of it; assured me that it was the only way to preserve our
mutual affection; that in this station we might love as friends,
with the utmost passion, and with a love of relation untainted,
free from our just reproaches, and free from other people’s
suspicions; that he should ever acknowledge his happiness
owing to me; that he would be debtor to me as long as he
lived, and would be paying that debt as long as he had breath.
Thus he wrought me up, in short, to a kind of hesitation in the
matter; having the dangers on one side represented in lively
figures, and indeed, heightened by my imagination of being
turned out to the wide world a mere cast-off whore, for it was
no less, and perhaps exposed as such, with little to provide for
myself, with no friend, no acquaintance in the whole world,
out of that town, and there I could not pretend to stay. All
this terrified me to the last degree, and he took care upon all
occasions to lay it home to me in the worst colours that it could
be possible to be drawn in. On the other hand, he failed not to
set forth the easy, prosperous life which I was going to live.
He answered all that I could object from affection, and from
former engagements, with telling me the necessity that was
before us of taking other measures now; and as to his promises
of marriage, the nature of things, he said, had put an end to
that, by the probability of my being his brother’s wife, before
the time to which his promises all referred.
Thus, in a word, I may say, he reasoned me out of my reason;
he conquered all my arguments, and I began to see a danger
that I was in, which I had not considered of before, and that
was, of being dropped by both of them and left alone in the
world to shift for myself.
This, and his persuasion, at length prevailed with me to
consent, though with so much reluctance, that it was easy to
see I should go to church like a bear to the stake. I had some
little apprehensions about me, too, lest my new spouse, who,
by the way, I had not the least affection for, should be skillful
enough to challenge me on another account, upon our first
coming to bed together. But whether he did it with design or
not, I know not, but his elder brother took care to make him
very much fuddled before he went to bed, so that I had the
satisfaction of a drunken bedfellow the first night. How he
did it I know not, but I concluded that he certainly contrived
it, that his brother might be able to make no judgment of the
difference between a maid and a married woman; nor did he
ever entertain any notions of it, or disturb his thoughts about it.
I should go back a little here to where I left off. The elder
brother having thus managed me, his next business was to
manage his mother, and he never left till he had brought her
to acquiesce and be passive in the thing, even without
acquainting the father, other than by post letters; so that she
consented to our marrying privately, and leaving her to mange
the father afterwards.
Then he cajoled with his brother, and persuaded him what
service he had done him, and how he had brought his mother
to consent, which, though true, was not indeed done to serve
him, but to serve himself; but thus diligently did he cheat him,
and had the thanks of a faithful friend for shifting off his whore
into his brother’s arms for a wife. So certainly does interest
banish all manner of affection, and so naturally do men give
up honour and justice, humanity, and even Christianity, to
secure themselves.
I must now come back to brother Robin, as we always called
him, who having got his mother’s consent, as above, came
big with the news to me, and told me the whole story of it,
with a sincerity so visible, that I must confess it grieved me