[The Adventures of Roderick Random by Tobias Smollett]@TWC D-Link bookThe Adventures of Roderick Random CHAPTER XXII 3/15
However, my defender thought proper to unload the other pistol, and throw away the flints, before he gave him his liberty. This courteous stranger conducted me home, where my father having learned the signal service he had done me, loaded him with caresses, and insisted on his lodging that night at our house.
If the obligation he had conferred upon me justly inspired me with sentiments of gratitude, his appearance and conversation seemed to entitle him to somewhat more. He was about the age of two-and-twenty, among the tallest of the middle size; had chestnut-coloured hair, which he wore tied up in a ribbon; a high polished forehead, a nose inclining to the aquiline, lively blue eyes, red pouting lips, teeth as white as snow, and a certain openness of countenance--but why need I describe any more particulars of his person? I hope you will do me the justice to believe I do not flatter, when I say he was the exact resemblance of you; and if I had not been well acquainted with his family and degree, I should have made no scruple of concluding that you was his brother.
He spoke and seemed to have no reserve: for what he said was ingenuous, sensible, and uncommon. "In short," said she, bursting into tears, "he was formed for the ruin of our sex.
His behaviour was modest and respectful, but his looks were so significant, that I could easily observe he secretly blessed the occasion that introduced him to my acquaintance.
We learned from his discourse that he was the eldest son of a wealthy gentleman in the neighbourhood, to whose name we were no strangers--that he had been to visit an acquaintance in the country, from whose house he was returning home, when my shrieks brought him to my rescue." 'All night long my imagination formed a thousand ridiculous expectations: there was so much of knight-errantry in this gentleman's coming to the relief of a damsel in distress, with whom he immediately became enamoured, that all I had read of love and chivalry recurred to my fancy; and I looked upon myself as a princess in some region of romance, who being delivered from the power of some brutal giant or satyr, by a generous Oroondates, was bound in gratitude, as well as led by inclination, to yield up my affections to him without reserve.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|