall find I can sting him yet--the perfidious villain!"

My poor wife caught me in her arms.

"Indeed, sir," said my son Moses, "your rage is too violent."

"I did not curse him, child, did I?"

"Indeed, sir, you did."

"Then may Heaven forgive me and him. But it is not--it is not a small distress that can wring tears from these old eyes. My child--to undo my darling! May confusion seize--Heaven forgive me! What am I about to say? Had she but died! My son, bring hither my Bible and my staff. I will pursue her; and though I cannot save her from shame, I may prevent the continuance of her iniquity."

My suspicions fell entirely upon our young landlord, whose character for such intrigues was but too well known. I therefore directed my steps towards Thornhill Castle. He soon appeared, with the most open, familiar air, and seemed perfectly amazed at my daughter's elopement, protesting upon his honour that he was quite a stranger to it. A man, however, averred that my daughter and Mr. Burchell had been seen driving very fast towards the Wells, about thirty miles distant.

I walked towards the Wells with earnestness, and on entering the town I was met by a person on horseback, whom I remembered to have seen at the squire's, and he assured me that if I followed them to the races, which were but thirty miles further, I might depend upon overtaking them.

Early the next day I walked forward to the races, but saw nothing of my daughter or of Mr. Burchell.

The agitations of my mind, and the fatigues I had undergone, now threw me into a fever. I retired to a little ale-house by the roadside, and here I languished for nearly three weeks.

The night coming on as I was twenty miles from home on my return journey, I put up at a little public-house, and asked for the landlord's company over a pint of wine. I could hear the landlady upstairs bitterly reproaching a lodger who could not pay.

"Out, I say," she cried; "pack out this moment!"

"Oh, dear madame," replied the stranger, "pity a poor, abandoned creature for one night and death will soon do the rest!"

I instantly knew the voice of my poor ruined child, Olivia, and flew to her rescue.

"Welcome, anyway welcome, my dearest lost one, to your poor old father's bosom!"

"Oh, my own dear"--for minutes she could say no more--"my own dearest, good papa! You can't forgive me--I know you cannot!"

"Yes, my child, from my heart I do forgive thee." After we had talked ourselves into some tranquillity, I said, "It surprises me how a person of Mr. Burchell's seeming honour could be guilty of such deliberate baseness."

"My dear papa," returned my daughter, "you labour under a strange mistake. It is Mr. Thornhill who has ruined me; who employed the two ladies, as he called them, but who, in fact, were abandoned women of the town, to decoy us up to London. Their artifices would certainly have succeeded but for Mr. Burchell's letter, who directed those reproaches at them which we all applied to ourselves."

"You amaze me, my dear!" cried I. "But tell me, what temptation was it that could thus obliterate your virtue?"

"He offered me marriage," replied she. "We were indeed married secretly by a popish priest, whose name I was sworn to conceal."

"What!" interrupted I. "And were you indeed married?"

"Alas!" she said, "he has been married already by the same priest to six or eight wives more, whom, like me, he has deceived and abandoned."

"Have patience, my child," cried I, "and I hope things will yet be better. To-morrow I'll carry you home to your mother. Poor woman, this has gone to her heart; but she loves you still, Olivia, and will forget it."

IV.--Fresh Calamities

It was late the next night when I approached my own home. I had left Olivia at an inn five miles away, intending to prepare my family for her reception. To my amazement, I saw the house bursting out into a blaze of fire, and every aperture red with conflagration! I gave a loud convulsive outcry, which alarmed my son, and all my family ran out, wild with apprehension. Our neighbours came running to our assistance; but the flames had taken too strong a hold to be extinguished, and all the neighbours could do was to stand spectators of the calamity. They brought us clothes and furnished one of our outhouses with kitchen utensils; so that by daylight we had another, though a wretched, dwelling to retire to.