The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume IV Part 56

FLINT Carry those umbrellas, cottons, and wearing-apparel, up stairs. You may send that chest of tools to Robins's.

WILLIAM That which you lent six pounds upon to the journeyman carpenter that had the sick wife?

FLINT The same.

WILLIAM The man says, if you can give him till Thursday--

FLINT Not a minute longer. His time was out yesterday. These improvident fools!

WILLIAM The finical gentleman has been here about the seal that was his grandfather's.

FLINT He cannot have it. Truly, our trade would be brought to a fine pa.s.s, if we were bound to humour the fancies of our customers. This man would be taking a liking to a snuff-box that he had inherited; and that gentlewoman might conceit a favourite chemise that had descended to her.

WILLIAM The lady in the carriage has been here crying about those jewels. She says, if you cannot let her have them at the advance she offers, her husband will come to know that she has pledged them.

FLINT I have uses for those jewels. Send Marian to me. (_Exit William_.) I know no other trade that is expected to depart from its fair advantages but ours. I do not see the baker, the butcher, the shoemaker, or, to go higher, the lawyer, the physician, the divine, give up any of their legitimate gains, even when the pretences of their art had failed; yet _we_ are to be branded with an odious name, stigmatized, discountenanced even by the administrators of those laws which acknowledge us; scowled at by the lower sort of people, whose needs we serve!

_Enter Marian_.

Come hither, Marian. Come, kiss your father. The report runs that he is full of spotted crime. What is your belief, child?

MARIAN That never good report went with our calling, father. I have heard you say, the poor look only to the advantages which we derive from them, and overlook the accommodations which they receive from us. But the poor _are_ the poor, father, and have little leisure to make distinctions. I wish we could give up this business.

FLINT You have not seen that idle fellow, Davenport?

MARIAN No, indeed, father, since your injunction.

FLINT I take but my lawful profit. The law is not over favourable to us.

MARIAN Marian is no judge of these things.

FLINT They call me oppressive, grinding.--I know not what--

MARIAN Alas!

FLINT Usurer, extortioner. Am I these things?

MARIAN You are Marian's kind and careful father. That is enough for a child to know.

FLINT Here, girl, is a little box of jewels, which the necessities of a foolish woman of quality have transferred into our true and lawful possession. Go, place them with the trinkets that were your mother's.

They are all yours, Marian, if you do not cross me in your marriage. No gentry shall match into this house, to flout their wife hereafter with her parentage. I will hold this business with convulsive grasp to my dying day. I will plague these _poor_, whom you speak so tenderly of.

MARIAN You frighten me, father. Do not frighten Marian.

FLINT I have heard them say, There goes Flint--Flint, the cruel p.a.w.nbroker!

MARIAN Stay at home with Marian. You shall hear no ugly words to vex you.

FLINT You shall ride in a gilded chariot upon the necks of these _poor_, Marian. Their tears shall drop pearls for my girl. Their sighs shall be good wind for us. They shall blow good for my girl. Put up the jewels, Marian. [_Exit_.]

_Enter Lucy_.

LUCY Miss, miss, your father has taken his hat, and is slept out, and Mr.

Davenport is on the stairs; and I came to tell you--

MARIAN Alas! who let him in?

_Enter Davenport_.

DAVENPORT My dearest girl--

MARIAN My father will kill me, if he finds you have been here!

DAVENPORT There is no time for explanations. I have positive information that your father means, in less than a week, to dispose of you to that ugly Saunders. The wretch has bragged of it to his acquaintance, and already calls you _his_.

MARIAN O heavens!

DAVENPORT Your resolution must be summary, as the time which calls for it. Mine or his you must be, without delay. There is no safety for you under this roof.

MARIAN My father--

DAVENPORT Is no father, if he would sacrifice you.

MARIAN But he is unhappy. Do not speak hard words of my father.

DAVENPORT Marian must exert her good sense.

LUCY (_As if watching at the window._) O, miss, your father has suddenly returned. I see him with Mr. Saunders, coming down the street. Mr.

Saunders, ma'am!

MARIAN Begone, begone, if you love me, Davenport.

DAVENPORT You must go with me then, else here I am fixed.

LUCY Aye, miss, you must go, as Mr. Davenport says. Here is your cloak, miss, and your hat, and your gloves. Your father, ma'am--

MARIAN O, where, where? Whither do you hurry me, Davenport?

DAVENPORT Quickly, quickly, Marian. At the back door.--

[_Exit Marian with Davenport, reluctantly; in her flight still holding the jewels._]

LUCY Away--away. What a lucky thought of mine to say her father was coming!

he would never have got her off, else. Lord, Lord, I do love to help lovers.

[_Exit, following them._]