Act the Third
Scene I The Market Place
Enter Plume and Worthy.
Wor. I cannot forbear admiring the equality of our fortunes: we love two ladies, they meet us half way, and just as we were upon the point of leaping into their arms, fortune drops in their laps, pride possesses their hearts, a maggot fills their heads, madness takes them by the tails; they snort, kick up their heels, and away they run.
Plume. And leave us here to mourn upon the shore—a couple of poor melancholy monsters. What shall we do?
Wor. I have a trick for mine; the letter, you know, and the fortune-teller.
Plume. And I have a trick for mine.
Wor. What is’t?
Plume. I’ll never think of her again.
Wor. No!
Plume. No; I think myself above administering to the pride of any woman, were she worth twelve thousand a-year; and I ha’n’t the vanity to believe I shall gain a lady worth twelve hundred. The generous, goodnatured Sylvia, in her smock, I admire; but the haughty and scornful Sylvia, with her fortune, I despise.—What! sneak out of town, and not so much as a word, a line, a compliment!—‘Sdeath! how far off does she live? I’ll go and break her windows.
Wor. Ha! ha! ha! ay, and the window-bars too, to come at her. Come, come, friend, no more of your rough military airs.
Enter Kite.
Kite. Captain! captain! Sir, look yonder; she’s a-coming this way. ’Tis the prettiest, cleanest, little tit!
Plume. Now, Worthy, to show you how much I’m in love—here she comes. But, Kite, what is that great country fellow with her?
Kite. I can’t tell, sir.
Enter Rose, followed by her Brother Bullock, with
Chickens on her Arm, in a Basket.
Rose. Buy chickens, young and tender chickens, young and tender chickens.
Plume. Here, you chickens.
Rose. Who calls?
Plume. Come hither, pretty maid.
Rose. Will you please to buy, sir?
Wor. Yes, child, we’ll both buy.
Plume. Nay, Worthy, that’s not fair; market for yourself—Come, child, I’ll buy all you have.
Rose. Then all I have is at your service.
[Courtesies.
Captain Plume: Young and tender, you say.
Act III Scene I
Click to ENLARGE
Wor. Then must I shift for myself, I find.
[Exit.
Plume. Let me see; young and tender, you say.
[Chucks her under the Chin.
Rose. As ever you tasted in your life, sir.
Plume. Come, I must examine your basket to the bottom, my dear!
Rose. Nay, for that matter, put in your hand; feel, sir; I warrant my ware is as good as any in the market.
Plume. And I’ll buy it all, child, were it ten times more.
Rose. Sir, I can furnish you.
Plume. Come, then, we won’t quarrel about the price; they’re fine birds.—Pray, what’s your name, pretty creature!
Rose. Rose, sir. My father is a farmer within three short miles o’ the town: we keep this market; I sell chickens, eggs, and butter, and my brother Bullock there sells corn.
Bul. Come, sister, haste—we shall be late home.
[Whistles about the Stage.
Plume. Kite! [Tips him the wink, he returns it.] Pretty Mrs. Rose—you have—let me see—how many?
Rose. A dozen, sir, and they are richly worth a crown.
Bul. Come, Rouse; I sold fifty strake of barley to-day in half this time; but you will higgle and higgle for a penny more than the commodity is worth.
Rose. What’s that to you, oaf? I can make as much out of a groat as you can out of fourpence, I’m sure—The gentleman bids fair, and when I meet with a chapman, I know how to make the best of him—And so, sir, I say for a crown-piece the bargain’s yours.
Plume. Here’s a guinea, my dear!
Rose. I can’t change your money, sir.
Plume. Indeed, indeed, but you can—my lodging is hard by, chicken! and we’ll make change there.
[Goes off, she follows him.
Kite. So, sir, as I was telling you, I have seen one of these hussars eat up a ravelin for his breakfast, and afterwards pick his teeth with a palisado.
Bul. Ay, you soldiers see very strange things; but pray, sir, what is a rabelin?
Kite. Why, ’tis like a modern minc’d pie, but the crust is confounded hard, and the plums are somewhat hard of digestion.
Bul. Then your palisado, pray what may he be? Come, Rouse, pray ha’ done.
Kite. Your palisado is a pretty sort of bodkin, about the thickness of my leg.
Bul. That’s a fib, I believe. [Aside.] Eh! where’s Rouse? Rouse, Rouse! ‘Sflesh! where’s Rouse gone?
Kite. She’s gone with the captain.
Bul. The captain! wauns! there’s no pressing of women, sure.
Kite. But there is, sure.
Bul. If the captain should press Rouse, I should be ruined——Which way went she? Oh! the devil take your rabelins and palisadoes!
[Exit.
Kite. You shall be better acquainted with them, honest Bullock, or I shall miss of my aim.
Enter Worthy.
Wor. Why thou art the most useful fellow in nature to your captain, admirable in your way I find.
Kite. Yes, sir, I understand my business, I will say it.
Wor. How came you so qualified?
Kite.You must know, sir, I was born a gipsy, and bred among that crew till I was ten years old; there I learned canting and lying: I was bought from my mother Cleopatra by a certain nobleman for three pistoles, there I learned impudence and pimping: I was turned off for wearing my lord’s linen, and drinking my lady’s ratafia, and turned bailiff’s follower; there I learned bullying and swearing: I at last got into the army; and there I learned whoring and drinking—so that if your worship pleases to cast up the whole sum, viz. canting, lying, impudence, pimping, bullying, swearing, whoring, drinking, and a halberd, you will find the sum total amount to a Recruiting Serjeant.
Wor. And pray what induced you to turn soldier?
Kite. Hunger and ambition. But here comes Justice Balance.
Enter Balance and Bullock.
Bal. Here you, serjeant, where’s your captain? here’s a poor foolish fellow comes clamouring to me with a complaint that your captain has pressed his sister. Do you know any thing of this matter, Worthy?
Wor. Ha! ha! ha! I know his sister is gone with Plume to his lodging, to sell him some chickens.
Bal. Is that all? the fellow’s a fool.
Bul. I know that, an’t like your worship; but if your worship pleases to grant me a warrant to bring her before your worship, for fear of the worst.
Bal. Thou’rt mad, fellow; thy sister’s safe enough.
Kite. I hope so too. [Aside.
Wor. Hast thou no more sense, fellow, than to believe that the captain can list women?
Bul. I know not whether they list them, or what they do with them, but I’m sure they carry as many women as men with them out of the country.
Bal. But how came you not to go along with your sister?
Bul. Lord, sir, I thought no more of her going than I do of the day I shall die: but this gentleman here, not suspecting any hurt neither, I believe—you thought no harm, friend, did you?
Kite. Lack-a-day, sir, not I——only that I believe I shall marry her to-morrow.
Bal. I begin to smell powder. Well, friend, but what did that gentleman with you?
Bul. Why, sir, he entertained me with a fine story of a great sea-fight between the Hungarians, I think it was, and the wild Irish.
Kite. And so, sir, while we were in the heat of battle—the captain carried off the baggage.
Bal. Serjeant, go along with this fellow to your captain, give him my humble service, and desire him to discharge the wench, though he has listed her.
Bul. Ay, and if she ben’t free for that, he shall have another man in her place.
Kite. Come, honest friend, you shall go to my quarters instead of the captain’s. [Aside.
[Exeunt Kite and Bullock.
Bal. We must get this mad captain his complement of men, and send him packing, else he’ll overrun the country.
Wor. You see, sir, how little he values your daughter’s disdain.
Bal. I like him the better: I was just such another fellow at his age: But how goes your affair with Melinda?
Wor. Very slowly. My mistress has got a captain too, but such a captain!—as I live, yonder he comes!
Bal. Who, that bluff fellow in the sash? I don’t know him.
Wor. But I engage he knows you and every body at first sight: his impudence were a prodigy, were not his ignorance proportionable; he has the most universal acquaintance of any man living, for he won’t be alone, and nobody will keep him company twice: then he’s a Cæsar among the women, veni, vidi, vici, that’s all. If he has but talked with the maid, he swears he has lain with the mistress: but the most surprising part of his character is his memory, which is the most prodigious and the most trifling in the world.
Bal. I have known another acquire so much by travel as to tell you the names of most places in Europe, with their distances of miles, leagues, or hours, as punctually as a postboy; but for any thing else as ignorant as the horse that carries the mail.
Wor. This is your man, sir, add but the traveller’s privilege of lying, and even that he abuses: this is the picture, behold the life.
Enter Brazen.
Brazen. Mr. Worthy, I’m your servant, and so forth—Harkye, my dear!
Wor. Whispering, sir, before company, is not manners, and when nobody’s by ’tis foolish.
Brazen. Company! mort de ma vie! I beg the gentleman’s pardon—who is he?
Wor. Ask him.
Brazen. So I will. My dear! I am your servant, and so forth—Your name, my dear?
Bal. Very laconic, sir.
Brazen. Laconic! a very good name truly. I have known several of the Laconics abroad. Poor Jack Laconic! he was killed at the battle of Landen. I remember that he had a blue ribband in his hat that very day, and after he fell, we found a piece of neat’s tongue in his pocket.
Bal. Pray, sir, did the French attack us, or we them, at Landen?
Brazen. The French attack us! No, sir, we attacked them on the——I have reason to remember the time, for I had two-and-twenty horses killed under me that day.
Wor. Then, sir, you must have rid mighty hard.
Bal. Or, perhaps, sir, like my countrymen, you rid upon half a dozen horses at once.
Brazen. What do ye mean, gentlemen? I tell you they were killed, all torn to pieces by cannon-shot, except six I staked to death upon the enemy’s cheveaux de frise.
Bal. Noble captain! may I crave your name?
Brazen. Brazen, at your service.
Bal. Oh, Brazen! a very good name. I have known several of the Brazens abroad.
Wor. Do you know one Captain Plume, sir?
Brazen. Is he any thing related to Frank Plume in Northamptonshire?—Honest Frank! many, many a dry bottle have we cracked hand to fist. You must have known his brother Charles, that was concerned in the India company; he married the daughter of Old Tonguepad, the master in Chancery, a very pretty woman, only she quinted a little; she died in child-bed of her first child, but the child survived: ’twas a daughter, but whether it was called Margaret or Margery, upon my soul, I can’t remember. [Looking on his Watch.] But, gentlemen, I must meet a lady, a twenty thousand pounder, presently, upon the walk by the water—Worthy, your servant; Laconic, yours.
[Exit.
Bal. If you can have so mean an opinion of Melinda, as to be jealous of this fellow, I think she ought to give you cause to be so.
Wor. I don’t think she encourages him so much for gaining herself a lover, as to set up a rival. Were there any credit to be given to his words, I should believe Melinda had made him this assignation. I must go see, sir, you’ll pardon me.
[Exit.
Bal. Ay, ay, sir, you’re a man of business—But what have we got here?
Enter Rose, singing.
Rose. And I shall be a lady, a captain’s lady, and ride single, upon a white horse with a star, upon a velvet side-saddle; and I shall go to London, and see the tombs, and the lions, and the king and queen. Sir, an please your worship, I have often seen your worship ride through our grounds a-hunting, begging your worship’s pardon. Pray, what may this lace be worth a-yard? [Showing some Lace.
Bal. Right Mecklin, by this light! Where did you get this lace, child?
Rose. No matter for that, sir; I came honestly by it.
Bal. I question it much. [Aside.
Rose. And see here, sir, a fine Turkey-shell snuff-box, and fine mangere: see here. [Takes Snuff affectedly.] The captain learned me how to take it with an air.
Bal. Oh ho! the captain! now the murder’s out. And so the captain taught you to take it with an air?
Rose. Yes; and give it with an air too. Will your worship please to taste my snuff? [Offers the Box affectedly.
Bal. You are a very apt scholar, pretty maid! And pray, what did you give the captain for these fine things?
Rose. He’s to have my brother for a soldier, and two or three sweethearts I have in the country; they shall all go with the captain. Oh! he’s the finest man, and the humblest withal! Would you believe it, sir? he carried me up with him to his own chamber, with as much fam-mam-mil-yararality, as if I had been the best lady in the land.
Bal. Oh! he’s a mighty familiar gentleman as can be.
Enter Plume, singing.
| Plume. | But it is not so |
| With those that go | |
| Thro’ frost and snow—— | |
| Most apropos, | |
| My maid with the milking pail. |
[Takes hold of Rose.
How, the justice! then I’m arraigned, condemned and executed.
Bal. Oh, my noble captain!
Rose. And my noble captain, too, sir.
Plume. ‘Sdeath! child, are you mad?—Mr. Balance, I am so full of business about my recruits, that I ha’n’t a moment’s time to——I have just now three or four people to——
Bal. Nay, captain, I must speak to you—
Rose. And so must I too, captain.
Plume. Any other time, sir—I cannot, for my life, sir—
Bal. Pray, sir——
Plume. Twenty thousand things—I would—but—now, sir, pray—Devil take me—I cannot—I must— [Breaks away.
Bal. Nay, I’ll follow you.
[Exit.
Rose. And I too.
[Exit.