6. CHAPTER VI.
In which the history is farther continued
"Sure, friend," said the good man, "you are the strangest of all
human beings. Not only to have suffered as you have formerly, for
obstinately persisting in a falsehood, but to persist in it thus to
the last, and to pass thus upon the world for a servant of your own
son! What interest can you have in all this? What can be your motive?"
"I see, sir," said Partridge, falling down upon his knees, "that
your honour is prepossessed against me, and resolved not to believe
anything I say, and, therefore, what signifies my protestations? but
yet there is One above who knows that I am not the father of this
young man."
"How!" said Allworthy, "will you yet deny what you was formerly
convicted of upon such unanswerable, such manifest evidence? Nay, what
a confirmation is your being now found with this very man, of all
which twenty years ago appeared against you! I thought you had left
the country! nay, I thought you had been long since dead.- In what
manner did you know anything of this young man? Where did you meet
with him, unless you had kept some correspondence together? Do not
deny this; for I promise you it will greatly raise your son in my
opinion, to find that he hath such a sense of filial duty as privately
to support his father for so many years."
"If your honour will have patience to hear me," said Partridge, "I
will tell you all.-" Being bid go on, he proceeded thus: "When your
honour conceived that displeasure against me, it ended in my ruin soon
after; for I lost my little school; and the minister, thinking, I
suppose, it would be agreeable to your honour, turned me out from
the office of clerk; so that I had nothing to trust to but the
barber's shop, which, in a country place like that, is a poor
livelihood; and when my wife died (for till that time I received a
pension of £12 a year from an unknown hand, which indeed I believe was
your honour's own, for nobody that ever I heard of doth these things
besides)- but, as I was saying, when she died, this pension forsook
me; so that now, as I owed two or three small debts, which began to be
troublesome to me, particularly one [23]
which an attorney brought up by
law-charges from 15s. to near £30, and as I found all my usual means
of living had forsook me, I packed up my little all as well as I
could, and went off.
"The first place I came to was Salisbury, where I got into the
service of a gentleman belonging to the law, and one of the best
gentlemen that ever I knew, for he was not only good to me, but I know
a thousand good and charitable acts which he did while I staid with
him; and I have known him often refuse business because it was paultry
and oppressive." "You need not be so particular," said Allworthy; "I
know this gentleman, and a very worthy man he is, and an honour to his
profession."-- "Well, sir," continued Partridge, "from hence I removed
to Lymington, where I was above three years in the service of
another lawyer, who was likewise a very good sort of a man, and to
be sure one of the merriest gentlemen in England. Well, sir, at the
end of the three years I set up a little school, and was likely to
do well again, had it not been for a most unlucky accident. Here I
kept a pig; and one day, as ill fortune would have it, this pig
broke out, and did a trespass, I think they call it, in a garden
belonging to one of my neighbours, who was a proud, revengeful man,
and employed a lawyer, one- one- I can't think of his name; but he
sent for a writ against me, and had me to size. When I came there,
Lord have mercy upon me- to hear what the counsellors said! There was
one that told my lord a parcel of the confoundedest lies about me;
he said that I used to drive my hogs into other folk's gardens, and
a great deal more; and at last he said, he hoped I had at last brought
my hogs to a fair market. To be sure, one would have thought that,
instead of being owner only of one poor little pig, I had been the
greatest hog-merchant in England. Well-" "Pray," said Allworthy, "do
not be so particular, I have heard nothing of your son yet." "O it was
a great many years," answered Partridge, "before I saw my son, as
you are pleased to call him.- I went over to Ireland after this, and
taught school at Cork (for that one suit ruined me again, and I lay
seven years in Winchester jail)."-- "Well," said Allworthy, "pass that
over till your return to England."- "Then, sir," said he, "it was
about half a year ago that I landed at Bristol, where I staid some
time, and not finding it do there, and hearing of a place between that
and Gloucester where the barber was just dead, I went thither, and
there I had been about two months when Mr. Jones came thither." He
then gave Allworthy a very particular account of their first meeting,
and of everything, as well as he could remember, which had happened
from that day to this; frequently interlarding his story with
panegyrics on Jones, and not forgetting to insinuate the great love
and respect which he had for Allworthy. He concluded with saying,
"Now, sir, I have told your honour the whole truth." And then repeated
a most solemn protestation, "That he was no more the father of Jones
than the Pope of Rome;" and imprecated the most bitter curses on his
head, if he did not speak truth.
"What am I to think of this matter?" cries Allworthy. "For what
purpose should you so strongly deny a fact which I think it would be
rather your interest to own?" "Nay, sir," answered Partridge (for he
could hold no longer), "if your honour will not believe me, you are
like soon to have satisfaction enough. I wish you had mistaken the
mother of this young man, as well as you have his father."- And now
being asked what he meant, with all the symptoms of horror, both in
his voice and countenance, he told Allworthy the whole story, which he
had a little before expressed such desire to Mrs. Miller to conceal
from him.
Allworthy was almost as much shocked at this discovery as
Partridge himself had been while he related it. "Good heavens!" says
he, "in what miserable distresses do vice and imprudence involve
men! How much beyond our designs are the effects of wickedness
sometimes carried!" He had scarce uttered these words, when Mrs.
Waters came hastily and abruptly into the room. Partridge no sooner
saw her than he cried, "Here, sir, here is the very woman herself.
This is the unfortunate mother of Mr. Jones. I am sure she will acquit
me before your honour. Pray, madam--"
Mrs. Waters, without paying any regard to what Partridge said, and
almost without taking any notice of him, advanced to Mr. Allworthy. "I
believe, sir, it is so long since I had the honour of seeing you, that
you do not recollect me." "Indeed," answered Allworthy, "you are so
very much altered, on many accounts, that had not this man already
acquainted me who you are, I should not have immediately called you to
my remembrance. Have you, madam, any particular business which
brings you to me?" Allworthy spoke this with great reserve; for the
reader may easily believe he was not well pleased with the conduct
of this lady; neither with what he had formerly heard, nor with what
Partridge had now delivered.
Mrs. Waters answered- "Indeed, sir, I have very particular business
with you; and it is such as I can impart only to yourself. I must
desire, therefore, the favour of a word with you alone: for I assure
you what I have to tell you is of the utmost importance."
Partridge was then ordered to withdraw, but before he went, he
begged the lady to satisfy Mr. Allworthy that he was perfectly
innocent. To which she answered, "You need be under no apprehension,
sir; I shall satisfy Mr. Allworthy very perfectly of that matter."
Then Partridge withdrew, and that past between Mr. Allworthy and
Mrs. Waters which is written in the next chapter.
[[23]]
This is a fact which I knew happen to a poor clergyman in
Dorsetshire, by the villany of an attorney who, not contented with the exorbitant
costs to which the poor man was put by a single action, brought afterwards another
action on the judgment, as it was called. A method frequently used to oppress the
poor, and bring money into the pockets of attorneys to the great scandal of the law,
of the nation, of Christanity, and even of human nature itself.