These and many more pathetic protestations, accompanied
with sighs and tears and other expressions of grief, which our
hero had at command, could not fail to melt the tender heart of
the Fleming, already prepossessed in favour of his qualifications.
She sympathized so much with his affliction, as to weep in her
turn, when she represented the impossibility of her rewarding his
passion; and he, seizing the moment, reinforced his solicitations
with such irresistible transports, that her resolution gave way,
she began to breathe quick, expressed her fear of being overheard
by the other lady, with an ejaculation of "O heavens! I'm undone,"
suffered him, after a faint struggle, to make a lodgment upon the
covered way of her bed. Her honour, however, was secured for the
present, by a strange sort of knocking upon the wainscot, at the
other end of the room, hard by the bed in which the female adventurer
lay.
Surprised at this circumstance, the lady begged him for heaven's
sake to retreat, or her reputation would be ruined for ever; but
when he represented to her, that her character would run a much
greater risk if he should be detected in withdrawing, she consented,
with great trepidation, to his stay, and they listened in silence
to the sequel of the noise that alarmed them.
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