SCENE I.

The Outside of the Red Cow.

DENNIS BRULGRUDDERY before the Door.

Dennis. I’ve stretched my neck half a yard longer, looking out after that rapscallion, Dan. Och! and is it yourself I see, at last? There he comes, in a snail’s trot, with a basket behind him, like a stage coach.

Enter DAN, with a Basket at his Back.

Dan, you devil! aren’t you a beast of a waiter?

Dan. What for?

Dennis. To stay out so, the first day of company.

Dan. Come, that be a good un! I ha’ waited for the company a week, and I defy you to say I ever left the house till they comed.

Dennis. Well, and that’s true. Pacify me with a good reason, and you’ll find me a dutiful master. Arrah, Dan, what’s that hump grown out at your back, on the road?

Dan. Plenty o’ meat and drink. I ha’n’t had such a hump o’ late, at my stomach. [Puts the Basket on the Ground.

Dennis. And who harnessed you, Dan, with all that kitchen stuff?

Dan. He as ware rack’d, and took I wi’ un to Penzance, for a companion. He order’d I, as I said things were a little famish’d like, here, to buy this for the young woman, and the old man he ha’ brought back wi’ un.

Dennis. Then you have been gabbling your ill looking stories about my larder, you stone eater!

Dan. Larder! I told un you had three live pigs as ware dying.

Dennis. Oh fie! Think you, won’t any master discharge a man sarvant that shames him? Thank your luck, I can’t blush. But is the old fellow, our customer has brought, his intimate friend, he never saw but once, thirty years ago?

Dan. Ees; that be old Job Thornberry, the brazier; and, as sure as you stand there, when we got to his shop, they were going to make him a banker.

Dennis. A banker! I never saw one made. How do they do it?

Dan. Why, the bum baileys do come into his house, and claw away all his goods and furniture.

Dennis. By the powers, but that’s one way of setting a man going in business!

Dan. When we got into the shop, there they were, as grum as thunder. You ha’ seen a bum bailey?

Dennis. I’m not curious that way. I might have seen one, once or twice; but I was walking mighty fast, and had no time to look behind me.

Dan. My companion our customer he went up stairs, and I bided below; and then they began a knocking about the goods and chapels. That ware no business o’ mine.

Dennis. Sure it was not.

Dan. Na, for sartin; so I ax’d ’em what they were a doing; and they told I, wi’ a broad grin, taking an invention of the misfortunate man’s defects.

Dennis. Choke their grinning! The law of the land’s a good doctor; but, bad luck to those that gorge upon such a fine physician’s poor patients! Sure, we know, now and then, it’s mighty wholesome to bleed; but nobody falls in love with the leech.

Dan. They comed down stairs our customer and the brazier; and the head baily he began a bullocking at the old man, in my mind, just as one christian shou’dn’t do to another. I had nothing to do wi’ that.

Dennis. Damn the bit.

Dan. No, nothing at all; and so my blood began to rise. He made the poor old man almost fit to cry.

Dennis. That wasn’t your concern, you know.

Dan. Bless you, mun! ‘twould ha’ look’d busy like, in me, to say a word; so I took up a warming pan, and I bang’d bum bailey, wi’ the broad end on’t, ‘till he fell o’ the floor as fat as twopence.

Dennis. Oh, hubaboo! lodge in my heart, and I’ll never ax you for rent you’re a friend in need. Remember, I’ve a warmingpan you know where it hangs, and that’s enough.

Dan. They had like to ha’ warm’d I, finely, I do know. I ware nigh being haul’d to prison; ’cause, as well as I could make out their cant, it do seem I had rescued myself, and broke a statue.

Dennis. Och, the Philistines!

Dan. But our traveller I do think he be the devil he settled all in a jiffy; for he paid the old man’s debts, and the bailey’s broken head ware chuck’d into the bargain.

Dennis. And what did he pay?

Dan. Guess now.

Dennis. A hundred pounds?

Dan. Six thousand, by gum!

Dennis. What! on the nail?

Dan. Na; on the counter.

Dennis. Whew! six thousand pou ! Oh, by the powers, this man must be the philosopher’s stone! Dan

Dan. Hush! here he be.

Enter PEREGRINE, from the House.

Per. [To DAN.] So, friend, you have brought provision, I perceive.

Dan. Ees, sir; three boil’d fowls, three roast, two chicken pies, and a capon.

Per. You have considered abundance, more than variety. And the wine?

Dan. A dozen o’ capital red port, sir: I ax’d for the newest they had i’ the cellar.

Dennis. [To himself.] Six thousand pounds upon a counter!

Per. [To DAN.] Carry the hamper in doors; then return to me instantly. You must accompany me in another excursion.

Dan. What, now?

Per. Yes; to Sir Simon Rochdale’s. You are not tired, my honest fellow?

Dan. Na, not a walking wi’ you; but, dang me, when you die, if all the shoemakers shouldn’t go into mourning.
[DAN takes the Hamper into the House.

Dennis. [Ruminating.] Six thousand pounds! by St. Patrick, it’s a sum!

Per. How many miles from here to the Manor house?

Dennis. Six thousand!

Per. Six thousand! yards you mean, I suppose, friend.

Dennis. Sir! Eh? Yes, sir, I I mean yards all upon a counter!

Per. Six thousand yards upon a counter! Mine host, here, seems a little bewildered; but he has been anxious, I find, for poor Mary, and ’tis national in him to blend eccentricity with kindness. John Bull exhibits a plain, undecorated dish of solid benevolence; but Pat has a gay garnish of whim around his good nature; and if, now and then, ’tis sprinkled in a little confusion, they must have vitiated stomachs, who are not pleased with the embellishment.

Enter DAN, booted.

Dan. Now, sir, you and I’ll stump it.

Per. Is the way we are to go now, so much worse, that you have cased yourself in those boots?

Dan. Quite clean that’s why I put ’em on: I should ha’ dirted ’em in t’ other job.

Per. Set forward, then.

Dan. Na, sir, axing your pardon; I be but the guide, and ’tisn’t for I to go first.

Per. Ha! ha! Then we must march abreast, boy, like lusty soldiers, and I shall be side by side with honesty: ’tis the best way of travelling through life’s journey, and why not over a heath? Come, my lad.

Dan. Cheek by jowl, by gum! [Exeunt PEREGRINE and DAN.

Dennis. That walking philosopher perhaps he’ll give me a big bag of money. Then, to be sure, I won’t lay out some of it to make me easy for life: for I’ll settle a separate maintenance upon ould mother Brulgruddery.

JOB THORNBERRY peeps out of the Door of the Public House.

Job. Landlord!

Dennis. Coming, your honour.

Job. [Coming forward.] Hush! don’t bawl; Mary has fallen asleep. You have behaved like an emperor to her, she says. Give me your hand, landlord.

Dennis. Behaved! Arrah, now, get away with your blarney.
[Refusing his Hand.

Job. Well, let it alone. I’m an old fool, perhaps; but, as you comforted my poor girl in her trouble, I thought a squeeze from her father’s hand as much as to say, “Thank you, for my child.” might not have come amiss to you.

Dennis. And is it yourself who are that creature’s father?

Job. Her mother said so, and I always believed her. You have heard some’at of what has happen’d, I suppose. It’s all over our town, I take it, by this time. Scandal is an ugly, trumpeting devil. Let ’em talk; a man loses little by parting with a herd of neighbours, who are busiest in publishing his family misfortunes; for they are just the sort of cattle who would never stir over the threshold to prevent ’em.

Dennis. Troth, and that’s true; and some will only sarve you, because you’re convenient to ’em, for the time present; just as my customers come to the Red Cow.

Job. I’ll come to the Red Cow, hail, rain, or shine, to help the house, as long as you are Landlord. Though I must say that your wife

Dennis. [Putting his Hand before JOB’S Mouth.] Decency! Remember your own honour, and my feelings. I mustn’t hear any thing bad, you know, of Mrs. Brulgruddery; and you’ll say nothing good of her, without telling damn’d lies; so be asy.

Job. Well, I’ve done; but we mustn’t be speaking ill of all the world, neither: there are always some sound hearts to be found among the hollow ones. Now he that is just gone over the heath

Dennis. What, the walking philosopher?

Job. I don’t know any thing of his philosophy; but, if I live these thousand years, I shall never forget his goodness. Then, there’s another; I was thinking, just now, if I had tried him, I might have found a friend in my need, this morning.

Dennis. Who is he?

Job. A monstrous good young man; and as modest and affable, as if he had been bred up a ’prentice, instead of a gentleman.

Dennis. And what’s his name?

Job. Oh, every body knows him, in this neighbourhood; he lives hard by Mr. Francis Rochdale, the young ’squire, at the Manor-house.

Dennis. Mr. Francis Rochdale!

Job. Yes! he’s as condescending! and took quite a friendship for me, and mine. He told me, t’other day, he’d recommend me in trade to all the great families twenty miles round; and said he’d do, I don’t know what all, for my Mary.

Dennis. He did! Well, ’faith, you may’nt know what; but, by my soul, he has kept his word!

Job. Kept his word! What do you mean?

Dennis. Harkye If Scandal is blowing about your little fireside accident, ’twas Mr. Francis Rochdale recommended him to your shop, to buy his brass trumpet.

Job. Eh! What? no! yes I see it at once! young Rochdale’s a rascal! Mary! [Bawling.

Dennis. Hush you’ll wake her, you know.

Job. I intend it. I’ll a glossy, oily, smooth rascal! warming me in his favour, like an unwholesome February sun! shining upon my poor cottage, and drawing forth my child, my tender blossom, to suffer blight, and mildew! Mary! I’ll go directly to the Manor-house his father’s in the commission. I may’nt find justice, but I shall find a justice of peace.

Dennis. Fie, now! and can’t you listen to reason?

Job. Reason! tell me a reason why a father shouldn’t be almost mad, when his patron has ruin’d his child. Damn his protection! tell me a reason why a man of birth’s seducing my daughter doesn’t almost double the rascality? yes, double it: for my fine gentleman, at the very time he is laying his plans to make her infamous, would think himself disgraced in making her the honest reparation she might find from one of her equals.

Dennis. Arrah, be asy, now, Mr. Thornberry.

Job. And, this spark, forsooth, is now canvassing the county! but, if I don’t give him his own at the hustings! How dare a man set himself up for a guardian of his neighbour’s rights, who has robbed his neighbour of his dearest comforts? How dare a seducer come into freeholders’ houses, and have the impudence to say, send me up to London as your representative? Mary! [Calling.

Dennis. That’s all very true. But if the voters are under petticoat government, he has a mighty good chance of his election.

Enter MARY.

Mary. Did you call, my dear father?

Job. Yes, I did call. [Passionately.

Dennis. Don’t you frighten that poor young crature!

Mary. Oh, dear! what has happened? You are angry; very angry. I hope it isn’t with me! if it is, I have no reason to complain.

Job. [Softened, and folding her in his Arms.] My poor, dear child! I forgive you twenty times more, now, than I did before.

Mary. Do you, my dear father?

Job. Yes; for there’s twenty times more excuse for you, when rank and education have helped a scoundrel to dazzle you. Come!
[Taking her Hand.

Mary. Come! where?

Job. [Impatiently.] To the Manor-house with me, directly.

Mary. To the Manor-house! Oh, my dear father, think of what you are doing! think of me!

Job. Of you! I think of nothing else. I’ll see you righted. Don’t be terrified, child damn it, you know I doat on you: but we are all equals in the eye of the law; and rot me, if I won’t make a baronet’s son shake in his shoes, for betraying a brazier’s daughter. Come, love, come! Exeunt JOB and MARY.

Dennis. There’ll be a big boderation at the Manor-house! My customers are all gone, that I was to entertain: nobody’s left but my lambkin, who don’t entertain me: Sir Simon’s butler gives good Madeira: so, I’m off, after the rest; and the Red Cow and mother Brulgruddery may take care of one another. [Exit.

SCENE II.

Enter FRANK ROCHDALE.

Frank. Shuffleton’s intelligence astonishes me! So soon to throw herself into the arms of another! and what could effect, even if time for perseverance had favoured him, such a person’s success with her!

Enter SIR SIMON ROCHDALE.

Sir Simon. Why, Frank! I thought you were walking with Lady Caroline.

Frank. No, sir.

Sir Simon. Ha! I wish you would learn some of the gallantries of the present day from your friend, Tom Shuffleton: but from being careless of coming up to the fashion, damn it, you go beyond it? for you neglect a woman three days before marriage, as much as half the Tom Shuffletons three months after it.

Frank. As by entering into this marriage, sir, I shall perform the duties of a son, I hope you will do me the justice to suppose I shall not be basely negligent as a husband,

Sir Simon. Frank, you’re a fool; and

Enter a SERVANT.

Well, sir?

Serv. A person, Sir Simon, says he wishes to see you on very urgent business.

Sir Simon. And I have very urgent business, just now, with my steward. Who is the person? How did he come?

Serv. On foot, Sir Simon.

Sir Simon. Oh, let him wait. [Exit SERVANT.

At all events, I can’t see this person for these two hours. I wish you would see him for me.

Frank. Certainly, sir, any thing is refuge to me, now, from the subject of matrimony. [Aside, and going.

Sir Simon. But a word before you go. Damn it, my dear lad, why can’t you perceive I am labouring this marriage for your good? We shall ennoble the Rochdales: for, though my father, your grandfather, did some service in elections (that made him a baronet), amassed property, and bought lands, and so on, yet, your great grandfather Come here your great grandfather was a miller.
[Half whispering.

Frank. [Smiling.] I shall not respect his memory less, sir, for knowing his occupation.

Sir Simon. But the world will, you blockhead: and, for your sake, for the sake of our posterity, I would cross the cart breed, as much as possible, by blood.

Frank. Is that of consequence, sir?

Sir Simon. Isn’t it the common policy? and the necessities of your boasters of pedigree produce a thousand intermarriages with people of no pedigree at all; till, at last, we so jumble a genealogy, that, if the devil himself would pluck knowledge from the family tree, he could hardly find out the original fruit.
[Exeunt severally.

Enter TOM SHUFFLETON, from the Park, following LADY CAROLINE
BRAYMORE.

Shuff. “The time is come for Iphigene to find,
“The miracle she wrought upon my mind;”

Lady Car. Don’t talk to me.

Shuff. “For, now, by love, by force she shall be mine,
“Or death, if force should fail, shall finish my design.”

Lady Car. I wish you would finish your nonsense.

Shuff. Nonsense: ’tis poetry; somebody told me ’twas written by Dryden.

Lady Car. Perhaps so; but all poetry is nonsense.

Shuff. Hear me, then, in prose.

Lady Car. Psha! that’s worse.

Shuff. Then I must express my meaning in pantomime. Shall I ogle you?

Lady Car. You are a teasing wretch; I have subjected myself, I find, to very ill treatment, in this petty family; and begin to perceive I am a very weak woman.

Shuff. [Aside.] Pretty well for that matter.

Lady Car. To find myself absolutely avoided by the gentleman I meant to honour with my hand, so pointedly neglected!

Shuff. I must confess it looks a little like a complete cut.

Lady Car. And what you told me of the low attachment that

Shuff. Nay, my dear Lady Caroline, don’t say that I told you more than

Lady Car. I won’t have it denied: and I’m sure ’tis all true. See here here’s an odious parchment Lord Fitz Balaam put into my hand in the park. A marriage license, I think he calls it but if I don’t scatter it in a thousand pieces

Shuff. [Preventing her.] Softly, my dear Lady Caroline; that’s a license of marriage, you know. The names are inserted of course. Some of them may be rubbed a little in the carriage; but they may be filled up at pleasure, you know. Frank’s my friend, and if he has been negligent, I say nothing; but the parson of the parish is as blind as a beetle.

Lady Car. Now, don’t you think, Mr. Shuffleton, I am a very ill used person?

Shuff. I feel inwardly for you, Lady Caroline; but my friend makes the subject delicate. Let us change it. Did you observe the steeple upon the hill, at the end of the park pales?

Lady Car. Psha? No.

Shuff. It belongs to one of the prettiest little village churches you ever saw in your life. Let me show you the inside of the church, Lady Caroline.

Lady Car. I am almost afraid: for, if I should make a rash vow there, what is to become of my Lord Fitz Balaam?

Shuff. Oh, that’s true; I had forgot his lordship: but as the exigencies of the times demand it, let us hurry the question through the Commons, and when it has passed, with such strong independent interest on our sides, it will hardly be thrown out by the Peerage.
[Exeunt.

SCENE III.

Another Apartment in SIR SIMON ROCHDALE’S House.

Enter PEREGRINE.

Pereg. Sir Simon does not hurry himself; but ’tis a custom with the great, to make the little, and the unknown, dance attendance. When I left Cornwall, as a boy, this house, I remember, was tenanted by strangers, and the Rochdales inhabited another on the estate, seven miles off. I have lived to see some changes in the family, and may live, perhaps, to see more.

Enter FRANK ROCHDALE.

Frank. You expected, I believe, Sir Simon Rochdale, sir; but he will be occupied with particular business, for some time. Can I receive your commands, sir?

Pereg. Are you Sir Simon Rochdale’s son, sir?

Frank. I am.

Pereg. It was my wish, sir, to have seen your father. I come unintroduced, and scurvily enough accoutred; but, as I have urgent matters to communicate, and have suffered shipwreck, upon your coast, this morning, business will excuse my obtrusion, and the sea must apologize for my wardrobe.

Frank. Shipwreck! That calamity is a sufficient introduction to every roof, I trust, in a civilized country. What can we do immediately to serve you?

Pereg. Nothing, sir I am here to perform service, not to require it. I come from a wretched hut on the heath, within the ken of this affluent mansion, where I have witnessed calamity in the extreme.

Frank. I do not understand you.

Pereg. Mary!

Frank. Ha.! Now you have made me understand you. I perceive, now, on what object you have presented yourself here, to harangue. ’Tis a subject on which my own remorse would have taught me to bend to a just man’s castigation; but the reproof retorts on the reprover, when he is known to be a hypocrite. My friend, sir, has taught me to know you.

Pereg. He, whom I encountered at the house on the heath?

Frank. The same.

Pereg. And what may he have taught you?

Frank. To discover, that your aim is to torture me, for relinquishing a beloved object, whom you are, at this moment, attaching to yourself; to know, that a diabolical disposition, for which I cannot account, prompts you to come here, without the probability of benefiting any party, to injure me, and throw a whole family into confusion, on the eve of a marriage. But, in tearing myself from the poor, wronged, Mary, I almost tear my very heart by its fibres from the seat; but ’tis a sacrifice to a father’s repose; and

Pereg. Hold, sir! When you betrayed the poor, wronged, Mary, how came you to forget, that every father’s repose may be broken for ever by his child’s conduct?

Frank. By my honour! by my soul! it was my intention to have placed her far, far above the reach of want; but you, my hollow monitor, are frustrating that intention. You, who come here to preach virtue, are tempting her to be a confirmed votary of vice, whom I in penitence would rescue, as the victim of unguarded sensibility.

Pereg. Are you, then, jealous of me?

Frank. Jealous!

Pereg. Aye: if so, I can give you ease. Return with me, to the injured innocent on the heath: marry her, and I will give her away.

Frank. Marry her! I am bound in honour to another.

Pereg. Modern honour is a coercive argument; but when you have seduced virtue, whose injuries you will not solidly repair, you must be slightly bound in old-fashion’d honesty.

Frank. I--I know not what to say to you. Your manner almost
awes me; and there is a mystery in

Pereg. I am mysterious, sir. I may have other business, perhaps, with your father; and, I will tell you, the very fate of your family may hang on my conference with him. Come, come, Mr. Rochdale, bring me to Sir Simon.

Frank. My father cannot be seen yet. Will you, for a short time, remain in my apartment?

Pereg. Willingly; and depend on this, sir I have seen enough of the world’s weakness, to forgive the casual faults of youthful indiscretion; but I have a detestation for systematic vice; and though, as a general censor, my lash may be feeble, circumstances have put a scourge in my hand, which may fall heavily on this family, should any of its branches force me to wield it. I attend you. [Exeunt.