Plays of Near & Far Part 23

SLADDER: May be. And who began using hard words? You came here and made me out a pickpocket, just because I use a few tasty little posters which sell my goods, and all the while you're trying on the sly to take a poor old man's daughter away from him. Well, Mr. Hippanthigh?

HIPPANTHIGH: I--I never looked at it in that light before, Mr. Sladder.

I never thought of it in that way. You have made me feel ashamed (_he lowers his head_), ashamed.

SLADDER: Aha! Aha! I thought I would. Now you know what it's like when you make people ashamed of themselves. You don't like it when they do it to you. Aha! (SLADDER _is immensely pleased with himself._)

HIPPANTHIGH: Mr. Sladder, I spoke to you as my conscience demanded, and you have shown me that I have done wrong in not speaking sooner about our engagement. I would have spoken to you, but I could not say that and the other thing in the same day. I meant to tell you soon;--well, I didn't, and I know it looks bad. I've done wrong and I admit it.

SLADDER: Aha! (_Still hugely pleased._)

HIPPANTHIGH: But, Mr. Sladder, you would not on that account perhaps spoil your daughter's happiness, and take a terrible revenge on me. You would not withhold your consent to our----

SLADDER: Wait a moment; we're coming to that. There's some bad animal that I've heard of that lives in France, and when folks attack it it defends itself. I've just been defending myself. I think I've shown you that you're no brand-new extra-gilt angel on the top of a spire.

HIPPANTHIGH: O--I--er--never----

SLADDER: Quite so. Well, now we come on to the other part. Very well.

Those lords and people, they marry one another's daughters, because they know they're all no good. They're afraid it will get out like, and spread some of their d.a.m.ned mediaeval ideas where they'll do harm. So they keep it in the family like. But we people who have had the sense to look after ourselves, we don't throw our daughters away to any young man that can't look after himself. See?

HIPPANTHIGH: I a.s.sure you, Mr. Sladder, I should--er----

SLADDER: She's my only daughter, and if any of my grandchildren are going to the work-house, they'll go to one where the master's salary is high, and they'll go there as master.

HIPPANTHIGH: I am aware, Mr. Sladder, that I have very little money; as you would look at it, very little.

SLADDER: It isn't the amount of money you've got as matters. The question is this: are you a young man as money is any good to? If I died and left you a million, would you know what to do with it? I've met men what wouldn't last more than six weeks on a million. Then they'd starve if n.o.body gave them another million. I'm not going to give my daughter to one of that sort.

HIPPANTHIGH: I was third in the cla.s.sical tripos at Cambridge, Mr.

Sladder.

SLADDER: I don't give a d.a.m.n for cla.s.sics; and I don't give a d.a.m.n for Cambridge; and I don't know what a tripos is. But all I can tell you is that if I was fool enough to waste my time with cla.s.sics, third wouldn't[2] be good enough for me. No, Mr. Hippanthigh, you've chosen the church as your job, and I've nothing to say against your choice; its a free country, and I've nothing to say against your job; it's well enough paid at the top, only you don't look like getting there. I chose business as my job, there seemed more sense in it; but if I'd chosen the Church, I shouldn't have stuck as a curate. No, nor a bishop either. I wouldn't have had an archbishop ballyragging me and ordering me about.

No. I'd have got to the top, and drawn big pay, and _spent_ it.

HIPPANTHIGH: But, Mr. Sladder, I could be a vicar to-morrow if my conscience would allow me to cease protesting against a certain point which the bishop holds to be----

SLADDER: I know all about that. I don't care what it is that keeps you on the bottom rung of the ladder. Conscience, you say. Well, it's a different thing with every man. It's conscience with some, drink with others, sheer stupidity with most. It's pretty crowded already, that bottom rung, without me going and putting my daughter on it. Where do you suppose I'd be now if I'd let my conscience get in my way? Eh?

HIPPANTHIGH: Mr. Sladder, I cannot alter my beliefs.

SLADDER: n.o.body asks you to. I only ask you to leave the bishop alone.

He says one thing and you preach another whenever you get half a chance; it's enough to break up any firm.

HIPPANTHIGH: Believing as I do that eternal punishment is incompatible with----

SLADDER: Now, Mr. Hippanthigh, that's got to stop. I don't mind saying, now that I've given you What For, that you don't seem a bad young fellow: but my daughter's not going to marry on the bottom rung, and there's an end of that.

HIPPANTHIGH: But, Mr. Sladder, can you bring yourself to believe in anything so terrible as eternal punishment, so contrary to----

SLADDER: Me? No.

HIPPANTHIGH: Then, how can you ask me to?

SLADDER: That particular belief never happened to stand between me and the top of the tree. Many things did, but they're all down below me now, Mr. Hippanthigh, way down there (_pointing_) where I can hardly see them. You get off that bottom rung as I did years ago.

HIPPANTHIGH: I cannot go back on all I've said.

SLADDER: I don't want to make it hard for you. Only just say you believe in eternal punishment, and then give up talking about it. You may say it to me if you like. We'll have one other person present so that there's no going back on it, my daughter if you like. I'll let the bishop know, and he won't stand in your way any longer, but at present you force his hand. It's you or the rules of the firm.

HIPPANTHIGH: I cannot.

SLADDER: You can't just say to me and my daughter that you believe in eternal punishment, and leave me to go over to Axminster and put it right with the bishop?

HIPPANTHIGH: I cannot say what I do not believe.

SLADDER: Think. The bishop probably doesn't believe it himself. But you've been forcing his hand,--going out of your way to.

HIPPANTHIGH: I cannot say it.

SLADDER (_rising_): Mr. Hippanthigh, there's two kinds of men, those that succeed, those that don't. I know no other kind. You ...

HIPPANTHIGH: I cannot go against my conscience.

SLADDER: I don't care what your reason is. You are the second kind. I am sorry my daughter ever loved a man of that sort. I am sorry a man of that sort ever entered my house. I was a little, dirty, ragged boy. You make me see what I would be to-day if I had been a man of your kind. I would be dirty and ragged still. (_His voice has been rising during this speech._)

[_Enter_ ERMYNTRUDE.

ERMYNTRUDE: Father! What are you saying, father? I heard such loud voices.

[HIPPANTHIGH _stands silent and mournful._

SLADDER: My child, I had foolish ideas for you once, but now I say that you are to marry a man, not a wretched, miserable little curate, who will be a wretched, miserable little curate all his life.

ERMYNTRUDE: Father, I will not hear such words.

SLADDER: I've given him every chance. I've given him more than every chance, but he prefers the bottom rung of the ladder; there we will leave him.

ERMYNTRUDE: O, father! How can you be so cruel?

SLADDER: It's not my fault, and it's not the bishop's fault. It's his own silly pig-headedness.

[_He goes back to his chair._

ERMYNTRUDE (_going up to_ HIPPANTHIGH): O, Charlie, couldn't you do what father wants?

HIPPANTHIGH: No, no, I cannot. He wants me to go back on things I've said.

[_Enter_ MRS. SLADDER _carrying a wire cage, with two dead white mice in it. Also_ SPLURGE.