บทที่ บทที่ 9 · 第9章

It was near five weeks that I kept my bed and though the violence of my

fever abated in three weeks, yet it several times returned; and the

physicians said two or three times, they could do no more for me, but

that they must leave nature and the distemper to fight it out, only

strengthening the first with cordials to maintain the struggle. After

the end of five weeks I grew better, but was so weak, so altered, so

melancholy, and recovered so slowly, that the physicians apprehended I

should go into a consumption; and which vexed me most, they gave it as

their opinion that my mind was oppressed, that something troubled me,

and, in short, that I was in love. Upon this, the whole house was set

upon me to examine me, and to press me to tell whether I was in love or

not, and with whom; but as I well might, I denied my being in love at

all.

They had on this occasion a squabble one day about me at table, that

had like to have put the whole family in an uproar, and for some time

did so. They happened to be all at table but the father; as for me, I

was ill, and in my chamber. At the beginning of the talk, which was

just as they had finished their dinner, the old gentlewoman, who had

sent me somewhat to eat, called her maid to go up and ask me if I would

have any more; but the maid brought down word I had not eaten half what

she had sent me already.

“Alas,” says the old lady, “that poor girl! I am afraid she will never

be well.”

“Well!” says the elder brother, “how should Mrs. Betty be well? They

say she is in love.”

“I believe nothing of it,” says the old gentlewoman.

“I don’t know,” says the eldest sister, “what to say to it; they have

made such a rout about her being so handsome, and so charming, and I

know not what, and that in her hearing too, that has turned the

creature’s head, I believe, and who knows what possessions may follow

such doings? For my part, I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Why, sister, you must acknowledge she is very handsome,” says the

elder brother.

“Ay, and a great deal handsomer than you, sister,” says Robin, “and

that’s your mortification.”

“Well, well, that is not the question,” says his sister; “that girl is

well enough, and she knows it well enough; she need not be told of it

to make her vain.”

“We are not talking of her being vain,” says the elder brother, “but of

her being in love; it may be she is in love with herself; it seems my

sisters think so.”

“I would she was in love with me,” says Robin; “I’d quickly put her out

of her pain.”

“What d’ye mean by that, son,” says the old lady; “how can you talk

so?”

“Why, madam,” says Robin, again, very honestly, “do you think I’d let

the poor girl die for love, and of one that is near at hand to be had,

too?”

“Fie, brother!”, says the second sister, “how can you talk so? Would

you take a creature that has not a groat in the world?”

“Prithee, child,” says Robin, “beauty’s a portion, and good-humour with

it is a double portion; I wish thou hadst half her stock of both for

thy portion.” So there was her mouth stopped.

“I find,” says the eldest sister, “if Betty is not in love, my brother

is. I wonder he has not broke his mind to Betty; I warrant she won’t

say No.”

“They that yield when they’re asked,” says Robin, “are one step before

them that were never asked to yield, sister, and two steps before them

that yield before they are asked; and that’s an answer to you, sister.”

This fired the sister, and she flew into a passion, and said, things

were come to that pass that it was time the wench, meaning me, was out

of the family; and but that she was not fit to be turned out, she hoped

her father and mother would consider of it as soon as she could be

removed.

Robin replied, that was business for the master and mistress of the

family, who where not to be taught by one that had so little judgment

as his eldest sister.

It ran up a great deal farther; the sister scolded, Robin rallied and

bantered, but poor Betty lost ground by it extremely in the family. I

heard of it, and I cried heartily, and the old lady came up to me,

somebody having told her that I was so much concerned about it. I

complained to her, that it was very hard the doctors should pass such a

censure upon me, for which they had no ground; and that it was still

harder, considering the circumstances I was under in the family; that I

hoped I had done nothing to lessen her esteem for me, or given any

occasion for the bickering between her sons and daughters, and I had

more need to think of a coffin than of being in love, and begged she

would not let me suffer in her opinion for anybody’s mistakes but my

own.

She was sensible of the justice of what I said, but told me, since

there had been such a clamour among them, and that her younger son

talked after such a rattling way as he did, she desired I would be so

faithful to her as to answer her but one question sincerely. I told her

I would, with all my heart, and with the utmost plainness and

sincerity. Why, then, the question was, whether there was anything

between her son Robert and me. I told her with all the protestations of

sincerity that I was able to make, and as I might well, do, that there

was not, nor ever had been; I told her that Mr. Robert had rattled and

jested, as she knew it was his way, and that I took it always, as I

supposed he meant it, to be a wild airy way of discourse that had no

signification in it; and again assured her, that there was not the

least tittle of what she understood by it between us; and that those

who had suggested it had done me a great deal of wrong, and Mr. Robert

no service at all.

The old lady was fully satisfied, and kissed me, spoke cheerfully to

me, and bid me take care of my health and want for nothing, and so took

her leave. But when she came down she found the brother and all his

sisters together by the ears; they were angry, even to passion, at his

upbraiding them with their being homely, and having never had any

sweethearts, never having been asked the question, and their being so

forward as almost to ask first. He rallied them upon the subject of

Mrs. Betty; how pretty, how good-humoured, how she sung better than

they did, and danced better, and how much handsomer she was; and in

doing this he omitted no ill-natured thing that could vex them, and

indeed, pushed too hard upon them. The old lady came down in the height

of it, and to put a stop it to, told them all the discourse she had had

with me, and how I answered, that there was nothing between Mr. Robert

and I.

“She’s wrong there,” says Robin, “for if there was not a great deal

between us, we should be closer together than we are. I told her I

loved her hugely,” says he, “but I could never make the jade believe I

was in earnest.” “I do not know how you should,” says his mother;

“nobody in their senses could believe you were in earnest, to talk so

to a poor girl, whose circumstances you know so well.

“But prithee, son,” adds she, “since you tell me that you could not

make her believe you were in earnest, what must we believe about it?

For you ramble so in your discourse, that nobody knows whether you are

in earnest or in jest; but as I find the girl, by your own confession,

has answered truly, I wish you would do so too, and tell me seriously,

so that I may depend upon it. Is there anything in it or no? Are you in

earnest or no? Are you distracted, indeed, or are you not? ’Tis a

weighty question, and I wish you would make us easy about it.”

“By my faith, madam,” says Robin, “’tis in vain to mince the matter or

tell any more lies about it; I am in earnest, as much as a man is

that’s going to be hanged. If Mrs. Betty would say she loved me, and

that she would marry me, I’d have her tomorrow morning fasting, and

say, ‘To have and to hold,’ instead of eating my breakfast.”

“Well,” says the mother, “then there’s one son lost”; and she said it

in a very mournful tone, as one greatly concerned at it.

“I hope not, madam,” says Robin; “no man is lost when a good wife has

found him.”

“Why, but, child,” says the old lady, “she is a beggar.”

“Why, then, madam, she has the more need of charity,” says Robin; “I’ll

take her off the hands of the parish, and she and I’ll beg together.”

“It’s bad jesting with such things,” says the mother.

“I don’t jest, madam,” says Robin. “We’ll come and beg your pardon,

madam; and your blessing, madam, and my father’s.”

“This is all out of the way, son,” says the mother. “If you are in

earnest you are undone.”

“I am afraid not,” says he, “for I am really afraid she won’t have me;

after all my sister’s huffing and blustering, I believe I shall never

be able to persuade her to it.”

“That’s a fine tale, indeed; she is not so far out of her senses

neither. Mrs. Betty is no fool,” says the younger sister. “Do you think

she has learnt to say No, any more than other people?”

“No, Mrs. Mirth-wit,” says Robin, “Mrs. Betty’s no fool; but Mrs. Betty

may be engaged some other way, and what then?”

“Nay,” says the eldest sister, “we can say nothing to that. Who must it

be to, then? She is never out of the doors; it must be between you.”

“I have nothing to say to that,” says Robin. “I have been examined

enough; there’s my brother. If it must be between us, go to work with

him.”

This stung the elder brother to the quick, and he concluded that Robin

had discovered something. However, he kept himself from appearing

disturbed. “Prithee,” says he, “don’t go to shame your stories off upon

me; I tell you, I deal in no such ware; I have nothing to say to Mrs.

Betty, nor to any of the Mrs. Bettys in the parish”; and with that he

rose up and brushed off.

“No,” says the eldest sister, “I dare answer for my brother; he knows

the world better.”

Thus the discourse ended, but it left the elder brother quite

confounded. He concluded his brother had made a full discovery, and he

began to doubt whether I had been concerned in it or not; but with all

his management he could not bring it about to get at me. At last he was

so perplexed that he was quite desperate, and resolved he would come

into my chamber and see me, whatever came of it. In order to do this,

he contrived it so, that one day after dinner, watching his eldest

sister till he could see her go upstairs, he runs after her. “Hark ye,

sister,” says he, “where is this sick woman? May not a body see her?”

“Yes,” says the sister, “I believe you may; but let me go first a

little, and I’ll tell you.” So she ran up to the door and gave me

notice, and presently called to him again. “Brother,” says she, “you

may come if you please.” So in he came, just in the same kind of rant.

“Well,” says he at the door as he came in, “where is this sick body

that’s in love? How do ye do, Mrs. Betty?” I would have got up out of

my chair, but was so weak I could not for a good while; and he saw it,

and his sister too, and she said, “Come, do not strive to stand up; my

brother desires no ceremony, especially now you are so weak.” “No, no,

Mrs. Betty, pray sit still,” says he, and so sits himself down in a

chair over against me, and appeared as if he was mighty merry.