เ see your Sophy in this dreadful condition? Can the 'best of fathers break my heart? Will he kill me by 'the most painful, cruel, lingering death?'-' Pooh! 'pooh!' cries the squire; all stuff and nonsense; all 'maidenish tricks. Kill you, indeed! Will marriage 'kill you?' 'Oh! Sir,' answered Sophia, such a marriage is worse than death. He is not even in'different; I hate and detest him.'-' If you detest un 'never so much,' cries Western, you shall ha'un.' This he bound by an oath too shocking to repeat; and, after many violent asseverations, concluded in these words: 'I am resolved upon the match, and unless you consent 'to it I will not give you a groat, not a single farthing; no, though I saw you expiring with famine in the street, 'I would not relieve you with a morsel of bread. This 'is my fixed resolution, and so I leave you to consider on it.' He then broke from her with such violence, that her face dashed against the floor; and he burst directly out of the room, leaving poor Sophia prostrate on the ground. เ เ When Western came into the hall, he there found Jones; who seeing his friend looking wild, pale, and almost breathless, could not forbear inquiring the reason of all these melancholy appearances. Upon which the squire immediately acquainted him with the whole matter, concluding with bitter denunciations against Sophia, and very pathetic lamentations of the misery of all fathers who are so unfortunate as to have daughters. Jones, to whom all the resolutions which had been taken in favour of Blifil were yet a secret, was at first almost struck dead with this relation; but recovering his spirits a little, mere despair, as he afterwards said, inspired him to mention a matter to Mr. Western, which seemed to require more impudence than a human forehead was ever gifted with. He desired leave to go to Sophia, that he might endeavour to obtain her concurrence with her father's inclinations. If the squire had been as quick-sighted as he was remarkable for the contrary, passion might at present very well have blinded him. He thanked Jones for offering to undertake the office, and said, 'Go, go, prithee, try what canst do;' and then swore many execrable oaths that he would turn her out of doors unless she consented to the match. เ CHAPTER VIII. The meeting between Jones and Sophia. JONES departed instantly in quest of Sophia, whom he found just risen from the ground, where her father had left her, with the tears trickling from her eyes, and the blood running from her lips. He presently ran to her, and with a voice full at once of tenderness and terror, cried, 'O my Sophia, what means this dreadful sight?' She looked softly at him for a moment before she spoke, and then said, 'Mr. Jones, for heaven's sake how came เ you here?-Leave me, I beseech you, this moment.' Do not,' says he, 'impose so harsh a command upon เ me-my heart bleeds faster than those lips. O Sophia, 'how easily could I drain my veins to preserve one drop ' of that dear blood.'-'I have too many obligations to you already,' answered she, 'for sure you meant them 'such.' Here she looked at him tenderly almost a minute, and then bursting into an agony, cried, Oh, Mr. Jones, why did you save my life? my death would have been happier for us both.'-'Happier for us both!' cried he. Could racks or wheels kill me เ เ so painfully as Sophia's-I cannot bear the dreadful 'sound. Do I live but for her?' Both his voice and looks were full of inexpressible tenderness when he spoke these words; and at the same time he laid gently hold on her hand, which she did not withdraw from him; to say the truth, she hardly knew what she did or suffered. A few moments now passed in silence between these lovers, while his eyes were eagerly fixed on Sophia, and hers declining towards the ground: at last she recovered strength enough to desire him again to leave her, for that her certain ruin would be the consequence of their being found together; adding, 'Oh, Mr. Jones, you know not, you know not what hath passed this cruel afternoon.'-'I know all, my Sophia,' answered he; 'your cruel father hath told me all, and he himself hath sent me hither to you.'My father sent you to me!' replied she: 'sure you 'dream.'-'Would to heaven,' cries he, 'it was but a 'dream! Oh, Sophia, your father hath sent me to you, to be an advocate for my odious rival, to solicit you ' in his favour. I took any means to get access to you. 'O speak to me, Sophia! comfort my bleeding heart. 'Sure no one ever loved, ever doated like me. Do not ' unkindly withhold this dear, this soft, this gentle hand -One moment, perhaps, tears you for ever from me'Nothing less than this cruel occasion could, I believe, เ ever have conquered the respect and awe with which เ you have inspired me.' She stood a moment silent, and covered with confusion; then lifting up her eyes gently towards him, she cried, 'What would Mr. Jones เ เ เ have me say?'-'O do but promise,' cries he, 'that เ you never will give yourself to Blifil.'-'Name not,' answered she, 'the detested sound. Be assured I never 'will give him what is in my power to withhold from him.'-'Now then,' cries he, 'while you are so per เ เ fectly kind, go a little farther, and add that I may hope.'-'Alas!' says she, 'Mr. Jones, whither will เ you drive me? What hope have I to bestow? 'You know my father's intentions.'-' But I know,' answered he, 'your compliance with them cannot be 'compelled.'-'What,' says she, 'must be the dreadful เ consequence of my disobedience? My own ruin is my 'least concern. I cannot bear the thoughts of being 'the cause of my father's misery.'-'He is himself the cause,' cries Jones, 'by exacting a power over you 'which nature hath not given him. Think on the misery 'which I am to suffer if I am to lose you, and see on 'which side pity will turn the balance.'-Think of it!' replied she can you imagine I do not feel the ruin 'which I must bring on you, should I comply with your desire? It is that thought which gives me reso'lution to bid you fly from me for ever, and avoid your เ own destruction.'-'I fear no destruction,' cries he, 'but the loss of Sophia. If you will save me from the 'most bitter agonies, recal that cruel sentence. Indeed, 'I can never part with you, indeed I cannot.' The lovers now stood both silent and trembling, Sophia being unable to withdraw her hand from Jones, and he almost as unable to hold it; when the scene, which I believe some of my readers will think had lasted long enough, was interrupted by one of so different a nature, that we shall reserve the relation of it for a different chapter. CHAPTER IX. Being of a much more tempestuous kind than the former. BEFORE we proceed with what had now happened to our lovers, it may be proper to recount what had passed in the hall during their tender interview. Soon after Jones had left Mr. Western in the manner above-mentioned, his sister came to him, and was presently informed of all that had passed between her brother and Sophia relating to Blifil. This behaviour in her niece the good lady construed to be an absolute breach of the condition on which she had engaged to keep her love for Mr. Jones a secret. She considered herself, therefore, at full liberty to reveal all she knew to the squire, which she immediately did in the most explicit terms, and without any ceremony or preface. The idea of a marriage between Jones and his daughter had never once entered into the squire's head, either in the warmest minutes of his affection towards that young man, or from suspicion, or on any other occasion. He did indeed consider a parity of fortune and circumstances to be physically as necessary an ingredient in marriage, as difference of sexes, or any other essential; and had no more apprehension of his daughter's falling in love with a poor man, than with any animal of a different species. He became, therefore, like one thunderstruck at his sister's relation. He was, at first, incapable of making any answer, having been almost deprived of his breath by the violence of the surprise. This, however, soon returned, and, as is usual in other cases after an intermission, with redoubled force and fury. |