University of Virginia Library

ACT I.

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.

SCENE II.

Freeman senr. enters.
Freeman senr.
I greet thee, Lewis, with a father's love;
And, whether 'tis design, or chance, that throws thee in my way,
I always count it gain to have thee near me,
My son, my best companion, and my friend.

Y. Freeman.

I owe you, Sir, more than is barely due to a parent:
not once in five and twenty years I've seen the hand of
rigour o'er me.

What I remember of my infant days
Were all with pleasure and with fondness crown'd:

While at school, I thought I chang'd one father for another,
if I was to judge from the tenderness of my master;
which I imputed, more than to any merit of my
own, to the strict charge my loving father gave concerning
me. At college pleasures flow'd on me, in a
thousand streams,
From the rich fountains of old Greece and Rome:
And now the social Virtues of the best of fathers present
to me all that I cou'd wish to meet with in a friend.

Freeman senr.

If these are your sentiments, as I have no reason to
think they are not, I am bless'd beyond my expectations
in a son.

Thou art the harvest of my life's long toil;
And the rich crop rewards my labour well.

Y. Freeman.

As your peace, Sir, is one of my first concerns, I shall
be glad to know how the affair betwixt you and our
neighbour Briar is determin'd.

Freeman senr.

To my content, tho to my cost: Mr. Weldon,
our friend and arbitrator, propos'd paying half Briar's
expence in the suit, which he has litigiously carry'd
on, rather than see contention betwixt two neighbours
kep'd alive: the generous proposal was applauded;
but I chose to pay the whole myself, hoping by that
to purchase a quiet neighbour, a friend he is incapable
of being: the man is poor, and seems to hate me for
no other reason but that I'm more successful than himself?

Y. Freeman.

Weak man that can indulge a temper which makes him
wretched! 'Tis planting thorns and brambles in his
breast! Poor lovely Charlotte, how much unlike
the stock from which you sprung!

Freeman senr.

What maid is that whom you nam'd in such tender
terms?

Y. Freeman.
'Tis Briar's daughter, Sir.

Freeman senr.

I thought it was the same. Come, Lewis, deal with
me as a friend, to whom you had sworn inviolable
truth and confidence; and you shall find that open
heart, and unreserv'd regard, which you might reasonably
expect from such a friend, who had plighted the
same faith to you. Tho I have weather'd thro near
fifty years, I have not yet forgot what the soft passions
are; and I mistake if still I cannot read the language

of the eyes. I observ'd, when you nam'd the maid,

That change of countenance, and change of voice,
Which tell me that your bosom has receiv'd
A guest that you desire to entertain:
If it is so, communicate to me;

And give me no room to complain of a reserv'dness in
you which you shall never find in me.

Y. Freeman.
No, be my love my curse, if e'er I wrong
So good a father, and so true a friend:

There are some errors pass'd; but, by the friendship
which you profess to me, I beg you wou'd not now
enquire into them: what I at present ask

Is your consent to prosecute my love:
That she is fair all who have eyes can tell;
And she is chaste as is the falling snow:
She has such virtues to adorn her life,
As in themselves will be an ample dow'r.

Freeman senr.
I've often seen the girl, and mark'd her well.

And I must acknowledge that I think your passion can
not paint her more beautyful than she is:

And, by the sacred name of him that cloaths
The earth with beauty, and the sun with light,
Was she as poor as is the sun-burn'd wench
That stoops to take the gleanings of my fields,
I wou'd myself perform the father's office,

And give her hand to thee, so much does Freenan's
happyness depend upon his son's.

Y. Freeman.

Then may that son ne'er know the sweet possession of his
love, if ever willingly he gives that father pain.

Freeman senr.

Yet, my son, methinks there is a bar—Nay, do not
start: it is not such a bar as shall obstruct your love,
but may awhile delay the sweet possession. You know

my family is but of a low beginning: my forefathers
seem never to have been more than poor inhabitants of
Kent, the humble tillers of another's land; and all my
heritage was the long lease which has been oft' renew'd
from son to son. When I was young the neighbours
were pleas'd to cry my person up; and I always had,
what I always strove to deserve, the character of an
honest man. Your mother, whose fortune was five
thousand pounds, was marry'd to me against the consent
of her friends: her father was a gentleman: on
that she has too much presum'd; but I, who knew
that words cou'd ne'er infect my meat or drink, bore
the woman's foolish vanity, as I wou'd the chattering of
the daw, ne'er contradict it: but to the purpose more:
I doubt your mother's pride will make her start objections
to the match; but it never shall obstruct it wholly:
all that I mean is, for her peace, to use some art to
draw her gently in to give consent. I'm going home;
and there I'll break the secret to her first: you perhaps
are going another way: my blessing is ever with
you.

(Freeman senr. goes.

SCENE III.

Charlotte comes from beneath the shade.
Young Freeman.
Thou best of men.—
Come forth, reveal thyself thou happy bride:
Come from the covert; I'll pursue my chace;
And thou, my lovely game, shalt ev'ry morn
Wake with the waking day to happyness.
My father views thee with a parent's eye:
Now let the bus'ness of our lives be love.

Charlotte.
I hear'd him pass the joyful sentence on me:
My task is now to come:
My father's great necessity may prove
My greatest blessing; for, so well I know him,
If he was able to bestow on me
A portion equal to your own,
He'd sooner match me far below myself
Than let me be the wife of Freeman's son.

Y. Freeman.