The Heroine

'I will run for assistance,' said I, and flew towards the road, where I had just heard the sound of an approaching carriage. But on a sudden it stopped, voices began disputing, and soon after a pistol was fired. I paused in great terror, for I judged that these were the robbers again. What was I to do? When a heroine is reduced to extremities, she always does one of two things, either faints on the spot, or exhibits energies almost superhuman.

Faint I could not, so nothing remained for me, but energies almost superhuman. I pondered a moment, and a grand thought struck me. Recollecting the gunpowder in the cellar, I flew for it back to the ruin, carried it up to the hall, threw most of it on the floor, and with the remainder, strewed a train, as I walked towards Stuart.

When I was within a few paces of him, I heard quick steps; and a hoarse voice vociferating, 'Who goes yonder with the light?' for I had brought the lantern with me.

'Fly!' cried Stuart, 'or you are lost.'

I snatched the candle from the lantern, applied it to the train, and the next moment dropped to the ground at the shock of the tremendous explosion that followed. A noise of falling timbers resounded through the ruin, and the robbers were heard scampering off in all directions.

'There!' whispered I, after a pause; 'there is an original horror for you; and all of my own contrivance. The villains have fled, the neighbours will flock to the spot, and you will obtain assistance.'

By this time we heard the people of the carriage running towards us.

'Stuart!' cried I, in an awful voice.

'My name indeed!' said he. 'This is completely inexplicable.'

'Stuart,' cried I, 'hear my parting words. Never again', (quoting his own letter,) 'will I make you my playmate; never again climb your shoulders, and gallop you round the lawn! Ten o'clock is past. Go not to Sylvan Lodge to-night. She departed two hours ago. Look to your steps.'

I spoke this portentous warning, and fled across the common. Miss Wilkinson! Miss Wilkinson! sounded on the blast; but the wretch had discovered me too late. I ran about half a mile, and then looking behind me, beheld the ruin in a blaze. Renovated by the sight of this horror, I walked another hour, without once stopping; till, to my surprise and dismay, I found myself utterly unable to proceed a step farther. This was the more provoking, because heroines often perform journies on foot that would founder fifty horses.

I now knocked at a farm-house, on the side of the road; but the people would not admit me. Soon after, I perceived a boy watching sheep in a field, and begged earnestly that he would direct me to some romantic cottage, shaded with vines and acacias, and inhabited by a lovely little Arcadian family.

'There is no family of that name in these here parts,' said he.

'These here!' cried I, 'Ah, my friend, that is not pastoral language. I see you will never pipe madrigals to a Chloris or a Daphne.'

'And what sort of nasty language is that?' cried he. 'Get along with you, do: I warrant you are a bad one.' And he began pelting me with tufts of grass.

At last, I contrived to shelter myself under a haycock, where I remained till day began to dawn. Then, stiff and chilled, I proceeded on my journey; and in a short time, met a little girl with a pail of milk, who consented to let me change my dress at her cottage, and conducted me thither.

It was a family of frights, flat noses and thick lips without mercy. No Annettes and Lubins, or Amorets and Phyllidas, or Florimels and Florellas; no little Cherubin and Seraphim amongst them. However, I slipped on (for slipping on is the heroic mode of dressing) my spangled muslin, and joined their uglinesses at breakfast, resolving to bear patiently with their features. They tell me that a public coach to London will shortly pass this way, so I shall take a place in it.

On the whole, I see much reason to be pleased with what has happened hitherto. How fortunate that I went to the house on the common! I see plainly, that if adventure does not come to me, I must go to adventure. And indeed, I am authorized in doing so by the example of my sister heroines; who, with a noble disinterestedness, are ever the chief artificers of their own misfortunes; for, in nine cases out of ten, were they to manage matters like mere common mortals, they would avoid all those charming mischiefs which adorn their memoirs.

As for this Stuart, I know not what to think of him. I will, however, do him the justice to say, that he has a pleasing countenance; and although he neither kissed my hand, nor knelt to me, yet he had the decency to talk of 'wounds,' and my 'charming tresses.' Perhaps, if he had saved my life, instead of my having saved his; and if his name had consisted of three syllables ending in i or o; and, in fine, were he not an unprincipled profligate, the man might have made a tolerable hero. At all events, I heartily hate him; and his smooth words went for nothing.

The coach is in sight.

    Adieu.

LETTER VI

'I shall find in the coach,' said I, approaching it, 'some emaciated Adelaide, or sister Olivia. We will interchange congenial looks – she will sigh, so will I – and we shall commence a vigorous friendship on the spot.'

Yes, I did sigh; but it was at the huge and hideous Adelaide that presented herself, as I got into the coach. In describing her, our wittiest novelists would say, that her nose lay modestly retired between her cheeks; that her eyes, which pointed inwards, seemed looking for it, and that her teeth were

'Like angels' visits; short and far between.'

She first eyed me with a supercilious sneer, and then addressed a diminutive old gentleman opposite, in whose face Time had ploughed furrows, and Luxury sown pimples.

'And so, Sir, as I was telling you, when my poor man died, I so bemoaned myself, that between swoons and hysterics, I got nervous all over, and was obliged to go through a regiment.'

I stared in astonishment. 'What!' thought I, 'a woman of her magnitude and vulgarity, faint, and have nerves? Impossible!'

'Howsomdever,' continued she, 'my Bible and my daughter Moll are great consolations to me. Moll is the dearest little thing in the world; as straight as a popular; then such dimples; and her eyes are the very squintessence of perfection. She has all her catechism by heart, and moreover, her mind is uncontaminated by romances and novels, and such abominations.'

'Pray, Ma'am,' said I, civilly, 'may I presume to ask how romances and novels contaminate the mind?'

'Why, Mem,' answered she tartly, and after another survey: 'by teaching little misses to go gadding, Mem, and to be fond of the men, Mem, and of spangled muslin, Mem.'

'Ma'am,' said I, reddening, 'I wear spangled muslin because I have no other dress: and you should be ashamed of yourself for saying that I am fond of the men.'

'The cap fits you then,' cried she.

'Were it a fool's cap,' said I, 'perhaps I might return the compliment.'

I thought it expedient, at my first outset in life, to practise apt repartee, and emulate the infatuating sauciness, and elegant vituperation of Amanda, the Beggar Girl, and other heroines; who, when irritated, disdain to speak below an epigram.

'Pray, Sir,' said she, to our fellow traveller, 'what is your opinion of novels? Ant they all love and nonsense, and the most unpossible lies possible?'

'They are fictions, certainly,' said he.

'Surely, Sir,' exclaimed I, 'you do not mean to call them fictions.'

'Why no,' replied he, 'not absolute fictions.'

'But,' cried the big lady, 'you don't pretend to call them true.'

'Why no,' said he, 'not absolutely true.'

'Then,' cried I, 'you are on both sides of the question at once.'

He trod on my foot.

'Ay, that you are,' said the big lady.

He trod on her foot.

'I am too much of a courtier,' said he, 'to differ from the ladies,' and he trod on both our feet.

'A courtier!' cried I: 'I should rather have imagined you a musician.'

'Pray why?' said he.

'Because,' answered I, 'you are playing the pedal harp on this lady's foot and mine.'

'I wished to produce harmony,' said he, with a submitting bow.