University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

Young Freeman and Charlotte Briar.
Young Freeman.
Why, Charlotte, hangs this melancholly on thy brow?
Why droops my love? Why droops my ev'ry flow'r
Compris'd in one? Why on this happy day,

Indulgent to our wishes, wilt thou unkindly thus indulge
unseasonable sorrow?

Why on this day on which the pious man
Has join'd in wedlock's bands the hands of two
Whose hearts by love were long before united?

Charlotte.

Ah! Freeman! there's the thorn that goads my side!
I confess, since first our mutual vows we plighted, I
thought each day an age till I secur'd you mine; and,
now I have obtain'd the purchase of a thousand sighs,
I have a thousand fears of losing you.

Y. Freeman.

And whence arise those fears? From no distrust, I
hope, of one whose honour's dearer to him than his
life, of one who places you in the same ballance with
his life and honour.

Charlotte.

No, my much lov'd, and ever honour'd, husband, I
can not entertain a thought of ill of you: but think—
I'm Briar's daughter.

Y. Freeman.
Thou art the lovely'st rose that ever blow'd.

'Tis true, the difference that has long subsisted betwixt
our fathers has been the cause of our concealing our
passion from them, and of our clandestine marriage:

But, shou'd dissention reign among our parents,
And everlasting strife be sow'd betwixt them,
Yet shall our loves immaculate remain.
Banish all dismal apprehensions from your mind;
Our loves perhaps may take a happyer turn,
And be the cement of perpetual union
Betwixt our present jarring familys.
I know my father's ever gentle nature
Is prone to pardon injurys, and to excuse
The little failings of unwary youth:
He looks not with the rigid eye of age,

But always makes such favourable allowances as the
wise and good shou'd make: in short, I know his greatest
pleasure is to communicate to others what happyness
he can.

Charlotte.

Wou'd I cou'd say as much of my unhappy father! Unhappy
I may truly call him; for, such his temper, he
has no friends but his own poor little family, my mother
and myself; and when we tell him, as we do with
trembling, of his moroseness, and his ill-judg'd pride,
he frowns upon my mother, and with a surly voice
bids her be gone, and crys you'll make the girl as foolish
as yourself: but, my dear Freeman, let me intreat
you to inform me what was the cause of this long
difference betwixt our parents; for I cou'd never learn
but an imperfect account of it at home.

Y. Freeman.

'Twas on a tresspass; for which we offer'd ample recompence;
but, that being rejected, a suit of law commenc'd:
your father has already been at more expence
than he is able to bear: my father propos'd to make a
neighbouring gentleman, a person of known worth and
integrity, the arbitrator, and to abide by his judgement
rather than go on to feed contention for the advantage
of the lawyers only; and this was the day appointed
for the arbitration.

Charlotte.
Heav'n make it fortunate; for upon that,
I fear, our fate, or mine at least, depends.

Y. Freeman.
Your fate depends on me, and mine on you.
Charlotte, so close our hearts are rivetted,

That he, who wou'd divide us, must in the separation
draw the life-blood of both.—I see my father coming
this way: retire, my love, beneath these shades, while
I learn what the arbitration has been, and the consequence
of it, and while I try the tenderest of parents
with a relation of my passion for you: as he receives

that, I shall hereafter tell him the secret of our
marriage.

Charlotte.

Success and everlasting love be with you.

(She retires.