The Adventures of Roderick Random

CHAPTER LII / CHAPTER LV

The events in this stretch of Tobias Smollett’s The Adventures of Roderick Random trace a remarkable turn in the protagonist Roderick Random’s fortunes, moving from destitution and disgrace in London to social reinvention in the spa town of Bath. The narrative, set in mid-eighteenth century Britain, opens with Random still reeling from the loss of his diamond ring and watch to the earl Strutwell and his companion Straddle. The objects had been surrendered under false pretences, and Random attempts several stratagems to recover them—offering to have the ring reset, scheming to drop the watch and remove it for “repairs,” and besieging Strutwell at his levée—yet each ploy is defeated, and his importunity yields no result. Reduced to his last guinea, Random confides his necessity to his loyal Scottish valet Strap, whose distress borders on despair. Following Banter’s counsel, Random pawns his gold-inlaid steel sword for seven pieces, then pays a five-guinea debt to his landlord from that slender fund. Within a day or two, the household is again near penury. Banter, recognising Random’s predicament, leads him to a gaming house under the piazzas of Covent Garden, kept by a Scottish lord who had set up public tables under cover of his peerage. There, despite a foul-looking crowd of sharpers, highwaymen, and embezzling apprentices, Random begins betting cautiously and—through a sustained run of fortune, the source of which the narrator carefully leaves ambiguous—wins his way to 150 guineas before dawn. He resists a Gascon challenge to “give him his revenge,” forces a Jewish accuser to retract a charge of cheating, and returns home with his winnings. Strap, beholding the gold, is transported with such ecstasy that Random at first believes him to have lost his reason; the valet later explains he was invoking the Roman dies fasti, marked with a white stone for fortunate days. The chapter closes with a turn of justice: Mrs. Gawky, the former Miss Lavement whose testimony had earlier damned Random, appears in rags, repentant, having been abandoned by her husband, ejected by her parents, and widowed by poverty. Random secures from her a sworn declaration exposing the conspiracy that had ruined his reputation, presents her with five guineas, and uses the document to obtain full vindication from her father and the schoolmaster Mr. Concordance. The apothecary, though he will not take his daughter back into the house, agrees to settle a small lifetime annuity on her.

Restored in purse and character, Random disposes of much of his wardrobe in Monmouth Street and purchases two new suits and a plain gold watch. He next writes a sharp letter to Strutwell, reproaching him for the false hopes held out, and in person upbraids Straddle, who equivocates. Banter, noting the change in Random’s circumstances and crediting it to a fictitious country relation, proposes a new matrimonial scheme: a journey to Bath, where Random is to court Miss Snapper, the sickly but well-dowered daughter of a deceased Turkey merchant whose fortune of £20,000 is managed by her mother, Banter’s kinswoman. Random signs an obligation for £500 payable six months after marriage, hires a horse for Strap, and takes his place in the same stage coach.

The journey furnishes Smollett with a satirical set-piece. Inside the coach, the passengers include Random, Miss Snapper, her mother, a noisy lieutenant whose bombast is marked by continual oaths and inflated claims of valour at the Battle of Dettingen, a young barrister who replies in legal jargon, and a prim “person of honour” accompanied by her husband’s master, a nobleman. The lieutenant and Miss Snapper trade a sharp exchange of wit, in which the lady decisively outpaces him; his boasting of military exploits draws only the lawyer’s quibbling assent and her sarcasm. A highway alarm near Hounslow gives Random his opportunity. The lieutenant visibly trembles; the lawyer’s teeth chatter. Random commandeers the officer’s pistols, arms Strap and a passing groom, and pursues two riders, one of whom is thrown and captured along with twenty pounds taken from a nearby farmer. Returning to the coach, Random receives the open admiration of Miss Snapper and her mother; the lieutenant protests that he would have managed the affair more coolly, but is silenced when Miss Snapper reminds him he was visibly shaking. The lawyer, in a witticism at the soldier’s expense, suggests the prim lady admires the officer because he is “an able conveyancer.” The journey ends the next day at Bath.

At Bath, Random ingratiates himself with the Snappers by securing them a share of dinner when the inn’s larder has been picked clean by a nobleman. In the Long Room, the celebrated Master of Ceremonies, Beau Nash, attempts to humiliate Miss Snapper by asking, in the hearing of the company, the name of Tobit’s dog. Miss Snapper instantly retorts that the dog’s name was Nash, “and an impudent dog he was,” turning the laugh against the would-be wit. Her triumph makes her the object of general courtship and, Random fears, will multiply the obstacles to his own design. That very evening, he attempts a declaration; she repels him gently, citing the shortness of their acquaintance, and he is forced to swallow his ardour. A few days later, Random squires her to an assembly, where, amid the crowd, he suddenly beholds the adored Narcissa, his beloved from earlier adventures, escorted by her brother, the fox-hunting squire. Random is convulsed; his distraction, his incoherence, and the direction of his glances are at once observed by Miss Snapper, who, hurt and piqued, proposes to leave, telling him with sarcasm that she would not keep him any longer in torment.

Random’s happiness is, however, far from exhausted. As he walks next morning near the Pump Room, he is accosted by Miss Williams, his old companion from the London garret, now in the service of Narcissa. Miss Williams, who has long been Narcissa’s confidante, reveals that her mistress had spoken of “John Brown”—the name under which Random had served in his aunt’s household—with admiration and tender approbation, and that on the night of the assembly, Narcissa had been thrown into raptures on recognising him, now in a gentleman’s dress. Random, “delirious” with joy, embraces Miss Williams, but is persuaded to forgo a precipitous declaration: Narcissa, Miss Williams insists, will not violate decorum, and any premature move would cost the confidante her place. They agree upon a plan: Miss Williams will inform Narcissa only of Random’s name, and deliver a letter from him on the morrow. She further informs him that his rival Sir Timothy Thicket had died of apoplexy five months before; that Narcissa’s aunt, the formerly formidable matron, had married the parish schoolmaster and was now hectic and dropsical, taking the Bath waters; and that the squire attended his sister chiefly to prevent her marrying without his consent. Random, on his return home, lays the whole affair before Strap, whose cautious proverb—“a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”—concludes a day in which Random’s prospects have been transformed.