University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

Stephania.

O sister! sister! what has become of you?—I will never go home without you, if I were to seek a thousand years!—What should I say to my mother when she asked for her pretty Rose?

Geronymo.

Nay, weep not so heartily, I pray you: be not in such woful contrition. The case is not so bad, by a hundred miles, as you think it: for, look you now, it stands thus, or in other words, here 'tis: You have lost your sister beyond recovery; good—

Stephania.

Begone, fickle-hearted turncoat!— If I could even forget your treachery, I am not in the mood now to hear such a prig discoursing.

Geronymo.

Why very well, there 'tis: I am a prig. Bear witness to that: she calls me-prig, and refuses to hear condolement.

1st Peasant.

Go to! you are ejected, and may wear the willow.

Geronymo.

No matter! 'tis all very well! very well indeed!—I will hang myself some of these fine mornings, and then, mayhap, she will see what it is to wound the heart of a sensible-plant like me, by calling him prig and turncoat. Cruel Mrs. Stephania! I thought your soul was as tender as a chicken, but now I find it is harder than Adam's aunt or marble!

Stephania.

If you wish to soften it again, you will find out my sister. I can think of nothing else till she be discovered.

Geronymo.

Say no more, but put your trust in my zigacity. Above ground and beneath sky, I'll

ferret her out, though she were hid in a blind nutshell.

2d Peasant.

So, friend! whither are you going?

Enter Andrea.
Andrea.

Indeed I cannot particularly say: but going I am!—I have taken up the trade of a water-wheel lately, and am always going! moreover betoken that, like it, I cannot get out of the pickle in which the malice of my enemies has placed me, but am continually soused over head and ears by a flood of misfortune. However, time cures all sorrows, and philosophy the remainder—Saw you any peasants about here? clowns, clodpates, popolaccio, dregs, that is to say, honest, foolish kind of persons?

Peasants.

Why I hope we be such: what else do you take us for?

Andrea.

By this light, now that I observe it, so ye are. Ye answer the description exactly: no hue-and-cry ever gave the dimensions of a banditti more precisely. Well; and wherefore in the dumps, my honest, foolish kind of neighbours?

Geronymo.

Why if it so please you, here 'tis now—

Andrea.

This is a logicizer: you may always know a logicizer, by his laying down the law with his forefinger. Save thy invisible bellows, thou

oracular fellow; I know all thou wouldst say, better than if there was a glass window in thy stomach. Ye are seeking for one of your lost lambs, my pastors?

Peasants.

By the mass, so we are! He must be a witch, neighbours, to tell us this without knowing it.

Andrea.

Follow your noses, and I will undertake to lead you by them to where she is: I owe her as much gratitude as would fill a wine-flagon, pie-dish, brandy-flask, et cetera, nappercyhand, nappercyhand. She and her sister made a cramm'd fowl of me, I thank them. Indeed, if a stone could melt, I had poured out my heart at her feet, in expressions of love and affliction. But this is irreverent! Come along: 'tis not five-score yards beyond the bowsprits I have promised to tow ye by.

Peasants.

Willingly, and thank you.

[Exeunt.

Scene changes to another part of the Glen.
Enter Andrea and the Peasants.
Andrea.

There! in that thicket, that bramblebush; if your eyes be not scratched out by leaping into it, you will see her there.

Peasants.

Well, come with us, and show it more catacullycully.

Andrea.

Ay, to be sure I will!—Go on; I'll be

whipper-in of your whole pack. Proceed, I tell ye! it is all before you, as a pedlar carries his knapsack.

Peasants.

Lead away, then!

Andrea.

Right; you are in the very track of it: I shall cry out “roast beef!” when you are about to tumble upon her.

Peasants.

Good! Proceed, Geronymo. Our guide will come after us.

Andrea.

O doleful! woful! racks! torments! thumbscrews!—O my great toe! my great toe!

Peasants.

What is the matter?

Andrea.

My great toe, I say!—O now are the sins of my ancestors coming against me!—The gout! the gout!—I cannot stir an inch farther, if I got the bribe of a secretary!—Go on, go on; if you stay here making mouths at my foot it will only grow the more angry.

Peasants.

Well, remain here for us, while we search the bushes.

Andrea.

Speed ye, neighbours!—Hark 'ee!

Peasants.

What?

Andrea.

Ye will be here when ye come back, eh?

Peasants.

Ay, certainly.

Andrea.

Why then, mean time, I will put my foot in a sling, and prepare to hop off with ye.

Good bye!—Oo! such a twinge! as if the fiend's claw and my foot struck a bargain for ever! Oo!

Peasants.

On, folks! on!—He must be sorely afflicted to make such a piteous howling, and such heinously ill-favoured grimaces. How he lolls his tongue out at us, like a mad dog! we are well rid of him.

[Exeunt.
Andrea.

'Slife! why was I not a politician? a Machiavelian?—I would overreach his Spanish majesty himself, who, they tell me, is the very flower of dissimulation, the pink of hypocrisy.— Those empty-pates! those human ostriches! that run their heads into a bush and think themselves hidden from danger, because it is hidden from them!—I know more of jurisprudence than to play at blindman's buff with Mephistopheles and his convent of Black Friers. Well, he may enlist them all under his pitchy ensign, but he shall not have me for a fugue-man. I will rather be fugitive!

[Exit.