Chapter 4.00: Chapter iii. — An odd accident which befel Mr Allworthy at his return home. The decent behaviour of Mrs Deborah Wilkins, with some proper animadversions on bastards.

**
Chapter iii. — An odd accident which befel Mr Allworthy at his
return home. The decent behaviour of Mrs Deborah Wilkins, with some proper
animadversions on bastards.
**

I have told my reader, in the preceding chapter, that Mr Allworthy
inherited a large fortune; that he had a good heart, and no family. Hence,
doubtless, it will be concluded by many that he lived like an honest man,
owed no one a shilling, took nothing but what was his own, kept a good
house, entertained his neighbours with a hearty welcome at his table, and
was charitable to the poor, i. E. To those who had rather beg than work, by
giving them the offals from it; that he died immensely rich and built an
hospital.

And true it is that he did many of these things; but had he done nothing
more I should have left him to have recorded his own merit on some fair
freestone over the door of that hospital. Matters of a much more
extraordinary kind are to be the subject of this history, or I should
grossly mis-spend my time in writing so voluminous a work; and you, my
sagacious friend, might with equal profit and pleasure travel through some
pages which certain droll authors have been facetiously pleased to call _The
History of England_.

Mr Allworthy had been absent a full quarter of a year in London, on some
very particular business, though I know not what it was; but judge of its
importance by its having detained him so long from home, whence he had not
been absent a month at a time during the space of many years. He came to
his house very late in the evening, and after a short supper with his
sister, retired much fatigued to his chamber. Here, having spent some
minutes on his knees—a custom which he never broke through on any
account—he was preparing to step into bed, when, upon opening the
cloathes, to his great surprize he beheld an infant, wrapt up in some
coarse linen, in a sweet and profound sleep, between his sheets. He stood
some time lost in astonishment at this sight; but, as good nature had
always the ascendant in his mind, he soon began to be touched with
sentiments of compassion for the little wretch before him. He then rang
his bell, and ordered an elderly woman-servant to rise immediately, and
come to him; and in the meantime was so eager in contemplating the beauty
of innocence, appearing in those lively colours with which infancy and
sleep always display it, that his thoughts were too much engaged to
reflect that he was in his shirt when the matron came in. She had indeed
given her master sufficient time to dress himself; for out of respect to
him, and regard to decency, she had spent many minutes in adjusting her
hair at the looking-glass, notwithstanding all the hurry in which she had
been summoned by the servant, and though her master, for aught she knew,
lay expiring in an apoplexy, or in some other fit.

It will not be wondered at that a creature who had so strict a regard to
decency in her own person, should be shocked at the least deviation from
it in another. She therefore no sooner opened the door, and saw her master
standing by the bedside in his shirt, with a candle in his hand, than she
started back in a most terrible fright, and might perhaps have swooned
away, had he not now recollected his being undrest, and put an end to her
terrors by desiring her to stay without the door till he had thrown some
cloathes over his back, and was become incapable of shocking the pure eyes
of Mrs Deborah Wilkins, who, though in the fifty-second year of her age,
vowed she had never beheld a man without his coat. Sneerers and prophane
wits may perhaps laugh at her first fright; yet my graver reader, when he
considers the time of night, the summons from her bed, and the situation
in which she found her master, will highly justify and applaud her
conduct, unless the prudence which must be supposed to attend maidens at
that period of life at which Mrs Deborah had arrived, should a little
lessen his admiration.

When Mrs Deborah returned into the room, and was acquainted by her master
with the finding the little infant, her consternation was rather greater
than his had been; nor could she refrain from crying out, with great
horror of accent as well as look, “My good sir! What's to be done?”
Mr Allworthy answered, she must take care of the child that evening, and
in the morning he would give orders to provide it a nurse. “Yes,
sir,” says she; “and I hope your worship will send out your
warrant to take up the hussy its mother, for she must be one of the
neighbourhood; and I should be glad to see her committed to Bridewell, and
whipt at the cart's tail. Indeed, such wicked sluts cannot be too severely
punished. I‘ll warrant ’tis not her first, by her impudence in laying it
to your worship.” “In laying it to me, Deborah!”
answered Allworthy: “I can't think she hath any such design. I
suppose she hath only taken this method to provide for her child; and
truly I am glad she hath not done worse.” “I don't know what
is worse,” cries Deborah, “than for such wicked strumpets to
lay their sins at honest men's doors; and though your worship knows your
own innocence, yet the world is censorious; and it hath been many an
honest man's hap to pass for the father of children he never begot; and if
your worship should provide for the child, it may make the people the
apter to believe; besides, why should your worship provide for what the
parish is obliged to maintain? For my own part, if it was an honest man's
child, indeed—but for my own part, it goes against me to touch these
misbegotten wretches, whom I don't look upon as my fellow-creatures.
Faugh! How it stinks! It doth not smell like a Christian. If I might be so
bold to give my advice, I would have it put in a basket, and sent out and
laid at the churchwarden's door. It is a good night, only a little rainy
and windy; and if it was well wrapt up, and put in a warm basket, it is
two to one but it lives till it is found in the morning. But if it should
not, we have discharged our duty in taking proper care of it; and it is,
perhaps, better for such creatures to die in a state of innocence, than to
grow up and imitate their mothers; for nothing better can be expected of
them.”

There were some strokes in this speech which perhaps would have offended
Mr Allworthy, had he strictly attended to it; but he had now got one of
his fingers into the infant's hand, which, by its gentle pressure, seeming
to implore his assistance, had certainly out-pleaded the eloquence of Mrs
Deborah, had it been ten times greater than it was. He now gave Mrs
Deborah positive orders to take the child to her own bed, and to call up a
maid-servant to provide it pap, and other things, against it waked. He
likewise ordered that proper cloathes should be procured for it early in
the morning, and that it should be brought to himself as soon as he was
stirring.

Such was the discernment of Mrs Wilkins, and such the respect she bore her
master, under whom she enjoyed a most excellent place, that her scruples
gave way to his peremptory commands; and she took the child under her
arms, without any apparent disgust at the illegality of its birth; and
declaring it was a sweet little infant, walked off with it to her own
chamber.

Allworthy here betook himself to those pleasing slumbers which a heart
that hungers after goodness is apt to enjoy when thoroughly satisfied. As
these are possibly sweeter than what are occasioned by any other hearty
meal, I should take more pains to display them to the reader, if I knew
any air to recommend him to for the procuring such an appetite.