BOOK XI. CONTAINING ABOUT THREE DAYS.
8. Chapter viii. A dreadful alarm in the inn...
(continued)
Such was the noise which now burst from one of the rooms below; and
soon the thunder, which long had rattled at a distance, began to
approach nearer and nearer, till, having ascended by degrees upstairs,
it at last entered the apartment where the ladies were. In short, to
drop all metaphor and figure, Mrs Honour, having scolded violently
below-stairs, and continued the same all the way up, came in to her
mistress in a most outrageous passion, crying out, "What doth your
ladyship think? Would you imagine that this impudent villain, the
master of this house, hath had the impudence to tell me, nay, to stand
it out to my face, that your ladyship is that nasty, stinking wh--re
(Jenny Cameron they call her), that runs about the country with the
Pretender? Nay, the lying, saucy villain had the assurance to tell me
that your ladyship had owned yourself to be so; but I have clawed the
rascal; I have left the marks of my nails in his impudent face. My
lady! says I, you saucy scoundrel; my lady is meat for no pretenders.
She is a young lady of as good fashion, and family, and fortune, as
any in Somersetshire. Did you never hear of the great Squire Western,
sirrah? She is his only daughter; she is----, and heiress to all his
great estate. My lady to be called a nasty Scotch wh--re by such a
varlet!--To be sure I wish I had knocked his brains out with the
punch-bowl."
The principal uneasiness with which Sophia was affected on this
occasion Honour had herself caused, by having in her passion
discovered who she was. However, as this mistake of the landlord
sufficiently accounted for those passages which Sophia had before
mistaken, she acquired some ease on that account; nor could she, upon
the whole, forbear smiling. This enraged Honour, and she cried,
"Indeed, madam, I did not think your ladyship would have made a
laughing matter of it. To be called whore by such an impudent low
rascal. Your ladyship may be angry with me, for aught I know, for
taking your part, since proffered service, they say, stinks; but to be
sure I could never bear to hear a lady of mine called whore.--Nor will
I bear it. I am sure your ladyship is as virtuous a lady as ever sat
foot on English ground, and I will claw any villain's eyes out who
dares for to offer to presume for to say the least word to the
contrary. Nobody ever could say the least ill of the character of any
lady that ever I waited upon."
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