Charlotte. Believe me, Sir Harry, I have not the slightest wish to alter the Captain's opinion. He is at liberty to think of me just what he pleases nor shall I exhibit the least resentment. I wish him joy of the estate, of which you are pleased to let him take possession; and shall simply repeat, that I am ready to give you my hand in the presence of the visitors now in the house, the moment it pleases you to accept it. Sir Har. Exquisite flattery! how could I help being intoxicated by such a preference? Choice was free, you know, Captain; and after long consideration of our respective pretensions, it fell upon me. Was it in human nature to say it nay? You are a Creole, however, as well as myself; son of my own considerably elder but estimable brother, and doubtless will find some elegant, if not equally elegant, young lady, to be the ornament of your existence. Here then is the estate, no longer contested, which will enable you to settle in life with a decent propriety (giving him the paper which the Captain accepts with a bow); and now, since all disputes are at an end between us, let me exhort you once for all, to subdue-a little to subdue, if you cannot entirely eradicate those feelings which you entertain respecting the conduct of this amiable third party, who has exhibited, as she says, and as you must allow, no resentment of your very extraordinary transports. Captain. (Very loudly and furiously.) Never, Sir, never. My feelings towards yourself are certainly of a different sort; but as to Miss Compton (going up to her and shaking his fist in her face, and speaking lower). You are a dear divine creature, and I shall love you to my dying day. (SIR HARRY interferes.) Char. (Very loudly and sarcastically.) Oh, Sir, pray let the gentleman go on. I am delighted to hear him. Captain. (With furious gestures, and in the same lower tone.) the dearest and most bewitching of human beings. You are Sir Har. No, no.-(Aside.) It's delightful too to see him in such a passion, only I wish it would not make him speak so low. He is almost speechless for rage. Captain. I don't know which to admire most,-your voice, your eyes, your lips, your manners, your heart, or your witty treatment of this grey-beard iniquity'. Sir Har. Don't believe him. He is not in earnest, when he compliments me at your expense.-(Aside.) This is too flattering. Captain. (Very loudly.) Dare you answer me, Madam? Dare you look me in the face, and answer me ?-(Softly.) Say something kind for heaven's sake. Your very pretence of sarcasm gives me a horror. Let your words be as sweet, as your looks are scornful. (Lays his hand furiously on hers.) Sir Har. (Hastening between them and putting a hand on each.) Decency, nephew, decency. You really must not make use of such terrible words.-(Aside.) What he says must be dreadful. 10 20 30 Char. (Very loudly and in order to get rid of SIR HARRY.) Unhand 50 me, gentlemen. I will not be controlled.—(Goes furiously up to the Captain, 27 Miss Compton] Charlotte Stanley in the list of dramatis personae. See notes. and speaks with an air of soft contempt.) Can you doubt my love for an instant? You know you are the master of every pulsation of my heart. Captain. Beloved Charlotte ! Char. Ever dear George ! Sir Har. (Aside.) I must positively put an end to this, or he will do her a mischief.-Captain Creole, I must positively call in the visitors. You would not pursue this strain in their presence? Captain. (Pretending to control himself.) Don't be alarmed, Sir, and don't let me interrupt business. I shall be able to command myself. I cannot help feeling perfidy, but I flatter myself I am still a gentleman. Sir Har. As the house is now yours, I am loth to hint at your quitting it for however short a period, till we return to Sussex; but the visitors being assembled, and prepared to be told what it might displease you to hear, perhaps you would not like to stop any longer. Captain. Oh Sir, don't mistake me. I am afraid you have been labouring under a considerable misconception. I have learnt to know the lady so well by this time, and am so far from objecting to anything she may say or do, that I have been describing to her the woman I love, and am content, if it pleases you both,―to stay and hear the declaration about to be made. Sir Har. Oh, with all my heart, if Miss Compton has no objection. Sir Har. (Aside.) a little too affected. it's not my fault. These airs of coolness and ease in the Captain are He'll be punished for them in a minute. However, (Rings the bell. Enter SERVANT.) Open the folding doors, and beg the visitors to advance. Enter Visitors, male and female, including Squire Bull, Sir Har. What does the Captain's valet do here? and who is this female? Squire Bull. (Taking SIR HARRY and others apart.) As the man has been threatening to make a noise before you in your capacity of magistrate, Sir Harry, and so might have alarmed the ladies, I thought you would prefer relieving him and his wife of a strange mistake under which the poor people are suffering. Mr. Tittle informed me the other day—— Tittle. (In a fright.) Excuse me, my very good Sir-Indeed you are under a mistake of your own. Bull. Tattle. (In a fright.) I, my dear Sir! Permit me to repeat, it is the strangest misconception. Bull. Well then, Sir Harry, neither Tittle nor Tattle informed me, that a bargain was concluded the other day for the sale of a late inn, and the earnest paid down; and that nevertheless, by a collusion between the parties, another bargain was concluded for the same inn for a price quite ridiculous, and the purchase money again paid down by my friend here, Mr. Papps. Now as the inn-keeper talks very freely, and has fled the country Mr. Tattle, then informed me, that Mr. Tittle— 60 70 80 90 80 Squire Bull. So corrected from Man. (i. e. Manning, as in earlier MS.) in the later MS. In his succeeding speeches Man, has generally been left uncorrected. Sir Har. He's a horrible liar, you know. (Aside.) With my three hundred pounds in his pocket, and the forfeit not returned !—Say no more, Squire, say no more. The second bargain is clearly void; and Mr. and Mrs. Papps may go-(Aside) to the devil with yourself for the interrup- 100 tion. (PAPPS and his wife retire behind the visitors.) Squire Bull. I knew you would like to nip a falsehood in the bud. -(Aside.) That's a damn'd lie of my own. Sir Har. Of all things in the world; of all things in the world.—And now, with the leave of this fair lady, to business of a more serious though delightful nature; one of the objects of which is to rescue me from the imputations of having exercised a false and foolish authority over herself; a suspicion, which, curiously enough, will be doubly disproved by the accidental presence of the lady's supposed choice, my worthy and gallant nephew, Captain Creole. Deign to speak, Madam; utter one charming word, simply to inform our excellent friends and neighbours, that it is your intention with your own free will, to make me a present of this inestimable hand. Char. You will first do me the justice, Sir Harry, to acknowledge on your own part, that I have always thought this ceremony unnecessary; nay, have repeatedly begged you, from motives of what you considered superfluous delicacy, to forego it. Sir Har. 'Tis true, 'tis true; fifty thousand times true. You are all delicacy; all thought and consideration for every body; and only consented to come forward, at my repeated request, for the vindication of my honour. Char. Thus much then being understood, it becomes me nevertheless as an honest woman, to inform these honourable persons, that you have been a considerable bit of a sad naughty tyrant, Sir Harry, and to more persons than one. But I must needs own, 110 120 Sir Har. (Astonished.) What is it you say? Char. Those other persons shall be nameless. before this independent and respected company, that, up to the present moment I have really not been my own mistress in the affair, and that it was impossible for me, with any reciprocity of sentiment, to contemplate 130 the honour which my guardian designed me. Sir Har. What, in the devil's name, is all this? Char. I therefore find it incumbent upon me, further to confess, that in return for the numerous tricks which I am informed, and indeed which it is the very gallant old gentleman's boast, of his having played our poor sex, one woman has at length played him a little trick herself. You have read the divine play called The Merchant of Venice, Sir Harry? You have read that admirable play, my dear Squire? (To BULL.) Bull. I have, I have, my darling; and can't but say I'm glad to see another lovely Daniel in petticoats come to judgment. Char. I promised to give Sir Harry Creole my hand; and this hand accordingly (holding forth her left hand) I do indeed give to Sir Harry Creole; but it is after the fashion that Portia gave her client's flesh. To Sir Harry it belongs. The letter of the law of my promise allows it, and the court awards it. Let him take it if he must; tear it, if he will. But, this hand (holding forth her right) 140 Bull. A Daniel still I say, another Daniel ! ' Char. (Presenting her hand to the Captain.) I give to him, who has long possessed it in spirit, therefore by right; being of opinion with those who think, that the hand, and the heart, and the time of life, and the approbation of all honest beholders, should ever accompany one another. Bull. O learned judge! Mark, all young ladies and ancient gentlemen, an upright judge! Sir Har. (Between hysterics and an affectation of superiority and indifference.) Really-he-he-upon my honour, he, these are very pretty proceedings! It may be supposed that I am mortified, angry, overwhelmed (violently taking snuff). to Char. I assure you, guardian, it has been extremely painful to me Sir Har. (Very angrily.) Silence! Captain. If any thing on earth that we can do to shew- Sir Har. Nonsense! It's the old story of the damned jilting sex, and you'll ha ha! find it so. Where's that-stupid beast my valet? My carriage, and my drops, you fool! my carriage and my drops. (Some of them lead him out.) Char. (To the CAPTAIN.) Captain. Am I afraid of goodness and delight? Are you afraid of me ? He was born and bred among slaves at a period which I had the luck to escape; so let us wish him a good night. Bull. Glory be to the Captain. (Shaking him by the hand. The others pay their respects.) Tittle. (To Charlotte.) Permit me to congratulate true English virtue on the Annette. (Pulling TITTLE by the sleeve.) How you do, Mr. Tittle? exemplary Annette. (To TATTLE.) How you find yourself, Mr. Tattle? Papps. Annette, Annette, my love, recollect that English females are retiring. 150 160 170 Annette. (To CHARLOTTE and the CAPTAIN.) Tousand pardon. But 180 I am so happy, I could dance for de joy. Captain. Say you so? The best of all reasons for a dance: indeed the only reason, or something very like it. So a dance let us have. What say you, my friends? let us chuck the past to the winds, and begin the delightful future. And in honour of the bride here of my good butler (for such is her husband now) as well as of the lady she is adoring let the band on the lawn be told to strike up the new dance of France and England'. CURTAIN FALLS TO THE DANCE. SIR EDGAR, SIR GRAHAM, AND SIR GRAY-STEEL [Now first printed from the MS. in the British Museum (Add. MS. 38111, ff. 421-44). The MS.-a fair copy with very few alterations-is unfinished and without title. The folios are numbered from 2 to 24 and in place of folio 1 is a well-executed drawing of a Knight lying across his fallen horse, his lance broken. In Stories in Verse, 1855, a footnote to Kilspindie' refers to Ellis's Metrical Romances for a summary of the story of Grey-steel and to a Scottish volume, the title of which I forget' for the whole of the original. This 'Scottish volume' proves to be David Laing's Early Metrical Tales; including The History of Sir Egeir, Sir Gryme, and Sir Gray-Steill'. Edinburgh, 1826.] SIR GRAHAM look'd from out his bower And gaz'd upon the lovely sight, With lonely sighs his heart grew soft, Of care about her future lord, But conquering goes, 'twixt town and tower, With a cheek that shines, not glows, A petrifaction of the rose, And eyes whose joy is like a foe's! 10 20 20 30 |