The Puritaine Widdow Part 9

O no, pray, let 'em stay, for what I have to speak importeth equally to them as to you.

WIDDOW.

Then you may stay.

PYE.

I pray bestow on me a serious ear, For what I speak is full of weight and fear.

WIDDOW.

Fear?

PYE.

Aye, ift pa.s.s unregarded, and uneffected; Else peace and joy:--I pray, Attention. Widdow, I have been a mere stranger for these parts that you live in, nor did I ever know the Husband of you, and Father of them, but I truly know by certain spiritual Intelligence, that he is in Purgatory.

WIDDOW.

Purgatory? tuh; that word deserves to be spit upon. I wonder that a man of sober tongue, as you seem to be, should have the folly to believe there's such a place.

PYE.

Well, Lady, in cold blood I speak it; I a.s.sure you that there is a Purgatory, in which place I know your husband to reside, and wherein he is like to remain, till the dissolution of the world, till the last general Bon-fire, when all the earth shall melt into nothing and the Seas scald their finny labourers; so long is his abidance, unless you alter the property of your purpose, together with each of your Daughters theirs; that is, the purpose of single life in your self and your eldest Daughter, and the speedy determination of marriage in your youngest.

MOLL.

How knows he that? what, has some Devil told him?

WIDDOW.

Strange he should know our thoughts:--Why, but, Daughter, have you purposed speedy Marriage?

PYE.

You see she tells you aye, for she says nothing. Nay, give me credit as you please. I am a stranger to you, and yet you see I know your determinations, which must come to me Metaphysically, and by a super-natural intelligence.

WIDDOW.

This puts Amazement on me.

FRANCES.

Know our secrets!

MOLL.

I'd thought to steal a marriage: would his tongue Had dropt out when be blabbed it!

WIDDOW.

But, sir, my husband was too honest a dealing man to be now in any purgatories--

PYE.

O, Do not load your conscience with untruths; Tis but mere folly now to gild him o'er, That has past but for Copper. Praises here Cannot unbind him there: confess but truth.

I know he got his wealth with a hard grip: Oh hardly, hardly.

WIDDOW.

This is most strange of all: how knows he that?

PYE.

He would eat fools and ignorant heirs clean up; And had his drink from many a poor man's brow, E'en as their labour brewed it.

He would sc.r.a.pe riches to him most unjustly; The very dirt between his nails was Ill-got, And not his own,--oh, I groan to speak on't, The thought makes me shudder--shudder!

WIDDOW.

It quakes me too, now I think on't.--Sir, I am much grieved, that you, a stranger, should so deeply wrong my dead husband!

PYE.

Oh!

WIDDOW.

A man that would keep Church so duly; rise early, before his servants, and e'en for Religious hast, go ungartered, unb.u.t.toned, nay, sir Reverence, untrust, to Morning Prayer.

PYE.

Oh, uff.

WIDDOW.

Dine quickly upon high-days, and when I had great guests, would e'en shame me and rise from the Table, to get a good seat at an after-noon Sermon.

PYE.

There's the devil, there's the devil! true, he thought it Sact.i.ty enough, if he had killed a man, so tad been done in a Pew, or undone his Neighbour, so ta'd been near enough to th' Preacher. Oh,--a Sermon's a fine short cloak of an hour long, and will hide the upper-part of a dissembler.--Church!

Aye, he seemed all Church, and his conscience was as hard as the Pulpit!

WIDDOW.

I can no more endure this.

PYE.

Nor I, widdow, endure to flatter.

WIDDOW.

Is this all your business with me?

PYE.

No, Lady, tis but the induction too'te. You may believe my strains, I strike all true, And if your conscience would leap up to your tongue, your self would affirm it: and that you shall perceive I know of things to come as well as I do of what is present, a Brother of your husband's shall shortly have a loss.

WIDDOW.

A loss; marry, heaven for-fend! Sir G.o.dfrey, my brother?

PYE.

Nay, keep in your wonders, will I have told you the fortunes of you all; which are more fearful, if not happily prevented: --for your part and your daughters, if there be not once this day some blood-shed before your door, whereof the human creature dies, two of you--the elder--shall run mad.

MOTHER AND FRANCES.

Oh!

MOLL.

That's not I yet!

PYE.

And with most impudent prost.i.tution show your naked bodies to the view of all beholders.

WIDDOW.

Our naked bodies? fie, for shame!