to find out some way or other to live; if you can but subsist
yourself, that is better than nothing. I must try the world again;
a man ought to think like a man; to be discouraged is to yield
to the misfortune.’ With this he filled a glass and drank to me,
holding my hand and pressing it hard in his hand all the while
the wine went down, and protesting afterwards his main
concern was for me.
It was really a true, gallant spirit he was of, and it was the
more grievous to me. ‘Tis something of relief even to be
undone by a man of honour, rather than by a scoundrel; but
here the greatest disappointment was on his side, for he had
really spent a great deal of money, deluded by this madam the
procuress; and it was very remarkable on what poor terms he
proceeded. First the baseness of the creature herself is to be
observed, who, for the getting #100 herself, could be content
to let him spend three or four more, though perhaps it was all
he had in the world, and more than all; when she had not the
least ground, more than a little tea-table chat, to say that I had
any estate, or was a fortune, or the like. It is true the design
of deluding a woman of fortune, I f I had been so, was base
enough; the putting the face of great things upon poor
circumstances was a fraud, and bad enough; but the case a
little differed too, and that in his favour, for he was not a rake
that made a trade to delude women, and, as some have done,
get six or seven fortunes after one another, and then rifle and
run away from them; but he was really a gentleman, unfortunate
and low, but had lived well; and though, if I had had a fortune,
I should have been enraged at the slut for betraying me, yet
really for the man, a fortune would not have been ill bestowed
on him, for he was a lovely person indeed, of generous principles,
good sense, and of abundance of good-humour.
We had a great deal of close conversation that night, for we
neither of us slept much; he was as penitent for having put all
those cheats upon me as if it had been felony, and that he was
going to execution; he offered me again every shilling of the
money he had about him, and said he would go into the army
and seek the world for more.
I asked him why he would be so unkind to carry me into
Ireland, when I might suppose he could not have subsisted me
there. He took me in his arms. ‘My dear,’ said he, ‘depend
upon it, I never designed to go to Ireland at all, much less to
have carried you thither, but came hither to be out of the
observation of the people, who had heard what I pretended to,
and withal, that nobody might ask me for money before I was
furnished to supply them.’
‘But where, then,’ said I, ‘were we to have gone next?’
‘Why, my dear,’ said he, ‘I’ll confess the whole scheme to you
as I had laid it; I purposed here to ask you something about
your estate, as you see I did, and when you, as I expected you
would, had entered into some account with me of the particulars,
I would have made an excuse to you to have put off our voyage
to Ireland for some time, and to have gone first towards London.
‘Then, my dear,’ said he, ‘I resolved to have confessed all the
circumstances of my own affairs to you, and let you know I
had indeed made use of these artifices to obtain your consent
to marry me, but had now nothing to do but ask to your pardon,
and to tell you how abundantly, as I have said above, I would
endeavour to make you forget what was past, by the felicity
of the days to come.’
‘Truly,’ said I to him, ‘I find you would soon have conquered