The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle

Chapter XXXIV

154 The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle chapter xxxiv. The two young gentlemen display their talents for gallantry, in the course of which they are involved in a ludicrous circumstance of distress, and afterwards take vengeance on the author of their mishap. Mean while our hero and his new friend, together with honest Jack Hatchway, made daily excursions into the country, visited the gentlemen in the neighbourhood , and frequently accompanied them to the chace; all three being exceedingly caressed on account of their talents, which could accommodate themselves with great facility to the tempers and turns of their entertainers. The lieutenant was a droll in his way,1 Peregrine possessed a great fund of sprightliness and good humour, and Godfrey, among his other qualifications already recited, sung a most excellent song; so that the company of this triumvirate was courted in all parties, whether male or female; and if the hearts of our young gentlemen had not been pre-engaged, they would have met with opportunities in abundance of displaying their address in the art of love; not but that they gave a loose to their gallantry without much interesting their affections, and amused themselves with little intrigues, which, in the opinion of a man of pleasure, do not affect his fidelity to the acknowledged sovereign of his soul. Had they used those advantages which their skill and accomplishments gave them over the warm unpractised minds of the young ladies to whom they had access, almost every family in the county, might have had cause to rue their acquaintance; but our adventurers , wild and licentious as they were, governed their actions by certain notions of honour, which they never presumed to infringe, and therefore, no domestic tragedies took rise from their behaviour. Among the lower class of people, they did not act with the same virtuous moderation , but laid close siege to every buxom country damsel that fell in their way;2 imagining that their dalliance with such Dulcineas could produce no fatal effects; and that it would be in their power to attone for any damage these inamorata’s might sustain. In the prosecution of these amours, Gauntlet could not help discovering a particular bias towards married women, and when questioned by his friend, defended his singularity of taste, by observing that such connections, if discreetly managed, are attended by none of those bad consequences which commonly pursue an amorous correspondence with single persons; because the wedded dame’s fortune is already made, and her husband stands as a buttress before her reputation. Though Peregrine could not approve of this maxim which the soldier had adopted in the course of a military education, he could not avoid engaging as a second and con- fidant to his friend, in an intrigue which he carried on with a farmer’s wife in the neighbourhood . Godfrey had practiced all his arts in attempting to overcome the chastity of this woman, who was an hale rosy wench, lately married; and at length succeeded so far Volume One, Chapter XXXIV 155 in his addresses, that she promised to admit him one night when her husband would be absent on business, which called him once a fortnight to the next market town. He communicated his good fortune to Perry, desiring that he would accompany him to the place, in case of accident; and our young gentleman having undertaken the of- fice of standing centinel over his friend, while he should enjoy his conquest, they set out at the time appointed, and arriving at the door, the gallant made the signal which had been agreed upon, and was let in accordingly, after having assured his confidant that he would be with him again in two hours at farthest. Thus left to his own meditations, our hero began his patrole, beguiling the time with the most amusing fancies of a glowing imagination, and enjoying by anticipation all the pleasures attending affluence and youth, till at length his reverie was interrupted by a plump shower that compelled him to seek for shelter in a sort of shed,3 the door of which stood open to his view. Thither therefore he betook himself, and groping about as he entered in the dark, chanced to lay hold on a bushy beard, to his infinite surprize and consternation. Before he had time to form any conjecture concerning this strange object of his touch, he received a sudden shock upon his forehead that felled him to the ground in...