Mrs. Jewkes has received a letter. She tells me, as a secret, that she has reason to think my master has found a way to satisfy my scruples. It is by marrying me to his dreadful Swiss servant, Colbrand, and buying me of him on the wedding-day for a sum of money! Was ever the like heard? She says it will be my duty to obey my husband, and that when my master has paid for me, and I am surrender'd up, the Swiss is to go home again, with the money, to his former wife and children; for, she says, it is the custom of these people to have a wife in every nation.
But this, to be sure, is horrid romancing!
_Friday, the thirty-sixth day of imprisonment_. Mercy on me! What will become of me? Here is my master come in his fine chariot! What shall I do? Where shall I hide myself?
He put on a stern and a haughty air. "Well, perverse Pamela, ungrateful creature, you do well, don't you, to give me all this trouble and vexation?"
I could not speak, but sobb'd and sigh'd, as if my heart would break. "Sir," I said, "permit me to return to my parents. That is all I have to ask."
He flew into a violent passion. "Is it thus," said he, "I am to be answered? Begone from my sight!"
The next day he sent me up by Mrs. Jewkes his proposals. They were seven in number, and included the promise of an estate of £250 a year in Kent, to be settled on my father; and a number of suits of rich clothing and diamond rings were to be mine if I would consent to be his mistress.
My answer was that my parents and their daughter would much rather choose to starve in a ditch or rot in a noisome dungeon, than accept of the fortune of a monarch upon such wicked terms.
Mrs. Jewkes now tells me he is exceedingly wroth, and that I must quit the house, and may go home to my father and mother.
_Sunday night_. Well, my dear parents, here I am at an inn in a little village. And Robin, the coachman, assures me he has orders to carry me to you. O, that he may say truth and not deceive me again!
"I have proofs," said my master to Mrs. Jewkes, when I left the house, "that her virtue is all her pride. Shall I rob her of that? No, let her go, perverse and foolish as she is; but she deserves to go away virtuous, and she shall."
I think I was loth to leave the house. Can you believe it? I felt something so strange and my heart was so heavy.