Our conversation had lasted a considerable time; and I had just made a remark to which she had not replied, apparently struggling with concealed emotion, when we were interrupted by a carriage driving up to the door, and cries of "Help! help!" I instantly quitted the side of my new acquaintance, and flew to answer the signal of distress.
A gentleman in the carriage was supporting a young lady in his arms, to all appearance lifeless. With my assistance, she was speedily removed into the house, and conveyed to a bedroom. A surgeon was sent for, but none was to be had; the only practitioner of the town being at that moment gone to attend one of those cases which, according to Mr Malthus, are much too frequent for the good of the country. I discovered that the carriage had been overturned, and that the young lady had been insensible ever since.
There was no time to be lost; I knew that immediate bleeding was absolutely necessary. I had acquired thus much of surgical knowledge in the course of my professional duties. I stated my opinion to the gentleman; and although my practice had been very slight, offered my services to perform the operation. This offer was accepted with thanks by the grateful father, for such I found he was. With my sharp penknife I opened a vein in one of the whitest arms I ever beheld. After a few moments' chafing, the blood flowed more freely; the pulse indicated returning animation; a pair of large blue eyes opened suddenly upon me like a masked battery; and so alarmingly susceptible was I of the tender passion, that I quite forgot the little actress whom I had left at the supper-table, and who, a few minutes before, had occupied my whole thoughts and attention.
Having succeeded in restoring the fair patient to consciousness, I prescribed a warm bed, some tea, and careful watching. My orders were punctually obeyed; I then quitted the apartment of my patient, and began to ruminate over the hurried and singular events of the day.
I had scarcely had time to decide in my own mind on the respective merits of my two rival beauties when the surgeon arrived; and, being ushered into the sick-room, declared that the patient had been treated with skill, and that in all probability she owed her life to my presence of mind. "But, give me leave to ask," said the doctor, addressing the father, "how the accident happened?" The gentleman replied that a scoundrel having got up behind the carriage, had been flogged off by the postilion; and, in revenge, had thrown a stone, which knocked the driver off his horse: they took fright, turned round, and ran away down the hill towards their own stables; and after running five miles, upset the carriage against a post, "by which accident," said he, "my poor daughter was nearly killed."
"What a villain!" said the doctor.
"Villain, indeed," echoed I; and so I felt I was. I turned sick at the thought of what my ungoverned passion had done; and my regret was not a little increased by the charms of my lovely victim; but I soon recovered from the shock, particularly when I saw that no suspicion attached to me. I therefore received the praises of the father and the doctor with a becoming modest diffidence; and, with a hearty shake of the hand from the grateful parent, was wished a good night and retired to my bed.
As I stood before the looking-glass, laying my watch and exhausted purse on the dressing-table, and leisurely untying my cravat, I could not forbear a glance of approbation at what I thought a very handsome and a very impudent face: I soliloquised on the events of the day, and, as usual, found the summing-up very much against me. "This, then, sir," said I, "is your road to repentance and reform. You insult your father; quit his house; get up, like a vagabond, behind a gentleman's carriage; are flogged off, break the ribs of an honest man, who has a wife and family to support out of his hard earnings—are the occasion of a carriage being overturned, and very nearly cause the death of an amiable girl! And all this mischief in the short space of six hours, not to say a word of your intentions towards the little actress, which I presume are none of the most honourable. Where is all this to end?"
"At the gallows," said I, in reply to myself,—"the more probably, too, as my finances have no means of improvement, except by a miracle or highway robbery. I am in love with two girls, and have only two clean shirts; consequently there is no proportion between the demand and the supply."
With this medley of reflections I fell asleep. I was awoke early by the swallows twittering at the windows; and the first question which was agitated in my brain was what account I should give of myself to the father of the young lady, when interrogated by him, as I most certainly should be. I had my choice between truth and falsehood: the latter (such is the force of habit), I think, carried it hollow; but I determined to leave that point to the spur of the moment, and act according to circumstances.