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Passage Illustrated: Harriet Surrounded by Agressive Petitioners for Rustic Charity

Miss Smith, and Miss Bickerton, another parlour boarder at Mrs. Goddard’s, who had been also at the ball, had walked out together, and taken a road, the Richmond road, which, though apparently public enough for safety, had led them into alarm. — About half a mile beyond Highbury, making a sudden turn, and deeply shaded by elms on each side, it became for a considerable stretch very retired; and when the young ladies had advanced some way into it, they had 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; and 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 — and in this state, and exceedingly terrified, she had been obliged to remain.

How the trampers might have behaved, had the young ladies been more courageous, must be doubtful; but such an invitation for attack could not be resisted; and 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, and taking out her purse, gave them a shilling, and begged 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. [Chapter 39, pp. 136-137]

Commentary: Setting up Frank Churchill to Harriet's Deliverer from the Gypsies

As the illustration makes clear, Harriet, separated from her companion, Miss Bickerton, feels genuinely threatened by the Gypsies. And the illustrator has taken pains to make the leader of the Gypsies rough-looking and physically impressive. Brock does not include a dozen small children, and has chosen to emphasize the roughly dressed, impressively "stout" petitioner and "the great boy" as a sturdy adolescent in a fur hat, as if to underscore his animalistic nature. The scene contrasting the well-dressed young lady and the rough Gypsies in the woods (with no road visible) is important in terms of its setting up Frank Churchill as Harriet's deliverer. He quickly escorts the distressed young woman (in our illustration, thin, alarmed, slight, and highly anxious) back to Hartfield, and this in turn leads to Emma's believing the two are romantically involved. Thus, she now chooses to ignore her vow to stop interfering as she believes they may become a couple.

As Tandon notes, Gypsies were at once both exotic and familiar, serving as symbols of wildness and yet being indigenous vagrants who posed a perennial problem for local magistrates such as Knightley.

Bibliography

Austen, Jane. Emma. Ed. R. Brimley Johnson. With coloured illustrations by C. E. and H. M. Brock. The Novels and Letters of Jane Austen. 2 vols. New York & Philadelphia: Frank S. Holby, 1906.

Austen, Jane. Emma: An Annotated Edition. Ed. Bharat Tandon. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard U. P., 2012.

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Created 7 April 2026