Tom Jones Book 11, Chapter 8

A Dreadful Alarm in the Inn, With the Arrival of an Unexpected Friend of Mrs. Fitzpatrick

• Sophia tells Mrs. Fitzpatrick all about her own travels.
• But she leaves out one small detail: Tom.
• As Sophia wraps up her tale, they hear shrieks coming from downstairs.
• It's Mrs. Honour, shouting at the landlord and landlady.
• She's obviously offended as all get-out that they think her Sophia is Jenny Cameron, that "nasty stinking" (11.8.4) Jacobite prostitute.
• It definitely offends Mrs. Honour's pride that people might think that she would ever work for a prostitute.
• One reason why Mrs. Honour is so angry is that she's kind of drunk.
• It turns out that Mrs. Honour has left the landlord with a bloody nose.
• (From all we've seen of Mrs. Honour in this novel, we'd like to have her on our side in a fight. That girl can box!)
• The landlord comes upstairs to say that there is "a great gentleman" (11.8.12) waiting downstairs.
• Sophia thinks at first that it's her father.
• But no, it's an Irish lord who recognized Mrs. Fitzpatrick's servant and is asking after the lady herself.
• This lord is a friend of Mrs. Fitzpatrick's.
• In fact, he's the guy who helped her to escape from her locked room back in Ireland.
• Mrs. Fitzpatrick introduces him to Sophia.
• He offers the two ladies transportation in his coach, which they accept.