Samuel Richardson - Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded

Well, I believe I set out about eight o'clock in the morning; and I wondered and wondered, when it was about two, as I saw by a church dial, in a little village as we passed through, that I was still more and more out of my knowledge. Hey-day, thought I, to drive this strange pace, and to be so long a going a little more than twenty miles, is very odd! But to be sure, thought I, Robin knows the way.

At last he stopped, and looked about him, as if he was at a loss for the road; and I said, Mr. Robert, sure you are out of the way!—I'm afraid I am, said he. But it can't be much; I'll ask the first person I see. Pray do, said I; and he gave his horses a mouthful of bay: and I gave him some cake, and two glasses of Canary wine; and stopt about half an hour in all. Then he drove on very fast again.

I had so much to think of, of the dangers I now doubted not I had escaped, of the loving friends I had left, and my best friends I was going to; and the many things I had to relate to you; that I the less thought of the way, till I was startled out of my meditations by the sun beginning to set, and still the man driving on, and his horses sweating and foaming; and then I began to be alarmed all at once, and called to him; and he said he had horrid ill luck, for he had come several miles out of the way, but was now right, and should get in still before it was quite dark. My heart began then to misgive me a little, and I was very much fatigued; for I had no sleep for several nights before, to signify; and at last I said, Pray Mr. Robert, there is a town before us, what do you call it?—If we are so much out of the way, we had better put up there, for the night comes on apace: And, Lord protect me! thought I, I shall have new dangers, mayhap, to encounter with the man, who have escaped the master—little thinking of the base contrivance of the latter.—Says he, I am just there: 'Tis but a mile on one side of the town before us.—Nay, said I, I may be mistaken; for it is a good while since I was this way; but I am sure the face of the country here is nothing like what I remember it.

He pretended to be much out of humour with himself for mistaking the way, and at last stopped at a farmhouse, about two miles beyond the village I had seen; and it was then almost dark, and he alighted, and said, We must make shift here; for I am quite out.

Lord, thought I, be good to the poor Pamela! More trials still!—What will befall me next?

The farmer's wife, and maid, and daughter, came out; and the wife said, What brings you this way at this time of night, Mr. Robert? And with a lady too?—Then I began to be frightened out of my wits; and laying middle and both ends together, I fell a crying, and said, God give me patience! I am undone for certain!—Pray, mistress, said I, do you know 'Squire B——, of Bedfordshire?

The wicked coachman would have prevented the answering me; but the simple daughter said, Know his worship! yes, surely! why he is my father's landlord.—Well, said I, then I am undone; undone for ever!—O, wicked wretch! what have I done to you, said I to the coachman, to serve me thus?—Vile tool of a wicked master!—Faith, said the fellow, I am sorry this task was put upon me; but I could not help it. But make the best of it now; here are very civil reputable folks; and you'll be safe here, I'll assure you.—Let me get out, said I, and I'll walk back to the town we came through, late as it is:—For I will not enter here.

Said the farmer's wife, You'll be very well used here, I'll assure you, young gentlewoman, and have better conveniences than any where in the village. I matter not conveniences, said I: I am betrayed and undone! As you have a daughter of your own, pity me, and let me know if your landlord, as you call him, be here!—No, I'll assure you he is not, said she.

And then came the farmer, a good-like sort of man, grave, and well-behaved; and spoke to me in such sort, as made me a little pacified; and seeing no help for it, I went in; and the wife immediately conducted me up stairs to the best apartment, and told me, that was mine as long as I staid: and nobody should come near me but when I called. I threw myself on the bed in the room, tired and frightened to death almost; and gave way to the most excessive fit of grief that I ever had.

The daughter came up, and said, Mr. Robert had given her a letter to give me; and there it was. I raised myself, and saw it was the hand and seal of the wicked wretch, my master, directed to Mrs. Pamela Andrews.—This was a little better than to have him here; though, if he had, he must have been brought through the air; for I thought I was.

The good woman (for I began to see things about a little reputable, and no guile appearing in them, but rather a face of grief for my grief) offered me a glass of some cordial water, which I accepted, for I was ready to sink; and then I sat up in a chair a little, though very faintish: and they brought me two candles, and lighted a brushwood fire; and said, if I called, I should be waited on instantly; and so left me to ruminate on my sad condition, and to read my letter, which I was not able to do presently. After I had a little come to myself, I found it to contain these words:

'DEAR PAMELA,

'The passion I have for you, and your obstinacy, have constrained me to act by you in a manner that I know will occasion you great trouble and fatigue, both of mind and body. Yet, forgive me, my dear girl; for, although I have taken this step, I will, by all that's good and holy! use you honourably. Suffer not your fears to transport you to a behaviour that will be disreputable to us both: for the place where you'll receive this, is a farm that belongs to me; and the people civil, honest, and obliging.

'You will, by this time, be far on your way to the place I have allotted for your abode for a few weeks, till I have managed some affairs, that will make me shew myself to you in a much different light, than you may possibly apprehend from this rash action: And to convince you, that I mean no harm, I do assure you, that the house you are going to, shall be so much at your command, that even I myself will not approach it without leave from you. So make yourself easy; be discreet and prudent; and a happier turn shall reward these your troubles, than you may at present apprehend.

'Meantime I pity the fatigue you will have, if this come to your hand in the place I have directed: and will write to your father to satisfy him, that nothing but what is honourable shall be offered to you, by

Don't think hardly of poor Robin: You have so possessed all my servants in your favour, that I find they had rather serve you than me; and 'tis reluctantly the poor fellow undertook this task; and I was forced to submit to assure him of my honourable intentions to you, which I am fully resolved to make good, if you compel me not to a contrary conduct.'

I but too well apprehended that the letter was only to pacify me for the present; but as my danger was not so immediate as I had reason to dread, and he had promised to forbear coming to me, and to write to you, my dear parents, to quiet your concern, I was a little more easy than before and I made shift to eat a little bit of boiled chicken they had got for me, and drank a glass of my sack, and made each of them do so too.

But after I had so done, I was again a little flustered; for in came the coachman with the look of a hangman, I thought, and madamed me up strangely; telling me, he would beg me to get ready to pursue my journey by five in the morning, or else he should be late in. I was quite grieved at this; for I began not to dislike my company, considering how things stood; and was in hopes to get a party among them, and so to put myself into any worthy protection in the neighbourhood, rather than go forward.

When he withdrew, I began to tamper with the farmer and his wife. But, alas! they had had a letter delivered them at the same time I had; so securely had Lucifer put it into his head to do his work; and they only shook their heads, and seemed to pity me; and so I was forced to give over that hope.