University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Blount, Bellair.
BELLAIR.
“The dove builds where the leaves are still green on the tree—”

BLOUNT
(rising).
Ha!

BELLAIR.
“For May and December can never agree.”

BLOUNT.
I am glad you've so quickly got over that blow.

BELLAIR.
Fallala!

BLOUNT
(aside).
What this levity means I must know.
The friend I best loved was your father, Bellair—
Let me hope your strange mirth is no laugh of despair.

BELLAIR.
On the wit of the wisest man it is no stigma
If the heart of a girl is to him an enigma;
That my Lucy was lost to my arms you believed—
Wish me joy, my dear Blount, you were grossly deceived.
She is mine!—What on earth are you thinking about?
Do you hear?

BLOUNT.
I am racked!

BELLAIR.
What?

BLOUNT.
A twinge of the gout.
(Reseating himself.)
Pray excuse me.

BELLAIR.
Nay, rather myself I reproach
For not heeding your pain. Let me call you a coach.

BLOUNT.
Nay, nay, it is gone. I am eager to hear
How I've been thus deceived—make my blunder more clear.
You have seen her?

BELLAIR.
Of course. From her own lips I gather
That your good Mr Jones might be Lucy's grandfather.
Childish fear, or of Vizard—who seems a virago—
Or the old man himself—

BLOUNT.
Oh!

BELLAIR.
You groan?

BLOUNT.
The lumbago!

BELLAIR.
Ah! they say gout is shifty—now here and now there.

BLOUNT.
Pooh;—continue. The girl then—

BELLAIR.
I found in despair.
But no matter—all's happily settled at last.

BLOUNT.
Ah! eloped from the house?

BELLAIR.
No, the door was made fast.
But to-night I would ask you a favour.

BLOUNT.
What? Say.

BELLAIR.
If your pain should have left you, to give her away.
For myself it is meet that I take every care
That my kinsfolk shall hail the new Lady Bellair.
I've induced my two aunts (who are prudish) to grace
With their presence my house, where the nuptials take place.
And to act as her father there's no man so fit
As yourself, dear old Blount, if the gout will permit.

BLOUNT.
'Tis an honour—

BELLAIR.
Say pleasure.

BLOUNT.
Great pleasure! Proceed.
How is she, if the door is still fast, to be freed?
Is the house to be stormed?

BELLAIR.
Nay; I told you before
That a house has its windows as well as its door.
And a stone at the pane for a signal suffices,
While a ladder—

BLOUNT.
I see. (Aside.)
What infernal devices!
Has she no maiden fear—

BELLAIR.
From the ladder to fall?
Ask her that—when we meet at my house in Whitehall.

(Enter 1st Jacobite Lord.)