“Not for anybody!” cried I; “on a Court-day my attendance is as necessary, and I am dressed out as fine, and almost as stiff, as those heralds are here.” I then told him what were my Windsor days, and begged he would not seize one of them to speak himself.
“By no means,” cried he, quite seriously, “would I have you here!—stay away, and only let me hope for your good wishes.”
“I shall be quite sincere,” cried I, laughing, “and own to you that stay away I shall not, if I can possibly come; but as to my good wishes, I have not, in this case, one to give you!”
He heard this with a start that was almost a jump. “What!” he exclaimed, “would you lay me under your judgment without your mercy?—Why this is heavier than any penal statute.”
He spoke this with an energy that made Mr. Fox look up, to see to whom he addressed his speech: but before I could answer it, poor James, tired of keeping his promised circumspection, advanced his head to join the conversation; and so much was I alarmed lest he should burst forth into some unguarded expression of his vehement hatred to the cause, which could not but have irritated its prosecutors, that the moment I perceived his motion and intention, I abruptly took my leave of Mr. Windham, and surprised poor James into a necessity of following me.
Indeed I was now most eager to depart, from a circumstance that made me feel infinitely awkward. Mr. Burke himself was just come forward, to speak to a lady a little below me; Mr. Windham had instantly turned towards me, with a look of congratulation that seemed rejoicing for me, that the orator of the day, and of the cause, was approaching, but I retreated involuntarily back, and shirked meeting his eyes. He perceived in an instant the mistake he was making, and went on with his discourse as if Mr. Burke was out of the Hall. In a minute, however, Mr. Burke himself saw me, and he bowed with the most marked civility of manner; my courtesy was the most ungrateful, distant, and cold; I could not do otherwise; so hurt I felt to see him the head of such a cause, so impossible I found it to titter one word of admiration for a performance whose nobleness was so disgraced by its tenour, and so conscious was I the whole time that at such a moment to say nothing must seem almost an affront, that I hardly knew which way to look, or what to do with myself.[267] In coming downstairs I met Lord Walsingham and Sir Lucas Pepys. “Well, Miss Burney,” cried the first, “what say you to a governor-general of India now?”
“Only this,” cried I, “that I do not dwell much upon any question till I have heard its answer!”
Sir Lucas then attacked me too. All the world against poor Mr. Hastings, though without yet knowing what his materials may be for clearing away these aspersions!