The Aftermath of Preservation

Missing Scene from Chapter 4 of Sense & Sensibility based on this passage:

A gentleman carrying a gun, with two pointers playing round him, was passing up the hill and within a few yards of Marianne, when her accident happened. He put down his gun and ran to her assistance.

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John Willoughby exited the cottage with a smile. What a very pretty girl and what a promising beginning! He had only just arrived in the country and wherever he was, he liked to have an object to make love to. How fortunate to have discovered one within the first two days of his arrival. He was already thinking about how delightful it would be to visit the next day and idly walking towards Allenham when he suddenly recalled that he was quite without his gun.

He turned round and began a slow walk up the hill from which he had rescued the fair maiden. His dogs happily played in the long grass as Willoughby tried to discern where exactly Miss Dashwood had fallen. The driving rain had washed away every trace of her footsteps or fall and his memory was rather blank when he tried to think of where on the hill he had been.

If Willoughby had not been soaked and dirty before, the next half hour thoroughly did the business. He walked back and forth up the hill and then down again, cursing to himself that he had not done something more sensible than laying an expensive gun on the ground without any way of reclaiming it. His dogs, growing cold and wet with him, were no help, and he began to think it might be more sensible to return to Allenham and try to find the rifle another day when it was drier.

He stood for a minute, trying to understand how a gun could be hidden so well on the hill and wondering if perhaps some farmhand had come by and stolen it. He made one last disorganized search, which ended abruptly when he stepped into a deep puddle and the water flooded into his boots. This was absolute folly. He would return tomorrow.

The next day he set out rather early with the hope of finding his gun before he visited Miss Marianne. It was only a short walk but the morning proved no more profitable than his last search had been. He railed against the injustice of his good deed having produced such an ill effect and cursed every man in the area who might have made off with his precious possession. He had hardly the money to purchase another. It would be the ruin of all his pleasure in visiting his tiresome relation! What ill fortune!

“Is this yours?” he heard a man call and turned to see Colonel Brandon, who was walking along the main path and holding in his hands the very rifle.

“Yes, by God!” said Willoughby, and as he began to run towards him, he slipped rather ungracefully and slid some way in the mud before catching himself. He stood before his gun’s preserver feeling rather silly. As he gratefully accepted his weapon, he looked back up towards where he had been and easily could discern how the gun, aided by water and slick mud, had simply rolled down the hill on its own. He had been searching in vain the entire time.

“Think nothing of it,” said Colonel Brandon, who continued on his solitary walk. Willoughby sighed and started back towards Allenham. He was going to need new clothes, again.

For more short stories, go here

For my Mansfield Park variation, here Unfairly Caught

For my crossover romance, check out Prideful & Persuaded