The Jessamy Bride

by Frank Frankfort Moore

Yes; at the moment he had no reason to feel jealous of the man who had just left him. On the contrary, he felt that he had a right to be exultant at the thought that it was he—he—Oliver Goldsmith—who had been entrusted by Mary Horneck with her secret—with the duty of saving her from the scoundrel who was persecuting her.

Colonel Gwyn was a soldier, and yet it was to him that this knight's enterprise had fallen.

He felt that he had every reason to be proud. He had been placed in a position which was certainly quite new to him. He was to compass the rescue of the maiden in distress; and had he not heard of innumerable instances in which the reward of success in such, an undertaking was the hand of the maiden?

For half an hour he felt exultant. He had boldly faced an adverse fate all his life; he had grappled with a cruel destiny; and, though the struggle had lasted all his life, he had come out the conqueror. He had become the most distinguished man of letters in England. As Professor at the Royal Academy his superiority had been acknowledged by the most eminent men of the period. And then, although he was plain of face and awkward in manner—nearly as awkward, if far from being so offensive, as Johnson—he had been appointed her own knight by the loveliest girl in England. He felt that he had reason to exult.

But then the reaction came. He thought of himself as compared with Colonel Gwyn—he thought of himself as a suitor by the side of Colonel Gwyn. What would the world say of a girl who would choose him in preference to Colonel Gwyn? He had told Gwyn to survey himself in a mirror in order to learn what chance he would have of being accepted as the lover of a lovely girl. Was he willing to apply the same test to himself?

He had not the courage to glance toward even the small glass which he had—a glass which could reflect only a small portion of his plainness.

He remained seated in his chair for a long time, being saved from complete despair only by the reflection that it was he who was entrusted with the task of freeing Mary Horneck from the enemy who had planned her destruction. This was his one agreeable reflection, and after a time it, too, became tempered by the thought that all his task was still before him: he had taken no step toward saving her.

He started up, called for a lamp, and proceeded to dress himself for the evening. He would dine at a coffee house in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden Theatre, and visit Mrs. Abington in the green room while his play—in which she did not appear—was being acted on the stage.

He was unfortunate enough to meet Boswell in the coffee house, so that his design of thinking out, while at dinner, the course which he should pursue in regard to the actress—how far he would be safe in confiding in her—was frustrated.

The little Scotchman was in great grief: Johnson had actually quarrelled with him—well, not exactly quarrelled, for it required two to make a quarel, and Boswell had steadily refused to contribute to such a disaster. Johnson, however, was so overwhelming a personality in Boswell's eyes he could almost make a quarrel without the assistance of a second person.