The fact was the poor girl had heard of Joseph’s misfortune from the servants of a coach which had stopped at the inn while the poor youth was confined to his bed; and she had that instant abandoned the cow she was milking, and taking with her a little bundle of clothes under her arm, and all the money she was worth in her own purse, immediately set forward in pursuit of one whom she loved with inexpressible violence, though with the purest and most delicate passion.

Fanny was now in the nineteenth year of her age; she was tall and delicately shaped.  Her hair was a chestnut brown; her complexion was fair; and, to conclude all, she had a natural gentility which surprised all who beheld her.

Can it be wondered that on the following day, when Adams and the damsel overtook Andrews at a wayside ale-house, the youth imprinted numberless kisses on her lips, while Parson Adams danced about the room in a rapture of joy?

It was so late when our travellers left the ale-house that they had not travelled many miles before night overtook them.  They moved forwards where the nearest light presented itself; and having crossed a common field, they came to a meadow where they seemed to be at a very little distance from the light, when, to their grief, they arrived at the banks of a river.  Adams declared he could swim, but Joseph answered, if they walked along its banks they might be certain of soon finding a bridge, especially as, by the number of lights, they might be assured a parish was near.

“That’s true, indeed,” said Adams.  “I did not think of that.”

Accordingly, Joseph’s advice being taken, they passed over two meadows, and came to a little orchard which led them to a house.  Fanny begged of Joseph to knock at the door, assuring him she was so weary that she could hardly stand on her feet; and the door being immediately opened, a plain kind of man appeared at it.  Adams acquainted him that they had a young woman with them, who was so tired with her journey that he should be much obliged to him if he would suffer her to come in and rest herself.

The man, who saw Fanny by the light of the candle which he held in his hand, perceiving her innocent and modest look, and having no apprehensions from the civil behaviour of Adams, presently answered that the young woman was very welcome to rest herself in his house, and so were her company.  He then ushered them into a very decent room, where his wife was sitting at a table; she immediately rose up, and assisted them in setting forth chairs, and desired them to sit down.

They now sat cheerfully round the fire till the master of the house, having surveyed his guests, and conceiving that the cassock which appeared under Adams’s greatcoat, and the shabby livery of Joseph Andrews, did not well suit the familiarity between them, began to entertain some suspicions not much to their advantage.  Addressing himself, therefore, to Adams, he said he perceived he was a clergyman by his dress, and supposed that honest man was his footman.