Frank Churchill rescues Harriet from gypsies

Frank Churchill rescues Harriet Smith from a group of threatening gypsies on a secluded road near Highbury, an event that deepens Harriet's romantic attachment to him and fuels Emma Woodhouse's renewed matchmaking schemes.

Background and Setting

On a morning shortly after the ball at the Crown Inn, Harriet Smith and Miss Bickerton, another parlour boarder at Mrs. Goddard's school, set out for a walk together. They took the Richmond road, which, though apparently public enough for safety, became deeply shaded by elms on each side after a sudden turn about half a mile beyond Highbury, making it for a considerable stretch very retired. As the young ladies advanced some way into this secluded stretch, they suddenly perceived at a small distance before them, on a broader patch of greensward by the side, a party of gipsies. A child on the watch came towards them to beg.

What Happens

Miss Bickerton, excessively frightened, gave a great scream and, calling on Harriet to follow her, ran up a steep bank, cleared a slight hedge at the top, and made the best of her way by a short cut back to Highbury. But poor Harriet could not follow. She had suffered very much from cramp after dancing, and her first attempt to mount the bank brought on such a return of it as made her absolutely powerless. In this state, and exceedingly terrified, she was obliged to remain. The trampers, presented with such an invitation for attack, could not resist. Harriet was soon assailed by half a dozen children, headed by a stout woman and a great boy, all clamorous and impertinent in look, though not absolutely in word. More and more frightened, she immediately promised them money, taking out her purse and giving them a shilling, begging them not to want more or to use her ill. She was then able to walk, though but slowly, and was moving away, but her terror and her purse were too tempting, and she was followed, or rather surrounded, by the whole gang, demanding more.

In this state Frank Churchill found her, she trembling and conditioning, they loud and insolent. By a most fortunate chance, his leaving Highbury had been delayed so as to bring him to her assistance at this critical moment. The pleasantness of the morning had induced him to walk forward, leaving his horses to meet him by another road a mile or two beyond Highbury. Happening to have borrowed a pair of scissors the night before of Miss Bates and to have forgotten to restore them, he had been obliged to stop at her door and go in for a few minutes, making him later than he had intended. Being on foot, he was unseen by the whole party till almost close to them. The terror which the woman and boy had been creating in Harriet was then their own portion. He left them completely frightened, and Harriet, eagerly clinging to him and hardly able to speak, had just strength enough to reach Hartfield before her spirits were quite overcome. It was his idea to bring her to Hartfield; he had thought of no other place.

Consequences and Aftermath

Emma Woodhouse, who received the pair at Hartfield as Harriet fainted away, immediately saw the romantic potential of the adventure. She thought it a very extraordinary thing, noting that nothing of the sort had ever occurred before to any young ladies in the place within her memory. The circumstances seemed to her to unite everything to promise the most interesting consequences: Frank Churchill was wishing to get the better of his attachment to herself, and Harriet was just recovering from her mania for Mr. Elton. Emma resolved not to stir a step or drop a hint, having had enough of interference, but she could not help indulging in a mere passive scheme, a wish. The event became known all over Highbury within half an hour, engaging the young and the low in the happiness of frightful news, and the last night's ball seemed lost in the gipsies. Mr. Woodhouse trembled as he sat and would scarcely be satisfied without their promising never to go beyond the shrubbery again. The gipsies did not wait for the operations of justice, taking themselves off in a hurry, and the whole history soon dwindled into a matter of little importance but to Emma and her nephews, who still asked every day for the story of Harriet and the gipsies. For Harriet, the rescue was the foundation of a powerful new attachment. She later confessed to Emma that the service Frank Churchill rendered her was an inexpressible obligation, and that the very recollection of it, of seeing him coming with his noble look and her wretchedness before, and the change from perfect misery to perfect happiness in one moment, had warmed her heart. This attachment, which Emma initially encouraged, would later prove to be a source of painful misunderstanding when Harriet revealed that her true object of affection was not Frank Churchill but Mr. Knightley.