dearest blessing I can ask of Heaven to send you will be to charm you from that unhappy temper, which alone has prevented the performance of our solemn engagement. All I request of you is, that you will yourself reflect upon this infirmity, and when you number up the many true delights it has deprived you of, let it not be your least regret, that it lost you the love of one who would have followed you in beggary through the world! [Exit. Faulk. She's gone! for ever! There was an awful resolution in her manner, that riveted me to my place. O fool! - dolt! - barbarian! Cursed as I am, with more imperfections than my fellow wretches, kind fortune sent a heavengifted cherub to my aid, and, like a ruffian, I have driven her from my side! I must now haste to my appointment. Well, my mind is tuned for such a scene. I shall wish only to become a principal in it, and reverse the tale my cursed folly put me upon forging here. O love! O love! - tormentor! - fiend! whose influence, like the moon's, acting on men of dull souls, makes idiots of them, but meeting subtler spirits, betrays their course, and urges sensibility to madness! Enter LYDIA and MAID. [Exit. Maid. My mistress, ma'am, I know, was here just now perhaps she is only in the next room. [Exit MAID. Lydia. Heigh-ho! Though he has used me so, this fellow runs strangely in my head. I believe one lecture from my grave cousin will make me recall him. Re-enter JULIA. O Julia, I am come to you with such an appetite for consolation. Lud! child, what's the matter with you? You have been crying! I'll be hanged if that Faulkland has not been tormenting you! Julia. You mistake the cause of my uneasiness! — Something has flurried me a little. Nothing that you can guess at. [Aside.] I would not accuse Faulkland to a sister! Lydia. Ah! whatever vexations you may have, I can assure you mine surpass them. You know who Beverley proves to be? Julia. I will now own to you, Lydia, that Mr. Faulkland had before informed me of the whole affair. Had young Absolute been the person you took him for, I should not have accepted your confidence on the subject, without a serious endeavour to counteract your caprice. Lydia. So, then, I see I have been deceived by every one! But I don't care I'll never have him. Julia. Nay, Lydia Lydia. Why, is it not provoking? when I thought we were coming to the prettiest distress imaginable, to find myself made a mere Smithfield1 bargain of at last! There, had I projected one of the most sentimental elopements! so becoming a disguise! — so amiable a ladder of ropes! — conscious moon four horses 2 Scotch parson with such surprise to 3 Mrs. Malaprop- and such paragraphs in the newspapers! 3 Oh, I shall die with disappointment! Julia. I don't wonder at it! Lydia. Now Now sad reverse! what have I to expect, but, after a deal of flimsy preparation with a bishop's licence, and my aunt's blessing, to go simpering up to the altar; or perhaps be cried three times in a country church, and have an unmannerly fat clerk ask the consent of every butcher in the parish to join John Absolute and Lydia Languish, spinster! Oh, that I should live to hear myself called spinster! Julia. Melancholy indeed! Lydia. How mortifying, to remember the dear delicious shifts I used to be put to, to gain half a minute's conversation with this fellow! How often have I stole forth, in the coldest night in January, and found him in the garden, stuck like a dripping statue! There would he kneel to me in the snow, and sneeze and cough so pathetically! he shivering with cold and I with apprehension! and while the freezing blast numbed our joints, 1 The cattle market in London. 2 Runaway couples fled to Scotland to be married; hence the fame of Gretna Green. 3 The Niece in Steele's Tender Husband (IV., i.) thinks "It looks so ordinary to go out at a door to be married. Indeed, I ought to be taken out of a window, and run away with." See note 1, page 157. how warmly would he press me to pity his flame,1 and glow with mutual ardour! Ah, Julia, that was something like being in love. Julia. If I were in spirits, Lydia, I should chide you only by laughing heartily at you; but it suits more the situation of my mind, at present, earnestly to entreat you not to let a man, who loves you with sincerity, suffer that unhappiness from your caprice, which I know too well caprice can inflict. Lydia. O Lud! what has brought my aunt here? Enter MRS. MALAPROP, FAG, and DAVID. Mrs. Mal. So! so! here's fine work! here's fine suicide, parricide, and simulation, going on in the fields! and Sir Anthony not to be found to prevent the antistrophe! Julia. For heaven's sake, madam, what's the meaning of this? Mrs. Mal. That gentleman can tell you- 'twas he enveloped the affair to me. Lydia. Do, sir, will you, inform us? [To FAG. Fag. Ma'am, I should hold myself very deficient in every requisite that forms the man of breeding, if I delayed a moment to give all the information in my power to a lady so deeply interested in the affair as you are. Lydia. But quick! quick, sir! Fag. True, ma'am, as you say, one should be quick in divulging matters of this nature; for should we be tedious, perhaps while we are flourishing on the subject, two or three lives may be lost! Lydia. O patience ! Do, ma'am, for heaven's sake! tell us what is the matter! Mrs. Mal. Why, murder's the matter! slaughter's the matter! killing's the matter!—but he can tell you the perpendiculars. Lydia. Then, prithee, sir, be brief. Fag. Why then, ma'am, as to murder, I cannot take upon me to say; and as to slaughter, or manslaughter, that will be as the jury finds it. 1 Compare Captain Absolute's situation as described here by Lydia with that of the lover in Horace's ode Ad Lycen (III., x.). Lydia. But who, sir- who are engaged in this? Fag. Faith, ma'am, one is a young gentleman whom I should be very sorry any thing was to happen to a very pretty behaved gentleman! We have lived much together, and always on terms. Lydia. But who is this? who? who? who? Fag. My master, ma'am — my master - I speak of my master. Lydia. Heavens! What, Captain Absolute! Mrs. Mal. Oh, to be sure, you are frightened now! Julia. But who are with him, sir? Fag. As to the rest, ma'am, this gentleman can inform you better than I. Julia. Do speak, friend. [To DAVID. David. Look'ee, my lady — by the mass! there's mischief going on. Folks don't use to meet for amusement with firearms, firelocks, fire-engines, fire-screens, fire-office, and the devil knows what other crackers beside! This, my lady, I say, has an angry favour. Julia. But who is there beside Captain Absolute, friend? David. My poor master— under favour for mentioning him first. You know me, my lady — I am David — and my master of course is, or was, Squire Acres. Then comes Squire Faulkland. Julia. Do, ma'am, let us instantly endeavour to prevent mischief. Mrs. Mal. O fie! - it would be very inelegant in us; we should only participate things. David. Ah! do, Mrs. Aunt, save a few lives - they are desperately given, believe me. Above all, there is that bloodthirsty Philistine,1 Sir Lucius O'Trigger. Mrs. Mal. Sir Lucius O'Trigger? O mercy! have they drawn poor little dear Sir Lucius into the scrape?- Why, how you stand, girl! you have no more feeling than one of the Derbyshire petrifactions! 2 1 The Philistines were a warlike people hostile to the Israelites. Compare the use of the name in Judges, XVI., "The Philistines be upon thee, Samson." 2 Some editions, sustaining Mrs. Malaprop's reputation, read putrefactions. In 1793 William Martin published a work entitled Figures and Descrip Lydia. What are we to do, madam? Mrs. Mal. Why fly with the utmost felicity, to be sure, to prevent mischief! Here, friend, you can show us the place? Fag. If you please, ma'am, I will conduct you. David, do you look for Sir Anthony. [Exit DAVID. Mrs. Mal. Come, girls! this gentleman will exhort us. Come, sir, you're our envoy; lead the way, and we'll precede. Fag. Not a step before the ladies for the world! Mrs. Mal. You're sure you know the spot? Fag. I think I can find it, maʼam; and one good thing is, we shall hear the report of the pistols as we draw near, so we can't well miss them; never fear, ma'am, never fear. [Exeunt, he talking. SCENE II. - The South Parade. Enter CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE, putting his sword under his great coat. Abs. A sword seen in the streets of Bath would raise as great an alarm as a mad dog. How provoking this is in Faulkland! never punctual! I shall be obliged to go without him at last. Oh, the devil! here's Sir Anthony! how shall I escape him? [Muffles up his face, and takes a circle to go off. Enter SIR ANTHONY Absolute. Sir Anth. How one may be deceived at a little distance ! only that I see he don't know me, I Hey! Gad's life! it is. was Jack! could have sworn that Why, Jack, what are Why Jack Jack [Goes up to him. Abs. Really, sir, you have the advantage of me: I don't remember ever to have had the honour - my name is Saunderson, at your service. Sir Anth. Sir, I beg your pardon — I took you I took you - hey? why, zounds! it is Stay - [Looks up to his face.] So, so tions of Petrifactions collected in Derbyshire and in 1809 another entitled Petrificata Derbiensia. |