# The Vicar of Wakefield/Volume 2/Chapter 24

CHAP. V.
Fresh calamities.
The next morning the sun arose with peculiar warmth for the season; so that we agreed to breakfast together at the honey-suckle bank: where, while we sate, my youngest daughter, at my request, joined her voice to the concert on the trees about us. It was here my poor Oli­via first met her seducer, and every object served to recall her sadness. But that me­lancholy, which is excited by objects of pleasure, or inspired by sounds of harmony, sooths the heart instead of corroding it. Her mother too, upon this occasion, felt a pleasing distress, and wept, and loved her ​daughter as before. "Do, my pretty Oli­via," cried she, "let us have that little melancholy air your pappa was so fond of, your sister Sophy has already obliged us. Do child, it will please your old father." She complied in a manner so exquisitely pathetic as moved me.
As she was concluding the last stanza, to which an interruption in her voice from sorrow gave peculiar softness, the appear­ance of Mr. Thornhill's equipage at a dis­tance alarmed us all, but particularly en­​creased the uneasiness of my eldest daughter, who, desirous of shunning her betrayer, re­turned to the house with her sister. In a few minutes he was alighted from his chariot, and making up to the place where I was still sitting, enquired after my health with his usual air of familiarity. "Sir," replied I, "your present assurance only serves to aggravate the baseness of your charac­ter; and there was a time when I would have chastised your insolence, for presum­ing thus to appear before me. But now you are safe; for age has cooled my passions, and my calling restrains them."
"I vow, my dear sir," returned he, "I am amazed at all this; nor can I under­stand what it means! I hope you don't think your daughter's late excursion with me had any thing criminal in it."
​"Go," cried I, "thou art a wretch, a poor pitiful wretch, and every way a lyar; but your meanness secures you from my anger! Yet sir, I am descended from a family that would not have borne this! And so, thou vile thing, to gra­tify a momentary passion, thou hast made one poor creature wretched for life, and polluted a family that had nothing but honour for their portion."
"If she or you," returned he, "are re­solved to be miserable, I cannot help it. But you may still be happy; and what­ever opinion you may have formed of me, you shall ever find me ready to con­tribute to it. We can readily marry her to another, and what is more, she may keep her lover beside; for I protest I shall ever continue to have a true regard for her."
​I found all my passions awakened at this new degrading proposal; for though the mind may often be calm under great inju­ries, little villainy can at any time get with­in the soul, and sting it into rage.—"Avoid my sight, thou reptile," cried I, "nor continue to insult me with thy pre­sence. Were my brave son at home, he would not suffer this; but I am old, and disabled, and every way undone."
"I find," cried he, "you are bent up­on obliging me to talk in an harsher manner than I intended. But as I have shewn you what may be hoped from my friendship, it may not be improper to represent what may be the consequences of my resentment. My attorney, to whom your late bond has heen transfer­red, threatens hard, nor do I know how to prevent the course of justice, except by paying the money myself, which, as I have been at some expences lately, pre​­vious to my intended marriage, it is not so easy to be done. And then my steward talks of driving for the rent: it is certain he knows his duty; for I never trouble myself with affairs of that nature. Yet still I could wish to serve you, and even to have you and your daughter present at my marriage, which is shortly to be so­lemnized with Miss Wilmot; it is even the request of my charming Arabella herself, whom I hope you will not re­fuse."
"Mr. Thornhill," replied I, "hear me once for all: as to your marriage with any but my daughter, that I never will consent to; and though your friendship could raise me to a throne, or your re­sentment sink me to the grave, yet would I despise both. Thou hast once wofully, irreparably, deceived me. I reposed my heart upon thine honour, and have found its baseness. Never ​more, therefore, expect friendship from me. Go, and possess what fortune has given thee, beauty, riches, health, and pleasure. Go, and leave me to want, infamy, disease, and sorrow. Yet hum­bled as I am, shall my heart still vindi­cate its dignity, and though thou hast my forgiveness, thou shalt ever have my contempt."
"If so," returned he, "depend upon it you shall feel the effects of this inso­lence, and we shall shortly see which is the fittest object of scorn, you or me."—Upon which he departed abruptly.
My wife and son, who were present at this interview, seemed terrified with the ap­prehension. My daughters also, finding that he was gone, came out to be informed of the result of our conference, which, when known, alarmed them not less than the rest. But as to myself, I disregarded ​the utmost stretch of his malevolence: he had already struck the blow, and now I stood prepared to repel every new effort. Like one of those instruments used in the art of war, which, however thrown, still presents a point to receive the enemy.
We soon, however, found that he had not threatened in vain; for the very next day his steward came to demand my annual rent, which, by the train of accidents already related, I was unable to pay. The consequence of my incapacity was his driving my cattle that evening, and their being appraised and sold the next day for less than half their value. My wife and children now therefore entreated me to comply upon any terms, rather than incur certain destruction. They even begged of me to admit his visits once more, and used all their little eloquence to paint the calamities I was going to endure. The terrors of ​a prison, in so rigorous a season as the pre­sent, with the danger that threatened my health from the late accident that happened by the fire. But I continued inflexible.
"Why, my treasures," cried I, "why will you thus attempt to persuade me to the thing that is not right! My duty has taught me to forgive him; but my conscience will not permit me to ap­prove. Would you have me applaud to the world what my heart must internally condemn? Would you have me tamely sit down and flatter our infamous be­trayer; and to avoid a prison continual­ly suffer the more galling bonds of men­tal confinement! No, never. If we are to be taken from this abode, only let us hold to the right, and wherever we are thrown, we can still retire to a charming apartment, and look round our ​own hearts with intrepidity and with pleasure!"
In this manner we spent that evening. Early the next morning, as the snow had fallen in great abundance in the night, my son was employed in clearing it away, and opening a passage before the door. He had not been thus engaged long, when he came running in, with looks all pale, to tell us that two strangers, whom he knew to be officers of justice, were making to­wards the house.
Just as he spoke they came in, and ap­proaching the bed where I lay, after previ­ously informing me of their employment and business, made me their prisoner, bid­ding me prepare to go with them to the county gaol, which was eleven miles off.
"My friends," said I, "this is severe weather on which you have come to ​take me to a prison; and it is particu­larly unfortunate at this time, as one of my arms has lately been burnt in a ter­rible manner, and it has thrown me into a slight fever, and I want cloaths to co­ver me, and I am now too weak and and old to walk far in such deep snow: but if it must be so, I'll try to obey you."
I then turned to my wife and chil­dren, and directed them to get toge­ther what few things were left us, and to prepare immediately for leaving this place. I entreated them to be expeditious, and desired my son to assist his elder sister, who, from a consciousness that she was the cause of all our calamities, was fallen, and had lost anguish in insensibility. I encouraged my wife, who, pale and trembling, clasped our affrighted little ones in her arms, that clung to her bosom in silence, dreading to ​look round at the strangers. In the mean time my youngest daughter prepared for our departure, and as she received several hints to use dispatch, in about an hour we were ready to depart.