Page images
PDF
EPUB

hide herself from visitors, as neither knowing how to behave nor being fit to be seen, and chose rather to conceal her defects by excluding her from company, than to supply them by putting her to a boarding school.

Miss, who had been told by Betty that she expected her sweetheart, and that they were to be merry, stole down stairs, and, without scruple, made one in a party at blindman's buff. The soldier of fortune was struck with her person, and discovered, or thought he discovered, in the simplicity of nature, some graces which are polished away by the labour of art. However, nothing that had the appearance of an adventure could be indifferent to him; and his vanity was flattered by the hope of carrying off a young lady under the disguise of a common soldier without revealing his birth or boasting of his expectations.

In this attempt he became very assiduous, and succeeded. The company being ordered to another place, Betty and her young mistress departed early in the morning with their gallants; and there being a privileged chapel in the next town, they were married.

The old gentleman, as soon as he was informed that his daughter was missing, made so diligent and scrupulous an inquiry after her that he learned with whom and which way she was gone: he mounted his horse, and pursued her, not without curses and imprecations; discovering rather the transports of rage than the emotions of tenderness, and resenting her offence rather as the rebellion of a slave than the disobedience of a child. He did not, however, overtake them till the marriage had been consummated; of which when he was informed by the husband, he turned from him with expressions of brutality and indignation, swearing never to forgive a fault which he had taken no care to prevent.

The young couple, notwithstanding their union frequently doubled their distress, still continued fond of each other. The spirit of enterprise and the hope of presumption were not yet quelled in the young soldier; and he received orders to attend King William, when he went to the siege of Namur, with exultation and transport, believing his elevation to independence and distinction as certain as if he had been going to take possession of a title and estate. His wife, who had been some months pregnant, as she had no means of subsistence in his absence, procured a passage with him. When she came on shore, and mingled with the crowd that followed the camp, wretches who without compunction wade in human blood to strip the dying and the dead, to whom horror is become familiar and compassion impossible, she was terrified: the discourse of the women, rude and unpolished as she was, covered her with confusion; and the brutal familiarity of the men filled her with indignation and disgust; her maid, Betty, who had also attended her husband, was the only person with whom she could converse, and from whom she could hope the assistance of which she was so soon to stand in need.

In the meantime she found it difficult to subsist; but accidentally hearing the name of an officer, whom she remembered to have visited her mother soon after her marriage, she applied to him, told him her name, and requested that he would afford her his protection, and permit her to take care of his linen. With this request the captain complied; her circumstances became less distressed, and her mind more easy but new calamity suddenly overtook her; she saw her husband march to an engagement in the morning, and saw him brought back desperately wounded at night. The next day he was removed in a waggon with many others who were in

the same condition, to a place of a greater safety, at the distance of about three leagues, where proper care might be taken of their wounds. She entreated the captain to let her go in the waggon with him; but to this he could not consent, because the waggon would be filled with those who were neither able to walk, nor could be left behind. He promised, however, that if she would stay till the next day he would endeavour to procure her a passage; but she chose rather to follow the waggon on foot than to be absent from her husband. She could not, however, keep pace with it, and she reached the hospital but just time enough to kneel down by him upon some clean straw, to see him sink under the last agony, and hear the groan that is repeated no more. The fatigue of the journey and the perturbation of her mind immediately threw her into labour, and she lived but to be delivered of Melissa, who was thus in the most helpless state left without father, mother, or friend, in a foreign country, in circumstances which could afford no hope of reward to the tenderness that should attempt the preservation of her life, and among persons who were become obdurate and insensible, by having long been used to see every species of distress.

It happened that, among those whom accident or distress had brought together at the birth of Melissa, there was a young woman, whose husband had fallen in the late engagement, and who a few days before had lost a little boy that she suckled. This person, rather perhaps to relieve herself from an inconveniency than in compassion to the orphan, put it to her breast; but whatever was her motive, she believed that the affording sustenance to the living conferred a right to the apparel of the dead, of which she therefore took possession; but in searching her pockets she found only a thimble, the re

mains of a pocket lookingglass, about the value of a penny in Dutch money, and the certificate of her marriage. The paper, which she could not read, she gave afterwards to the captain, who was touched with pity at the relation which an inquiry after his laundress produced. He commended the woman who had preserved the infant, and put her into the place of its mother. This encouraged her to continue her care of it till the captain returned to England, with whom she also returned, and became his servant.

This gentleman, as soon as he had settled his immediate concerns, sent Melissa, under the care of her nurse, to her grandfather; and enclosed the certificate of her mother's marriage in a letter containing an account of her death, and the means by which the infant had been preserved. He knew that those who had been once dear to us, by whatever offence they may have alienated our affections when living, are generally remembered with tenderness when dead; and that after the grave has sheltered them from our resentment, and rendered reconciliation impossible, we often regret, as severe, that conduct which before we approved as just: he, therefore, hoped that the parental fondness which an old man had once felt for his daughter, would revive at the sight of her offspring; that the memory of her fault would be lost in the sense of her misfortunes; and that he would endeavour to atone for that inexorable resentment which produced them, by cherishing a life, to which she had, as it were, transferred her own. But in these expectations, however reasonable, he was mistaken. The old man, when he was informed by the messenger that the child she held in her arms was his grandaughter, whom she was come to put under his protection, refused to examine the contents of the letter, and dismissed

her with menaces and insult. The knowledge of every uncommon event soon becomes general in a country town. An uncle of Melissa's, who had been rejected by his father for having married his maid, heard this fresh instance of his brutality with grief and indignation; he sent immediately for the child and the letter, and assured the servant that his niece should want nothing which he could bestow to bestow much, indeed, was not in his power, for his father having obstinately persisted in his resentment, his whole support was a little farm which he rented of the 'squire: but as he was a good economist, and had no children of his own, he lived decently; nor did he throw away content, because his father had denied him affluence.

Melissa, who was compassionated for her mother's misfortunes, of which her uncle had been particularly informed by her maid Betty, who had returned a widow to her friends in the country, was not less beloved for her own good qualities; she was taught to read and write, and work at her needle, as soon as she was able to learn; and she was taken notice of by all the gentry as the prettiest girl in the place: but her aunt died when she was about eleven years old, and before she was thirteen she lost her uncle.

She was now again thrown back upon the world, still helpless, though her wants were increased, and wretched in proportion as she had known happiness: she looked back with anguish, and forward with distraction; a fit of crying had just afforded a momentary relief, when the 'squire, who had been informed of the death of his tenant, sent for her to his house.

This gentleman had heard her story from her uncle, and was unwilling that a life, which had been preserved almost by miracle, should at last be aban

« PreviousContinue »