John Bull Part 21

_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 pa.s.sed, 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, circ.u.mstances 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._

ACT THE FIFTH.

SCENE I.

_A Hall in the Manor-house._

_Voices wrangling without._

_Job._ I will see Sir Simon.

_Simon._ You can't see Sir Simon, &c. &c. &c.