New Comedies Part 19

_Simon: (Stooping and groping.)_ I will after I will find it.

_Damer:_ Hurry on now.

_Simon:_ Wait till I'll kindle a match.

_(Lights one and picks up coin.)_

_Damer:_ What is that in your hand?

_Simon:_ You should know.

_Damer:_ Is it gold it is?

_Simon:_ It is all I have of means in the world. I never handled a coin before it, but my bite to be given me and my bed.

_Damer:_ You'll mind it well if you have sense.

_Simon:_ It is towards the east it bade me go. I'll travel as far as the races of Knockbarron to-morrow.

_Damer:_ You'll be apt to lose it going to races.

_Simon:_ I'll go bet with it, and see what way will it turn out.

_Damer:_ You to set all you own upon a horse that might fail at the leaps! It is a very foolish thing doing that.

_Simon:_ It might not. Some have luck and are born lucky and more have run through their luck. If I lose it, it is lost. It would not keep me long anyway. I to win, I will have more and plenty.

_Damer:_ You will surely lose it.

_Simon:_ If I do I have nothing to get or to fall back on. It is some other one must take my charges.

_Damer:_ A great pity to go lose a gold sovereign to some schemer you never saw before.

_Simon:_ Sure you must take some risk. You cannot put your hands around the world.

_Damer:_ It to be swept by a trick of the loop man!

_Simon:_ It is not with that cla.s.s I will make free.

_Damer:_ To go lose the whole of it in one second of time!

_Simon:_ I will make four divides of it.

_Damer:_ To go change it into silver and into copper! That would be the most pity in the world.

_Simon:_ I'll chance it all upon the one jock so.

_Damer:_ Gold! Believe me it is a good thing to hold and a very heartbreak the time it is lost. _(Takes it in his hand.)_ Pure gold!

There is not a thing to be got with it as worthy as what it is itself!

There is no comfort in any place and it not in it. The Queen's image on it and her crown. Solid between the fingers; weighty in the palm of the hand; as beautiful as ever I saw.

_Simon:_ It is likely it is the same nearly as any other one.

_Damer:_ Gold! My darling it is! From the hollows of the world to the heights of the world there is no grander thing to be found. My bone and my marrow! Let me have the full of my arms of it and I'll not ask the flowers of field or fallow or the dancing of the Easter sun!

_Simon:_ I am thinking you should be Damer. I heard said Damer has a full crock of gold.

_Damer:_ He has not! He has not!

_Simon:_ That is what the world says anyway. I heard it as far as the seaside.

_Damer:_ I wish to my G.o.d it was true!

_Simon:_ Full and br.i.m.m.i.n.g to the brink. That is the way it was told.

_Damer:_ It is not full! It is not! Whisper now. It is many a time I thought it to be full, full at last, full at last!

_Simon:_ And it wasn't after?

_Damer:_ To take it and to shake it I do. It is often I gave myself a promise the time there will be no sound from it, I will give in to nourish myself, I will rise out of misery. But every time I will try it, I will hear a little clatter that tells me there is some s.p.a.ce left; some small little hole or gap.

_Simon:_ What signifies that when you have so much in it?

_Damer:_ Weightier it gets and weightier, but there will always be that little sound. I thought to stop it one time, putting in a fistful of hayseed; but I felt in my heart that was not dealing fair and honest with myself, and I rose up and shook it out again, rising up from my bed in the night time. I near got my death with the cold and the draught fell on me doing that.

_Simon:_ It is best for me be going on where I might find my bed,

_Damer:_ Hearken now. I am old and the long road behind me. You are young and in your strength. It is you is rich, it is I myself that is poor. You know well, you to get the offer, you would not change your lot with my own.

_Simon:_ I suppose I might not. I'd as lief keep my countenance and my run.

_Darner:_ Isn't it a great pity there to be that hollow within in my gallon, and the little coin that would likely just fill it up, to be going out of the house?

_Simon:_ Is it that you are asking it of me?

_Damer:_ You might never find so good a way to open Heaven to yourself with a charity. To be bringing peace to an old man that has not long to live in the world! You wouldn't think now how quiet I would sleep, and the good dreams would be going through me, and that gallon jar to be full and to make no sound the time I would roll it on the floor. That would be a great deed for one little pound piece to do!

_Simon:_ I'll toss you for it.

_Damer:_ I would not dare put anything at all upon a chance.

_Simon:_ Leave it alone so. _(Turns away.)_

_Damer: (Seizing him.)_ It would make such a good appearance in the little gap!

_Simon:_ Head or harp?

_Damer:_ No, I'm in dread I might lose.

_Simon:_ Take your chance or leave it.