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Page 48
When the boy Hymen had, with his lighted torch, driven the boy
Cupid out of doors, that is to say, in common phrase, when the
violence of Mr. Wild's passion (or rather appetite) for the chaste
Laetitia began to abate, he returned to visit his friend
Heartfree, who was now in the liberties of the Fleet, and appeared
to the commission of bankruptcy against him. Here he met with a
more cold reception than he himself had apprehended. Heartfree had
long entertained suspicions of Wild, but these suspicions had from
time to time been confounded with circumstances, and principally
smothered with that amazing confidence which was indeed the most
striking virtue in our hero. Heartfree was unwilling to condemn
his friend without certain evidence, and laid hold on every
probable semblance to acquit him; but the proposal made at his
last visit had so totally blackened his character in this poor
man's opinion, that it entirely fixed the wavering scale, and he
no longer doubted but that our hero was one of the greatest
villains in the world.
Circumstances of great improbability often escape men who devour a
story with greedy ears; the reader, therefore, cannot wonder that
Heartfree, whose passions were so variously concerned, first for
the fidelity, and secondly for the safety of his wife; and,
lastly, who was so distracted with doubt concerning the conduct of
his friend, should at this relation pass unobserved the incident
of his being committed to the boat by the captain of the
privateer, which he had at the time of his telling so lamely
accounted for; but now, when Heartfree came to reflect on the
whole, and with a high prepossession against Wild, the absurdity
of this fact glared in his eyes and struck him in the most
sensible manner. At length a thought of great horror suggested
itself to his imagination, and this was, whether the whole was not
a fiction, and Wild, who was, as he had learned from his own
mouth, equal to any undertaking how black soever, had not spirited
away, robbed, and murdered his wife.
Intolerable as this apprehension was, he not only turned it round
and examined it carefully in his own mind, but acquainted young
Friendly with it at their next interview. Friendly, who detested
Wild (from that envy probably with which these GREAT CHARACTERS
naturally inspire low fellows), encouraged these suspicions so
much, that Heartfree resolved to attach our hero and carry him
before a magistrate.
This resolution had been some time taken, and Friendly, with a
warrant and a constable, had with the utmost diligence searched
several days for our hero; but, whether it was that in compliance
with modern custom he had retired to spend the honey-moon with his
bride, the only moon indeed in which it is fashionable or
customary for the married parties to have any correspondence with
each other; or perhaps his habitation might for particular reasons
be usually kept a secret, like those of some few great men whom
unfortunately the law hath left out of that reasonable as well as
honourable provision which it hath made for the security of the
persons of other great men.
But Wild resolved to perform works of supererogation in the way of
honour, and, though no hero is obliged to answer the challenge of
my lord chief justice, or indeed of any other magistrate, but may
with unblemished reputation slide away from it, yet such was the
bravery, such the greatness, the magnanimity of Wild, that he
appeared in person to it.
Indeed envy may say one thing, which may lessen the glory of this
action, namely, that the said Mr. Wild knew nothing of the said
warrant or challenge; and as thou mayest be assured, reader, that
the malicious fury will omit nothing which can anyways sully so
great a character, so she hath endeavoured to account for this
second visit of our hero to his friend Heartfree from a very
different motive than that of asserting his own innocence.
CHAPTER TEN
MR. WILD WITH UNPRECEDENTED GENEROSITY VISITS HIS FRIEND
HEARTFREE, AND THE UNGRATEFUL RECEPTION HE MET WITH.
It hath been said then that Mr. Wild, not being able on the
strictest examination to find in a certain spot of human nature
called his own heart the least grain of that pitiful low quality
called honesty, had resolved, perhaps a little too generally, that
there was no such thing. He therefore imputed the resolution with
which Mr. Heartfree had so positively refused to concern himself
in murder, either to a fear of bloodying his hands or the
apprehension of a ghost, or lest he should make an additional
example in that excellent book called God's Revenge against
Murder; and doubted not but he would (at least in his present
necessity) agree without scruple to a simple robbery, especially
where any considerable booty should be proposed, and the safety of
the attack plausibly made appear; which if he could prevail on him
to undertake, he would immediately afterwards get him impeached,
convicted, and hanged. He no sooner therefore had discharged his
duties to Hymen, and heard that Heartfree had procured himself the
liberties of the Fleet, than he resolved to visit him, and to
propose a robbery with all the allurements of profit, ease, and
safety.
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