Pickle, having kissed the subscription with great ardour, fell upon his knees, and lifting up his eyes, “Thank Heaven!” cried he, with an air of transport, “I have not been mistaken in my opinion of that generous maid. I believed her inspired with the most dignified and heroic sentiments, and now she gives me a convincing proof of her magnanimity. It is now my business to approve myself worthy of her regard. May Heaven inflict upon me the keenest arrows of its vengeance, if I do not, at this instant, contemplate the character of Emilia with the most perfect love and adoration; yet, amiable and enchanting as she is, I am, more than ever, determined to sacrifice the interest of my passion to my glory, though my life should fail in the contest; and even to refuse an offer, which, otherwise, the whole universe should not bribe me to forego.”
This declaration was not so unexpected as unwelcome to his friend Gauntlet, who represented that his glory was not at all interested in the affair; because he had already vindicated his generosity in repeated proffers to lay his whole fortune at Emilia's feet, when it was impossible that anything selfish could enter into the proposal; but that, in rejecting her present purpose, he would give the world an opportunity to say, that his pride was capricious, his obstinacy invincible; and his sister would have undeniable reason to believe, that either his passion for her was dissembled, or the ardour of it considerably abated.
In answer to these remonstrances, Pickle observed, that he had long set the world at defiance; and, as to the opinion of Emilia, he did not doubt that she would applaud in her heart the resolution he had taken, and do justice to the purity of his intention. It was not an easy task to divert our hero from his designs at any time of life; but, since his confinement, his inflexibility was become almost insurmountable. The captain, therefore, after having discharged his conscience, in assuring him that his sister's happiness was at stake, that his mother had approved of the step she had taken, and that he himself should be extremely mortified at his refusal, forbore to press him with further argument, which served only to rivet him the more strongly in his own opinion, and undertook to deliver this answer to Emilia's letter:—
Madam,—That I revere the dignity of your virtue with the
utmost veneration, and love you infinitely more than life,
I am at all times ready to demonstrate; but the sacrifice
to honour it is now my turn to pay; and such is the rigour
of my destiny, that, in order to justify your generosity,
I must refuse to profit by your condescension. Madam, I am
doomed to be for ever wretched; and to sigh without ceasing
for the possession of that jewel, which, though now in my
offer, I dare not enjoy. I shall not pretend to express the
anguish that tears my heart, whilst I communicate this fatal
renunciation, but appeal to the delicacy of your own
sentiments, which can judge of my sufferings, and will,
doubtless, do justice to the self-denial of your forlorn
“P. Pickle.”
Emilia, who knew the nicety of our hero's pride, had foreseen the purport of this epistle before it came to her hands; she did not, therefore, despair of success, nor desist from the prosecution of her plan, which was no other than that of securing her own happiness, in espousing the man upon whom she had fixed her unalterable affection. Confident of his honour, and fully satisfied of the mutual passion with which they were inspired, she gradually decoyed him into a literary correspondence, wherein she attempted to refute the arguments on which he grounded his refusal; and, without doubt, the young gentleman was not a little pleased with the enjoyment of such delightful commerce, in the course of which he had, more than ever, an opportunity of admiring the poignancy of her wit, and the elegance of her understanding.
The contemplation of such excellency, while it strengthened the chains with which she held him enslaved, added emulation to the other motives that induced him to maintain the dispute; and much subtlety of reasoning was expended upon both sides of this very particular question, without any prospect of conviction on either part, till, at last, she began to despair of making him a proselyte to her opinion by dint of argument; and resolved for the future to apply herself chiefly to the irresistible prepossessions of his love, which were not at all diminished or impaired by the essays of her pen. With this view she proposed a conference, pretending that it was impossible to convey all her reflections upon this subject in a series of short letters; and Godfrey undertook to bail him for the day. But, conscious of her power, he would not trust himself in her presence, though his heart throbbed with all the eagerness of desire to see her fair eyes disrobed of that resentment which they had worn so long, and to enjoy the ravishing sweets of a fond reconciliation.
Nature could not have held out against such powerful attacks, had not the pride and caprice of his disposition been gratified to the full in the triumph of his resistance; he looked upon the contest as altogether original, and persevered with obstinacy, because he thought himself sure of favourable terms, whenever he should be disposed to capitulate. Perhaps he might have overshot himself in the course of his perseverance. A young lady of Emilia's fortune and attractions could not fail to find herself surrounded by temptations, which few women can resist. She might have misinterpreted the meaning of some paragraph or taken umbrage at an unguarded expression in one of Peregrine's letters. She might have been tired out by his obstinate peculiarity, or, at the long run, construed it into madness, slight, or indifference; or, rather than waste her prime in fruitless endeavours to subdue the pride of a headstrong humourist, she might have listened to the voice of some admirer, fraught with qualifications sufficient to engage her esteem and affection. But all these possibilities were providentially prevented by an accident attended with more important consequences than any we have hitherto recounted.
Early one morning Pipes was disturbed by the arrival of a messenger, who had been sent express from the country by Mr. Clover, with a packet for the lieutenant, and arrived in town overnight; but as he was obliged to have recourse to the information of Jack's correspondent in the city, touching the place of his abode, before he demanded entrance at the Fleet the gate was shut; nor would the turnkeys admit him, although he told them that he was charged with a message of the utmost consequence; so that he was fain to tarry till daybreak, when he, at his earnest solicitation, was allowed to enter.
Hatchway, opening the packet, found a letter enclosed for Peregrine, with an earnest request that he should forward it to the hands of that young gentleman with all possible despatch. Jack, who could not dive into the meaning of this extraordinary injunction, began to imagine that Mrs. Clover lay at the point of death, and wanted to take a last farewell of her brother; and this conceit worked so strongly upon his imagination, that, while he huddled on his clothes, and made the best of his way to the apartment of our hero, he could not help cursing, within himself, the folly of the husband in sending such disagreeable messages to a man of Peregrine's impatient temper, already soured by his own uneasy situation. This reflection would have induced him to suppress the letter, had not he been afraid to tamper with the ticklish disposition of his friend, to whom, while he delivered it, “As for my own part,” said he, “mayhap I may have as much natural affection as another, but when my spouse parted, I bore my misfortune like a British man, and a Christian. For why? He's no better than a fresh-water sailor, who knows not how to stem the current of mischance.”
Pickle being waked from a pleasant dream, in which the fair Emilia was principally concerned, and hearing this strange preamble, sat up in his bed, and unsealed the letter, in a state of mortification and disgust. But what were the emotions of his soul, when he read the following intimation:—