The Adventures of Roderick Random

The Morning After

The following morning, Betty discovers the pedlar’s absence and questions the two remaining guests, who feign ignorance and astonishment while checking their money and the knapsack, finding all secure. Rifle, informed of the escape, dresses in haste and mounts his horse, vowing vengeance against the pedlar for raising the hue and cry against him. Over breakfast, Betty attempts to extract information through cunning questions, but Roderick and Strap maintain their guard. When the sound of horses’ feet arrives, the paranoid Strap fears the return of Rifle, though Roderick saves them from suspicion by explaining their timidity as foolish error.

第九章

On their journey after departing from an inn, the narrator and his servant Strap are overtaken by the highwayman Mr. Rifle, who shoots Strap to the ground, though a company of armed horsemen arriving in pursuit of the robber saves the narrator from meeting a similar fate; upon examination, Strap proves to be merely stunned by fear rather than fatally wounded. They proceed to a nearby inn where Strap rests in bed while the narrator observes card players including two farmers, an exciseman, and a curate named Shuffle who systematically cheats the farmers out of their money before entertaining the company with fiddle-playing, and during the ensuing meal the curate bitterly resents the comfortable living of a wealthy vicar who rides through on horseback, prompting the exciseman to reveal that the curate is a notorious card sharper and pimp who secured his position through knowledge of aristocratic scandals.