SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER

OR

THE MISTAKES OF A NIGHT

A COMEDY


By Oliver Goldsmith


PROLOGUE
by David Garrick, Esq.

Enter Mr WOODWARD, dressed in black, and holding a handkerchief to his 
eyes.

	Excuse me, sirs, I pray - I can't yet speak -
	I'm crying now - and have been all the week.
	'Tis not alone this mourning suit, good masters;
	I've that within - for which there are no plasters!
	Pray, would you know the reason why I'm crying?
	The Comic muse, long sick, is now a-dying!
	And if she goes, my tears will never stop;
	For as a player, I can't squeeze out one drop:
	I am undone, that's all - shall lose my bread -
	I'd rather, but that's nothing - lose my head.
	When the sweet maid is laid upon the bier,
	Shuter and I shall be chief mourners here.
	To her a mawkish drab of spurious breed,
	Who deals in sentimentals, will succeed!
	Poor Ned and I are dead to all intents,
	We can as soon speak Greek as sentiments!
	Both nervous grown, to keep our spirits up.
	We now and then take down a hearty cup.
	What shall we do? - If Comedy forsake us,
	They'll turn us out, and no one else will take us!
	But why can't I be moral? - Let me try -
	My heart thus pressing - fixed my face and eye -
	With a sententious look, that nothing means,
	(Faces are blocks in sentimental scenes),
	Thus I begin: All is not gold that glitters,
	Pleasure seems sweet, but proves a glass of bitters.
	When ignorance enters, folly is at hand:
	Learning is better far than house and land.
	Let not your virtue trip; who trips may stumble,
	And virtue is not virtue, if she tumble.
		I give it up - morals won't do for me;
	To make you laugh I must play tragedy.
	One hope remains - hearing the maid was ill,
	A doctor comes this night to show his skill.
	To cheer her heart, and give your muscles motion,
	He, in five draughts prepared, presents a potion:
	A kind of magic charm - for be assured,
	If you will swallow it, the maid is curd;
	But desperate the doctor and her case is,
	If you reject the dose, and make wry faces!
	This truth he boasts, will boast it while he lives,
	No poisonous drugs are mixed in what he gives;
	Should he succeed, you'll give him his degree;
	If not, within he will receive no fee!
	The college, you, must his pretensions back,
	Pronounce him regular, or dub him quack.



DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

	MEN:

	SIR CHARLES Marlow
	Young Charles MARLOW (his son)
	HARDCASTLE
	George HASTINGS
	TONY Lumpkin
	DIGGORY


	WOMEN:

	MRS HARDCASTLE
	MISS HARDCASTLE
	MISS NEVILLE
	MAID	

	LANDLORD, SERVANTS, etc. etc.



Act 1

Scene - A Chamber in an old-fashioned house.

Enter MRS HARDCASTLE and Mr HARDCASTLE.

Mrs Hardcastle	I vow, Mr Hardcastle, you're very particular. Is there a 
creature in the whole country, but ourselves, that does not take a trip to 
town now and then, to rub off the rust a little? There's the two Miss 
Hoggs, and our neighbour, Mrs Grigsby, go to take a month's polishing every 
winter.

Hardcastle	Ay, and bring back vanity and affectation to last them the whole 
year. I wonder why London cannot keep its own fools at home. In my time, 
the follies of the town crept slowly among us, but now they travel faster 
than a stagecoach. Its fopperies come down not only as inside passengers, 
but in the very basket.

Mrs Hardcastle	Ay, your times were fine times, indeed; you have been 
telling us of them for many a long year. Here we live in an old rumbling 
mansion that looks for all the world like an inn, but that we never see 
company. Our best visitors are old Mrs Oddfish, the curate's wife, and 
little Cripplegate, the lame dancing-master: And all our entertainment your 
old stories of Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough. I hate such old-
fashioned trumpery.

Hardcastle	And I love it. I love everything that's old: old friends, old 
times, old manners, old books, old wine; and, I believe, Dorothy [taking 
her hand], you'll own I have been pretty fond of an old wife.

Mrs Hardcastle	Lord, Mr Hardcastle, you're for ever at your Dorothys and 
your old wifes. You may be a Darby, but I'll be no Joan, I promise you. I'm 
not so old as you'd make me, by more than one good year. Add twenty to 
twenty, and make money of that.

Hardcastle	Let me see; twenty added to twenty makes just fifty and seven!

Mrs Hardcastle	It's false, Mr Hardcastle: I was but twenty when I was 
brought to bed of Tony, that I had by Mr Lumpkin, my first husband; and 
he's not come to years of discretion yet.

Hardcastle	Nor ever will, I dare answer for him. Ay, you have taught him 
finely!

Mrs Hardcastle	No matter, Tony Lumpkin has a good fortune. My son is not to 
live by his learning. I don't think a boy wants much learning to spend 
fifteen hundred a year.

Hardcastle	Learning, quotha! a mere composition of tricks and mischief.

Mrs Hardcastle	Humour, my dear; nothing but humour. Come, Mr Hardcastle, 
you must allow the boy a little humour.

Hardcastle	I'd sooner allow him a horse-pond! If burning the footmen's 
shoes, frightening the maids, and worrying the kittens be humour, he has 
it. It was but yesterday he fastened my wig to the back of my chair, and 
when I went to make a bow, I popped my bald head in Mrs Frizzle's face.

Mrs Hardcastle	And am I to blame? The poor boy was always too sickly to do 
any good. A school would be his death. When he comes to be a little 
stronger, who knows what a year or two's Latin may do for him?

Hardcastle	Latin for him! A cat and fiddle! No, no; the alehouse and the 
stable are the only schools he'll ever go to.

Mrs Hardcastle	Well, we must not snub the poor boy now, for I believe we 
shan't have him long among us. Anybody that looks in his face may see he's 
consumptive.

Hardcastle	Ay, if growing too fat be one of the symptoms.

Mrs Hardcastle	He coughs sometimes.

Hardcastle	Yes, when his liquor goes the wrong way.

Mrs Hardcastle	I'm actually afraid of his lungs.

Hardcastle	And truly, so am I; for he sometimes whoops like a speaking-
trumpet -

TONY hallooing behind the scenes.

	O, there he goes. - A very consumptive figure, truly.

Enter TONY, crossing the stage.

Mrs Hardcastle	Tony, where are you going, my charmer? Won't you give papa 
and I a little of your company, lovey?

Tony	I'm in haste, mother; I cannot stay.

Mrs Hardcastle	You shan't venture out this raw evening, my dear; you look 
most shockingly.

Tony	I can't stay, I tell you. The Three Pigeons expects me down every 
moment. There's some fun going forward.

Hardcastle	Ay; the alehouse, the old place: I thought so.

Mrs Hardcastle	A low, paltry set of fellows.

Tony	Not so low, neither. There's Dick Muggins the exciseman, Jack Slang 
the horse doctor, Little Aminadab that grinds the music-box, and Tom Twist 
that spins the pewter platter.

Mrs Hardcastle	Pray, my dear, disappoint them for one night, at least.

Tony	As for disappointing them, I should not so much mind; but I can't 
abide to disappoint myself.

Mrs Hardcastle	[Detaining him.] You shan't go.

Tony	I will, I tell you.

Mrs Hardcastle	I say you shan't.

Tony	We'll see which is strongest, you or I.

Exit, hauling her out. HARDCASTLE solus.

Hardcastle	Ay, there goes a pair that only spoil each other. But is not the 
whole age in a combination to drive sense and discretion out of doors? 
There's my pretty darling Kate - the fashions of the times have almost 
infected her too. By living a year or two in town, she is as fond of gauze 
and French frippery as the best of them.

Enter MISS HARDCASTLE.

Hardcastle	Blessings on my pretty innocence! dressed out as usual, my Kate. 
Goodness! What a quantity of superfluous silk hast thou got about thee, 
girl! I could never teach the fools of this age that the indigent world 
could be clothed out of the trimmings of the vain.

Miss Hardcastle	You know our agreement, sir. You allow me the morning to 
receive and pay visits, and to dress in my own manner; and in the evening I 
put on my housewife's dress, to please you.

Hardcastle	Well, remember, I insist on the terms of our agreement; and, by-
the-bye, I believe I shall have occasion to try your obedience this very 
evening.

Miss Hardcastle	I protest, sir, I don't comprehend your meaning.

Hardcastle	Then to be plain with you, Kate, I expect the young gentleman I 
have chosen to be your husband from town this very day. I have his father's 
letter, in which he informs me his son is set out, and that he intends to 
follow himself shortly after.

Miss Hardcastle	Indeed! I wish I had known something of this before. Bless 
me, how shall I behave? It's a thousand to one I shan't like him; our 
meeting will be so formal, and so like a thing of business, that I shall 
find no room for friendship or esteem.

Hardcastle	Depend upon it, child, I'll never control your choice; but Mr 
Marlow, whom I have pitched upon, is the son of my old friend, Sir Charles 
Marlow, of whom you have heard me talk so often. The young gentleman has 
been bred a scholar, and is designed for an employment in the service of 
his country. I am told he's a man of an excellent understanding.

Miss Hardcastle	Is he?

Hardcastle	Very generous.

Miss Hardcastle	I believe I shall like him.

Hardcastle	Young and brave.

Miss Hardcastle	I'm sure I shall like him.

Hardcastle	And very handsome.

Miss Hardcastle	My dear papa, say no more, [Kissing his hand], he's mine; 
I'll have him!

Hardcastle	And, to crown all, Kate, he's one of the most bashful and 
reserved young fellows in all the world.

Miss Hardcastle	Eh! you have frozen me to death again. That word "reserved" 
has undone all the rest of his accomplishments. A reserved lover, it is 
said, always makes a suspicious husband.

Hardcastle	On the contrary, modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not 
enriched with nobler virtues. It was the very feature in his character that 
first struck me.

Miss Hardcastle	He must have more striking features to catch me, I promise 
you. However, if he be so young, so handsome, and so everything as you 
mention, I believe he'll do still. I think I'll have him.

Hardcastle	Ay, Kate, but there is still an obstacle. It is more than an 
even wager he may not have you.

Miss Hardcastle	My dear papa, why will you mortify one so? - Well, if he 
refuses, instead of breaking my heart at his indifference, I'll only break 
my glass for its flattery; set my cap to some newer fashion, and look out 
for some less difficult admirer.

Hardcastle	Bravely resolved! In the meantime I'll go prepare the servants 
for his reception - as we seldom see company, they want as much training as 
a company of recruits the first day's muster.

Exit
MISS HARDCASTLE sola.

Miss Hardcastle	Lud, this news of papa's puts me all in a flutter. Young, 
handsome: these he put last; but I put them foremost. Sensible, good-
natured; I like all that. But then reserved and sheepish; that's much 
against him. Yet can't he be cured of his timidity, by being taught to be 
proud of his wife? Yes, and can't I - But I vow I'm disposing of the 
husband before I have secured the lover!

Enter MISS NEVILLE.

Miss Hardcastle	I'm glad you're come, Neville, my dear. Tell me, Constance, 
how do I look this evening? Is there anything whimsical about me? Is it one 
of my well-looking days, child? Am I in face today?

Miss Neville	Perfectly, my dear. Yet, now I look again - bless me! - sure 
no accident has happened among the canary birds or the goldfishes? Has your 
brother or the cat been meddling? Or has the last novel been too moving?

Miss Hardcastle	No; nothing of all this. I have been threatened - I can 
scarce get it out - I have been threatened with a lover!

Miss Neville	And his name -

Miss Hardcastle	Is Marlow.

Miss Neville	Indeed!

Miss Hardcastle	The son of Sir Charles Marlow.

Miss Neville	As I live, the most intimate friend of Mr Hastings, my 
admirer. They are never asunder. I believe you must have seen him when we 
lived in town.

Miss Hardcastle	Never.

Miss Neville	He's a very singular character, I assure you. Among women of 
reputation and virtue he is the modestest man alive; but his acquaintance 
give him a very different character among creatures of another stamp: you 
understand me.

Miss Hardcastle	An odd character, indeed! I shall never be able to manage 
him. What shall I do? Pshaw, think no more of him, but trust to occurrences 
for success. But how goes on your own affair, my dear? Has my mother been 
courting you for my brother Tony as usual?

Miss Neville	I have just come from one of our agreeable tete-a-tetes. She 
has been saying a hundred tender things, and setting off her pretty monster 
as the very pink of perfection.

Miss Hardcastle	And her partiality is such that she actually thinks him so. 
A fortune like yours is no small temptation. Besides, as she has the sole 
management of it, I'm not surprised to see her unwilling to let it go out 
of the family.

Miss Neville	A fortune like mine, which chiefly consists in jewels, is no 
such mighty temptation. But, at any rate, if my dear Hastings be but 
constant, I make no doubt to be too hard for her at last. However, I let 
her suppose that I am in love with her son; and she never once dreams that 
my affections are fixed upon another.

Miss Hardcastle	My good brother holds out stoutly. I could almost love him 
for hating you so.

Miss Neville	It is a good-natured creature at bottom, and I'm sure would 
wish to see me married to anybody but himself. But my aunt's bell rings for 
our afternoon's walk through the improvements. Allons! Courage is 
necessary, as our affairs are critical.

Miss Hardcastle	Would it were bed-time, and all were well.

Exeunt.


Scene - An Alehouse Room.
Several shabby fellows with punch and tobacco.
TONY at the head of the table, a little higher than the rest, a mallet in 
his hand.


Omnes	Hurrea, hurrea, hurrea! bravo!

1st Fellow	Now, gentlemen, silence for a song. The 'Squire is going to 
knock himself down for a song.

Omnes	Ay, a song, a song.

Tony	Then I'll sing you, gentlemen, a song I made upon this alehouse, the 
Three Pigeons.

		Song:

						Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain
							With grammar, and nonsense, and learning;
						Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,
							Gives genus a better discerning.
						Let them brag of their heathenish gods,
							Their Lethes, their Styxes, and Stygians;
						Their Quis, and their Quaes, and their Quods,
							They're all but a parcel of Pigeons.
											Toroddle, toroddle, toroll!

						When Methodist preachers come down,
							A-preaching that drinking is sinful,
						I'll wager the rascals a crown,
							They always preach best with a skinful.
						But when you come down with your pence,
							For a slice of their scurvy religion,
						I'll leave it to all men of sense,
							But you, my good friend, are the Pigeon.
											Toroddle, toroddle, toroll!

						Then come, put the jorum about,
							And let us be merry and clever,
						Our hearts and our liquors are stout,
							Here's the Three Jolly Pigeons for ever.
						Let some cry up woodcock or hare,
							Your bustards, your ducks, and your widgeons;
						But of all the birds in the air,
							Here's a health to the Three Jolly Pigeons.
												Toroddle, toroddle, toroll!

Omnes	Bravo, bravo!

1st Fellow	The 'Squire has got spunk in him.

2nd Fellow	I loves to hear him sing, bekeays he never gives us nothing 
that's low.

3rd Fellow	O damn anything that's low, I cannot bear it!

4th Fellow	The genteel thing is the genteel thing any time. If so be that a 
gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.

3rd Fellow	I likes the maxum of it, Master Muggins. What, though I am 
obligated to dance a bear, a man may be a gentleman for all that. May this 
be my poison if my bear ever dances but to the very genteelest of tunes. 
Water Parted, or the minuet in Ariadne.

2nd Fellow	What a pity it is the 'Squire is not come to his own. It would 
be well for all the publicans within ten miles round of him.

Tony	Ecod, and so it would, Master Slang. I'd then show what it was to keep 
choice of company.

2nd Fellow	O he takes after his own father for that. To be sure, old 
'Squire Lumpkin was the finest gentleman I ever set my eyes on. For winding 
the straight horn, or beating a thicket for a hare, or a wench, he never 
had his fellow. It was a saying in the place, that he kept the best horses, 
dogs, and girls, in the whole county.

Tony	Ecod, and when I'm of age, I'll be no bastard, I promise you. I have 
been thinking of Bet Bouncer and the miller's grey mare to begin with. But 
come, my boys, drink about and be merry, for you pay no reckoning. Well, 
Stingo, what's the matter?

Enter LANDLORD

Landlord	There be two gentlemen in a post-chaise at the door. They have 
lost their way upo' the forest; and they are talking something about Mr 
Hardcastle.

Tony	As sure as can be, one of them must be the gentleman that's coming 
down to court my sister. Do they seem to be Londoners?

Landlord	I believe they may. They look woundily like Frenchmen.

Tony	Then desire them to step this way, and I'll set them right in a 
twinkling.

Exit LANDLORD.

	Gentlemen, as they mayn't be good enough company for you, step down for a 
moment, and I'll be with you in the squeezing of a lemon.

Exeunt mob. TONY solus.

Tony	Father-in-law has been calling me whelp and hound this half year. Now, 
if I pleased, I could be so revenged upon the old grumbletonian. But then 
I'm afraid - afraid of what? I shall soon be worth fifteen hundred a year, 
and let him frighten me out of that if he can.

Enter LANDLORD, conducting MARLOW and HASTINGS.

Marlow	What a tedious uncomfortable day have we had of it! We were told it 
was but forty miles across the country, and we have come above threescore.

Hastings	And all, Marlow, from that unaccountable reserve of yours, that 
would not let us enquire more frequently on the way.

Marlow	I own, Hastings, I am unwilling to lay myself under an obligation to 
every one I meet; and often stand the chance of an unmannerly answer.

Hastings	At present, however, we are not likely to receive any answer.

Tony	No offence, gentlemen. But I'm told you have been enquiring for one Mr 
Hardcastle in these parts. Do you know what part of the country you are in?

Hastings	Not in the least, sir, but should thank you for information.

Tony	Nor the way you came?

Hastings	No, sir; but if you can inform us -

Tony	Why, gentlemen, if you know neither the road you are going, nor where 
you are, nor the road you came, the first thing I have to inform you is, 
that - you have lost your way.

Marlow	We wanted no ghost to tell us that.

Tony	Pray, gentlemen, may I be so bold as to ask the place from whence you 
came?

Marlow	That's not necessary towards directing us where we are to go.

Tony	No offence; but question for question is all fair, you know. Pray, 
gentlemen, is not this same Hardcastle a cross-grained, old-fashioned, 
whimsical fellow with an ugly face, a daughter, and a pretty son?

Hastings	We have not seen the gentleman, but he has the family you mention.

Tony	The daughter, a tall, trapesing, trolloping, talkative maypole - the 
son, a pretty, well-bred, agreeable youth, that everybody is fond of.

Marlow	Our information differs in this. The daughter is said to be well-
bred and beautiful; the son, an awkward booby, reared up and spoiled at his 
mother's apron-string.

Tony	He-he-hem - then, gentlemen, all I have to tell you is that you won't 
reach Mr Hardcastle's house this night, I believe.

Hastings	Unfortunate!

Tony	It's a damned long, dark, boggy, dirty, dangerous way. Stingo, tell 
the gentlemen the way to Mr Hardcastle's! (Winking upon the LANDLORD.) Mr 
Hardcastle's of Quagmire Marsh, you understand me.

Landlord	Master Hardcastle's! Lack-a-daisy, my masters, you're come a 
deadly deal wrong! When you came to the bottom of the hill, you should have 
crossed down Squash Lane.

Marlow	Cross down Squash Lane!

Landlord	Then you were to keep straight forward, until you came to four 
roads.

Marlow	Come to where four roads meet?

Tony	Ay; but you must be sure to take only one of them.

Marlow	O, sir, you're facetious.

Tony	Then keeping to the right, you are to go sideways till you come upon 
Crackskull Common: there you must look sharp for the track of the wheel, 
and go forward till you come to farmer Murrain's barn. Coming to the 
farmer's barn, you are to turn to the right, and then to the left, and then 
to the right about again, till you find out the old mill -

Marlow	Zounds, man! we could as soon find out the longitude!

Hastings	What's to be done, Marlow?

Marlow	This house promises but a poor reception; though, perhaps, the 
landlord can accommodate us.

Landlord	Alack, master, we have but one spare bed in the whole house.

Tony	And to my knowledge, that's taken up by three lodgers already.

After a pause, in which the rest seem disconcerted.

	I have hit it. Don't you think, Stingo, our landlady could accommodate the 
gentlemen by the fireside, with - three chairs and a bolster?

Hastings	I hate sleeping by the fireside.

Marlow	And I detest your three chairs and a bolster.

Tony	You do, do you? - then, let me see - what if you go on a mile further, 
to the Buck's Head; the old Buck's Head on the hill, one of the best inns 
in the whole county?

Hastings	Oh, ho! so we have escaped an adventure for this night, however.

Landlord	[apart to TONY]. Sure, you ben't sending them to your father's as 
an inn, be you?

Tony	Mum, you fool you. Let them find that out. [To them.] You have only to 
keep on straight forward, till you come to a large old house by the 
roadside. You'll see a pair of large horns over the door. That's the sign. 
Drive up the yard, and call stoutly about you.

Hastings	Sir, we are obliged to you. The servants can't miss the way?

Tony	No, no: But I tell you, though, the landlord is rich, and going to 
leave off business; so he wants to be thought a gentleman, saving your 
presence, he! he! he! He'll be for giving you his company, and, ecod, if 
you mind him, he'll persuade you that his mother was an alderman, and his 
aunt a justice of the peace!

Landlord	A troublesome old blade, to be sure; but 'a keeps as good wines 
and beds as any in the whole country.

Marlow	Well, if he supplies us with these, we shall want no further 
connection. We are to turn to the right, did you say?

Tony	No, no; straight forward. I'll just step myself, and show you a piece 
of the way. [To the LANDLORD.] Mum!

Landlord	Ah, bless your heart, for a sweet, pleasant - damned mischievous 
son of a whore.

Exeunt.

Act 2

Scene - An old-fashioned House

Enter HARDCASTLE, followed by three or four awkward Servants.

Hardcastle	Well, I hope you're perfect in the table exercise I have been 
teaching you these three days. You all know your posts and your places, and 
can show that you have been used to good company, without ever stirring 
from home.

Omnes	Ay, ay.

Hardcastle	When company comes, you are not to pop out and stare, and then 
run in again, like frightened rabbits in a warren.

Omnes	No, no.

Hardcastle	You, Diggory, whom I have taken from the barn, are to make a 
show at the side-table; and you, Roger, whom I have advanced from the 
plough, are to place yourself behind my chair. But you're not to stand so, 
with your hands in your pockets. Take your hands from your pockets, Roger; 
and from your head, you blockhead, you. See how Diggory carries his hands. 
They're a little too stiff, indeed, but that's no great matter.

Diggory	Ay, mind how I hold them. I learned to hold my hands this way when 
I was upon drill for the militia. And so being upon drill -

Hardcastle	You must not be so talkative, Diggory. You must be all attention 
to the guests. You must hear us talk, and not think of talking; you must 
see us drink, and not think of drinking; you must see us eat, and not think 
of eating.

Diggory	By the laws, your worship, that's parfectly unpossible. Whenever 
Diggory sees yeating going forward, ecod, he's always wishing for a 
mouthful himself.

Hardcastle	Blockhead! Is not a bellyful in the kitchen as good as a 
bellyful in the parlour? Stay your stomach with that reflection.

Diggory	Ecod, I thank your worship, I'll make a shift to stay my stomach 
with a slice of cold beef in the pantry.

Hardcastle	Diggory, you are too talkative. Then, if I happen to say a good 
thing, or tell a good story at table, you must not all burst out a-
laughing, as if you made part of the company.

Diggory	Then, ecod, your worship must not tell the story of Ould Grouse in 
the gun-room: I can't help laughing at that - he! he! he! - for the soul of 
me. We have laughed at that these twenty years - ha! ha! ha!

Hardcastle	Ha! ha! ha! The story is a good one. Well, honest Diggory, you 
may laugh at that - but still remember to be attentive. Suppose one of the 
company should call for a glass of wine, how will you behave? A glass of 
wine, sir, if you please [to DIGGORY]. - Eh, why don't you move?

Diggory	Ecod, your worship, I never have courage till I see the eatables 
and drinkables brought upo' the table, and then I'm as bauld as a lion.

Hardcastle	What, will nobody move?

1st Servant	I'm not to leave this pleace.

2nd Servant	I'm sure it's no pleace of mine.

3rd Servant	Nor mine, for sartain.

Diggory	Wauns, and I'm sure it canna be mine.

Hardcastle	You numskulls! and so while, like your betters, you are 
quarrelling for places, the guests must be starved. Oh, you dunces! I find 
I must begin all over again. - But don't I hear a coach drive into the 
yard? To your posts, you blockheads. I'll go in the meantime and give my 
old friend's son a hearty reception at the gate.

Exit HARDCASTLE.

Diggory	By the elevens, my pleace is gone quite out of my head.

Roger	I know that my pleace is to be everywhere.

1st Servant	Where the devil is mine?

2nd Servant	My pleace is to be nowhere at all; and so I'ze go about my 
business.

Exeunt SERVANTS, running about as if frightened, different ways.

Enter SERVANTS with candles, showing in MARLOW and HASTINGS.

Servant	Welcome, gentlemen, very welcome. This way.

Hastings	After the disappointments of the day, welcome once more, Charles, 
to the comforts of a clean room and a good fire. Upon my word, a very well-
looking house; antique but creditable.

Marlow	The usual fate of a large mansion. Having first ruined the master by 
good housekeeping, it at last comes to levy contributions as an inn.

Hastings	As you say, we passengers are to be taxed to pay all these 
fineries. I have often seen a good sideboard, or a marble chimney-piece, 
though not actually put in the bill, inflame a reckoning confoundedly.

Marlow	Travellers, George, must pay in all places - the only difference is, 
that in good inns you pay dearly for luxuries; in bad inns, you are fleeced 
and starved.

Hastings	You have lived pretty much among them. In truth, I have been often 
surprised that you, who have seen so much of the world, with your natural 
good sense, and your many opportunities, could never yet acquire a 
requisite share of assurance.

Marlow	The Englishman's malady. But tell me, George, where could I have 
learned that assurance you talk of? My life has been chiefly spent in a 
college or an inn, in seclusion from that lovely part of the creation that 
chiefly teach men confidence. I don't know that I was ever familiarly 
acquainted with a single modest woman - except my mother - but among 
females of another class, you know -

Hastings	Ay, among them you are impudent enough of all conscience.

Marlow	They are of us, you know.

Hastings	But in the company of women of reputation I never saw such an 
idiot, such a trembler; you look for all the world as if you wanted an 
opportunity of stealing out of the room.

Marlow	Why, man, that's because I do want to steal out of the room. Faith, 
I have often formed a resolution to break the ice, and rattle away at any 
rate. But I don't know how, a single glance from a pair of fine eyes has 
totally overset my resolution. An impudent fellow may counterfeit modesty; 
but I'll be hanged if a modest man can ever counterfeit impudence.

Hastings	If you could but say half the fine things to them that I have 
heard you lavish upon the barmaid of an inn, or even a college bed-maker -

Marlow	Why, George, I can't say fine things to them. They freeze, they 
petrify me. They may talk of a comet, or a burning mountain, or some such 
bagatelle; but, to me, a modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is 
the most tremendous object of the whole creation.

Hastings	Ha! ha! ha! At this rate, man, how can you ever expect to marry?

Marlow	Never; unless, as among kings and princes, my bride were to be 
courted by proxy. If, indeed, like an Eastern bridegroom, one were to be 
introduced to a wife he never saw before, it might be endured. But to go 
through all the terrors of a formal courtship, together with the episode of 
aunts, grandmothers, and cousins, and at last to blurt out the broad 
staring question of, madam, will you marry me? No, no, that's a strain much 
above me, I assure you.

Hastings	I pity you. But how do you intend behaving to the lady you are 
come down to visit at the request of your father?

Marlow	As I behave to all other ladies. Bow very low; answer yes or no to 
all her demands - But for the rest, I don't think I shall venture to look 
in her face till I see my father's again.

Hastings	I'm surprised that one who is so warm a friend can be so cool a 
lover.

Marlow	To be explicit, my dear Hastings, my chief inducement down was to be 
instrumental in forwarding your happiness, not my own. Miss Neville loves 
you, the family don't know you: as my friend you are sure of a reception, 
and let honour do the rest.

Hastings	My dear Marlow! But I'll suppress the emotion. Were I a wretch, 
meanly seeking to carry off a fortune, you should be the last man in the 
world I would apply to for assistance. But Miss Neville's person is all I 
ask, and that is mine, both from her deceased father's consent, and her own 
inclination.

Marlow	Happy man! You have talents and art to captivate any woman. I'm 
doomed to adore the sex, and yet to converse with the only part of it I 
despise. This stammer in my address, and this awkward prepossessing visage 
of mine, can never permit me to soar above the reach of a milliner's 
'prentice, or one of the duchesses of Drury Lane. Pshaw! this fellow here 
to interrupt us.

Enter HARDCASTLE

Hardcastle	Gentlemen, once more you are heartily welcome. Which is Mr 
Marlow? Sir, you are heartily welcome. It's not my way, you see, to receive 
my friends with my back to the fire. I like give them a hearty reception in 
the old style at my gate. I like to see their horses and trunks taken care 
of.

Marlow	[aside] He has got our names from the servants already. [To him.] We 
approve your caution and hospitality, sir. [To HASTINGS.] I have been 
thinking, George, of changing our travelling dresses in the morning. I am 
grown confoundedly ashamed of mine.

Hardcastle	I beg, Mr Marlow, you'll use no ceremony in this house.

Hastings	I fancy, Charles, you're right: the first blow is half the battle. 
I intend opening the campaign with the white and gold.

Hardcastle	Mr Marlow - Mr Hastings - gentlemen - pray be under no 
constraint in this house. This is Liberty Hall, gentlemen. You may do just 
as you please here.

Marlow	Yet, George, if we open the campaign too fiercely at first, we may 
want ammunition before it is over. I think to reserve the embroidery to 
secure a retreat.

Hardcastle	Your talking of a retreat, Mr Marlow, puts me in mind of the 
Duke of Marlborough, when we went to besiege Denain. He first summoned the 
garrison -

Marlow	Don't you think the ventre d'or waistcoat will do with the plain 
brown?

Hardcastle	He first summoned the garrison, which might consist of about 
five thousand men -

Hastings	I think not: brown and yellow mix but very poorly.

Hardcastle	I say, gentlemen, as I was telling you, he summoned the 
garrison, which might consist of about five thousand men -

Marlow	The girls like finery.

Hardcastle	Which might consist of about five thousand men, well appointed 
with stores, ammunition, and other implements of war. "Now", says the Duke 
of Marlborough to George Brooks, that stood next to him - you must have 
heard of George Brooks - "I'll pawn my dukedom", says he, "but I take that 
garrison without spilling a drop of blood!" So -

Marlow	What, my good friend, if you gave us a glass of punch in the 
meantime, it would help us to carry on the siege with vigour.

Hardcastle	Punch, sir! - [Aside] This is the most unaccountable kind of 
modesty I ever met with!

Marlow	Yes, sir, punch. A glass of warm punch, after our journey, will be 
comfortable. This is Liberty Hall, you know.

Hardcastle	Here's a cup, sir.

Marlow	[aside] So this fellow, in his Liberty Hall, will only let us have 
just what he pleases.

Hardcastle	[taking the cup] I hope you'll find it to your mind. I have 
prepared it with my own hands, and I believe you'll own the ingredients are 
tolerable. Will you be so good as to pledge me, sir? Here, Mr Marlow, here 
is to our better acquaintance! [Drinks]

Marlow	[aside] A very impudent fellow this! but he's a character, and I'll 
humour him a little. Sir, my service to you. [Drinks]

Hastings	[aside] I see this fellow wants to give us his company, and 
forgets that he's an innkeeper, before he has learned to be a gentleman.

Marlow	From the excellence of your cup, my old friend, I suppose you have a 
good deal of business in this part of the country. Warm work, now and then, 
at elections, I suppose?

Hardcastle	No, sir, I have long given that work over. Since our betters 
have hit upon the expedient of electing each other, there is no business 
for us that sell ale.

Hastings	So, then, you have no turn for politics, I find.

Hardcastle	Not in the least. There was a time, indeed, I fretted myself 
about the mistakes of government, like other people; but finding myself 
every day grow more angry, and the government growing no better, I left it 
to mend itself. Since that, I no more trouble my head about Heyder Ally, or 
Ally Cawn, than about Ally Croker. Sir, my service to you.

Hastings	So that, with eating above stairs, and drinking below, with 
receiving your friends within, and amusing them without, you lead a good 
pleasant bustling life of it.

Hardcastle	I do stir about a great deal, that's certain. Half the 
differences of the parish are adjusted in this very parlour.

Marlow	[after drinking] And you have an argument in your cup, old 
gentleman, better than any in Westminster Hall.

Hardcastle	Ay, young gentleman, that, and a little philosophy.

Marlow	[aside] Well, this is the first time I ever heard of an innkeeper's 
philosophy.

Hastings	So then, like an experienced general, you attack them on every 
quarter. If you find their reason manageable, you attack it with your 
philosophy; if you find they have no reason, you attack them with this. 
Here's your health, my philosopher. [Drinks]

Hardcastle	Good, very good, thank you - ha! ha! Your generalship puts me in 
mind of Prince Eugene, when he fought the Turks at the battle of Belgrade. 
You shall hear.

Marlow	Instead of the battle of Belgrade, I believe it's almost time to 
talk about supper. What has your philosophy got in the house for supper?

Hardcastle	For supper, sir! - [Aside] Was ever such a request to a man in 
his own house?

Marlow	Yes, sir, supper, sir; I begin to feel an appetite. I shall make 
devilish work tonight in the larder, I promise you.

Hardcastle	[aside] Such a brazen dog sure never my eyes beheld. [To him] 
Why, really, sir, as for supper I can't well tell. My Dorothy and the cook-
maid settle these things between them. I leave these kind of things 
entirely to them.

Marlow	You do, do you?

Hardcastle	Entirely. By-the-bye, I believe they are in actual consultation 
upon what's for supper this moment in the kitchen.

Marlow	Then I beg they'll admit me as one of their privy council. It's a 
way I have got. When I travel, I always choose to regulate my own supper. 
Let the cook be called. No offence, I hope, sir.

Hardcastle	O no, sir, none in the least; yet I don't know how: our Bridget, 
the cook-maid, is not very communicative upon these occasions. Should we 
send for her, she might scold us all out of the house.

Hastings	Let's see your list of the larder, then. I ask it as a favour. I 
always match my appetite to my bill of fare.

Marlow	[to HARDCASTLE, who looks at them with surprise] Sir, he's very 
right, and it's my way too.

Hardcastle	Sir, you have a right to command here. Here, Roger, bring us the 
bill of fare for tonight's supper - I believe it's drawn out. Your manner, 
Mr Hastings, puts me in mind of my uncle, Colonel Wallop. It was a saying 
of his that no man was sure of his supper till he had eaten it.

Hastings	[aside] All upon the high rope! His uncle a colonel! We shall soon 
hear of his mother being a justice of the peace. But let's hear the bill of 
fare.

Marlow	[perusing] What's here? For the first course; for the second course; 
for the dessert. The devil, sir, do you think we have brought down a whole 
Joiners' Company, or the Corporation of Bedford, to eat up such a supper? 
Two or three little things, clean and comfortable, will do.

Hastings	But let's hear it.

Marlow	[reading] For the first course, at the top, a pig, and prune sauce.

Hastings	Damn your pig, I say!

Marlow	And damn your prune sauce, say I!

Hardcastle	And yet, gentlemen, to men that are hungry, pig with prune sauce 
is very good eating.

Marlow	At the bottom, a calf's tongue and brains.

Hastings	Let your brains be knocked out, my good sir, I don't like them.

Marlow	Or you may clap them on a plate by themselves. I do.

Hardcastle	[aside] Their impudence confounds me. [To them] Gentlemen, you 
are my guests, make what alterations you please. Is there anything else you 
wish to retrench or alter, gentlemen?

Marlow	Item, a pork pie, a boiled rabbit and sausages, a florentine, a 
shaking pudding, and a dish of tiff - taff - taffety cream!

Hastings	Confound your made dishes; I shall be as much at a loss in this 
house as at a green and yellow dinner at the French ambassador's table. I'm 
for plain eating.

Hardcastle	I'm sorry, gentlemen, that I have nothing you like, but if there 
be anything you have a particular fancy to -

Marlow	Why, really, sir, your bill of fare is so exquisite that any one 
part of it is full as good as another. Send us what you please. So much for 
supper. And now to see that our beds are aired, and properly taken care of.

Hardcastle	I entreat you'll leave that to me. You shall not stir a step.

Marlow	Leave that to you! I protest, sir, you must excuse me, I always look 
to these things myself.

Hardcastle	I must insist, sir, you'll make yourself easy on that head.

Marlow	You see I'm resolved on it. [Aside] A very troublesome fellow this, 
as ever I met with.

Hardcastle	Well, sir, I'm resolved at least to attend you. [Aside] This may 
be modem modesty, but I never saw anything look so like old-fashioned 
impudence.

Exeunt MARLOW and HARDCASTLE.
HASTINGS solus.

Hastings	So I find this fellow's civilities begin to grow troublesome. But 
who can be angry at those assiduities which are meant to please him? Ha! 
what do I see? Miss Neville, by all that's happy!

Enter MISS NEVILLE.

Miss Neville	My dear Hastings! To what unexpected good fortune, to what 
accident, am I to ascribe this happy meeting?

Hastings	Rather let me ask the same question, as I could never have hoped 
to meet my dearest Constance at an inn.

Miss Neville	An inn! sure you mistake! - my aunt, my guardian, lives here. 
What could induce you to think this house an inn?

Hastings	My friend, Mr Marlow, with whom I came down, and I, have been sent 
here as to an inn, I assure you. A young fellow, whom we accidentally met 
at a house hard by, directed us hither.

Miss Neville	Certainly it must be one of my hopeful cousin's tricks, of 
whom you have heard me talk so often - ha! ha! ha! ha!

Hastings	He whom your aunt intends for you? He of whom I have such just 
apprehensions?

Miss Neville	You have nothing to fear from him, I assure you. You'd adore 
him if you knew how heartily he despises me. My aunt knows it, too, and has 
undertaken to court me for him, and actually begins to think she has made a 
conquest.

Hastings	Thou dear dissembler! You must know, my Constance, I have just 
seized this happy opportunity of my friend's visit here to get admittance 
into the family. The horses that carried us down are now fatigued with 
their journey, but they'll soon be refreshed; and then, if my dearest girl 
will trust in her faithful Hastings, we shall soon be landed in France, 
where even among slaves the laws of marriage are respected.

Miss Neville	I have often told you that, though ready to obey you, I yet 
should leave my little fortune behind with reluctance. The greatest part of 
it was left me by my uncle, the India Director, and chiefly consists in 
jewels. I have been for some time persuading my aunt to let me wear them. I 
fancy I'm very near succeeding. The instant they are put into my 
possession, you shall find me ready to make them and myself yours.

Hastings	Perish the baubles! Your person is all I desire. In the meantime, 
my friend Marlow must not be let into his mistake. I know the strange 
reserve of his temper is such that, if abruptly informed of it, he would 
instantly quit the house before our plan was ripe for execution.

Miss Neville	But how shall we keep him in the deception? Miss Hardcastle is 
just returned from walking; what if we still continue to deceive him? - 
This, this way -

They confer.

Enter MARLOW

Marlow	The assiduities of these good people tease me beyond bearing. My 
host seems to think it ill manners to leave me alone, and so he claps not 
only himself, but his old-fashioned wife on my back. They talk of coming to 
sup with us, too; and then, I suppose, we are to run the gantlet through 
all the rest of the family. - What have we got here?

Hastings	My dear Charles! Let me congratulate you! - The most fortunate 
accident! - Who do you think is just alighted?

Marlow	Cannot guess.

Hastings	Our mistresses, boy, Miss Hardcastle and Miss Neville. Give me 
leave to introduce Miss Constance Neville to your acquaintance. Happening 
to dine in the neighbourhood, they called on their return to take fresh 
horses here. Miss Hardcastle has just stepped into the next room, and will 
be back in an instant. Wasn't it lucky, eh?

Marlow	[aside] I have just been mortified enough of all conscience, and 
here comes something to complete my embarrassment.

Hastings	Well, but wasn't it the most fortunate thing in the world?

Marlow	Oh! yes. Very fortunate - a most joyful encounter - But our dresses, 
George, you know, are in disorder - What if we should postpone the 
happiness till tomorrow? - Tomorrow at her own house - It will be every bit 
as convenient - And rather more respectful - Tomorrow let it be. [Offering 
to go.]

Miss Neville	By no means, sir. Your ceremony will displease her. The 
disorder of your dress will show the ardour of your impatience. Besides, 
she knows you are in the house, and will permit you to see her.

Marlow	O! the devil! how shall I support it? Hem! hem! Hastings, you must 
not go. You are to assist me, you know. I shall be confoundedly ridiculous. 
Yet, hang it! I'll take courage. Hem!

Hastings	Pshaw, man! it's but the first plunge, and all's over. She's but a 
woman, you know.

Marlow	And of all women, she that I dread most to encounter.

Enter MISS HARDCASTLE, as returned from walking, a bonnet, etc.

Hastings	[introducing them] Miss Hardcastle, Mr Marlow. I'm proud of 
bringing two persons of such merit together, that only want to know, to 
esteem each other.

Miss Hardcastle	[aside] Now for meeting my modest gentleman with a demure 
face, and quite in his own manner.

After a pause, in which he appears very uneasy and disconcerted.

	I'm glad of your safe arrival, sir. I'm told you had some accidents by the 
way.

Marlow	Only a few, madam. Yes, we had some. Yes, madam, a good many 
accidents, but should be sorry - madam - or rather glad of any accidents - 
that are so agreeably concluded. Hem!

Hastings	[to him] You never spoke better in your whole life. Keep it up, 
and I'll ensure you the victory.

Miss Hardcastle	I'm afraid you flatter, sir. You that have seen so much of 
the finest company can find little entertainment in an obscure corner of 
the country.

Marlow	[gathering courage] I have lived, indeed, in the world, madam; but I 
have kept very little company. I have been but an observer upon life, 
madam, while others were enjoying it.

Miss Neville	But that, I am told, is the way to enjoy it at last.

Hastings	[to him] Cicero never spoke better. Once more, and you are 
confirmed in assurance for ever.

Marlow	[to him] Hem! Stand by me, then, and when I'm down, throw in a word 
or two, to set me up again.

Miss Hardcastle	An observer, like you, upon life were, I fear, disagreeably 
employed, since you must have had much more to censure than to approve.

Marlow	Pardon me, madam. I was always willing to be amused. The folly of 
most people is rather an object of mirth than uneasiness.

Hastings	[to him] Bravo, bravo. Never spoke so well in your whole life. 
Well, Miss Hardcastle, I see that you and Mr Marlow are going to be very 
good company. I believe our being here will but embarrass the interview.

Marlow	Not in the least, Mr Hastings. We like your company of all things. 
[To him] Zounds! George, sure you won't go? How can you leave us?

Hastings	Our presence will but spoil conversation, so we'll retire to the 
next room. [To him] You don't consider, man, that we are to manage a little 
tete-a-tete of our own.

Exeunt

Miss Hardcastle	[after a pause] But you have not been wholly an observer, I 
presume, sir. The ladies, I should hope, have employed some part of your 
addresses.

Marlow	[relapsing into timidity] Pardon me, madam, I - I - I - as yet have 
studied - only - to - deserve them.

Miss Hardcastle	And that, some say, is the very worst way to obtain them.

Marlow	Perhaps so, madam. But I love to converse only with the more grave 
and sensible part of the sex. - But I'm afraid I grow tiresome.

Miss Hardcastle	Not at all, sir; there is nothing I like so much as grave 
conversation myself: I could hear it for ever. Indeed, I have often been 
surprised how a man of sentiment could ever admire those light airy 
pleasures, where nothing reaches the heart.

Marlow	It's - a disease - of the mind, madam. In the variety of tastes 
there must be some who, wanting a relish - for - um - a - um.

Miss Hardcastle	I understand you, sir. There must be some, who, wanting a 
relish for refined pleasures, pretend to despise what they are incapable of 
tasting.

Marlow	My meaning, madam, but infinitely better expressed. And I can't help 
observing - a -

Miss Hardcastle	[aside] Who could ever suppose this fellow impudent upon 
some occasions? [To him] You were going to observe, sir -

Marlow	I was observing, madam - I protest, madam, I forget what I was going 
to observe.

Miss Hardcastle	[aside] I vow and so do I. [To him] You were observing, 
sir, that in this age of hypocrisy - something about hypocrisy, sir.

Marlow	Yes, madam. In this age of hypocrisy, there are few who upon strict 
inquiry do not - a - a - a -

Miss Hardcastle	I understand you perfectly, sir.

Marlow	[aside] Egad! and that's more than I do myself.

Miss Hardcastle	You mean that in this hypocritical age there are few that 
do not condemn in public what they practise in private, and think they pay 
every debt to virtue when they praise it.

Marlow	True, madam; those who have most virtue in their mouths, have least 
of it in their bosoms. But I'm sure I tire you, madam.

Miss Hardcastle	Not in the least, sir; there's something so agreeable and 
spirited in your manner, such life and force - pray, sir, go on.

Marlow	Yes, madam. I was saying - that there are some occasions - when a 
total want of courage, madam, destroys all the - and puts us - upon a - a - 
a -

Miss Hardcastle	I agree with you entirely: a want of courage upon some 
occasions assumes the appearance of ignorance, and betrays us when we most 
want to excel. I beg you'll proceed.

Marlow	Yes, madam. Morally speaking, madam - but I see Miss Neville 
expecting us in the next room. I would not intrude for the world.

Miss Hardcastle	I protest, sir, I never was more agreeably entertained in 
all my life. Pray go on.

Marlow	Yes, madam, I was - but she beckons us to join her. Madam, shall I 
do myself the honour to attend you?

Miss Hardcastle	Well, then, I'll follow.

Marlow	[aside] This pretty smooth dialogue has done for me.

Exit.
MISS HARDCASTLE sola.

Miss Hardcastle	Ha! ha! ha! Was there ever such a sober, sentimental 
interview? I'm certain he scarce looked in my face the whole time. Yet the 
fellow, but for his unaccountable bashfulness, is pretty well, too. He has 
good sense, but then so buried in his fears that it fatigues one more than 
ignorance. If I could teach him a little confidence, it would be doing 
somebody that I know of a piece of service. But who is that somebody? - 
That, faith, is a question I can scarce answer.

Exit.

Enter TONY and MISS NEVILLE, followed by MRS HARDCASTLE and HASTINGS.

Tony	What do you follow me for, cousin Con? I wonder you're not ashamed to 
be so very engaging.

Miss Neville	I hope, cousin, one may speak to one's own relations, and not 
be to blame.

Tony	Ay, but I know what sort of a relation you want to make me, though; 
but it won't do. I tell you, cousin Con, it won't do; so I beg you'll keep 
your distance, I want no nearer relationship.

She follows, coquetting him to the back scene.

Mrs Hardcastle	Well! I vow, Mr Hastings, you are very entertaining. There's 
nothing in the world I love to talk of so much as London, and the fashions, 
though I was never there myself.

Hastings	Never there! You amaze me! From your air and manner, I concluded 
you had been bred all your life either at Ranelagh, St. James's, or Tower 
Wharf.

Mrs Hardcastle	O! sir, you're only pleased to say so. We country persons 
can have no manner at all. I'm in love with the town, and that serves to 
raise me above some of our neighbouring rustics; but who can have a manner, 
that has never seen the Pantheon, the Grotto Gardens, the Borough, and such 
places where the nobility chiefly resort? All I can do is to enjoy London 
at second-hand. I take care to know every tete-a-tete from the Scandalous 
Magazine, and have all the fashions as they come out, in a letter from the 
two Miss Rickets of Crooked Lane. Pray, how do you like this head, Mr 
Hastings?

Hastings	Extremely elegant and degagee, upon my word, madam. Your friseur 
is a Frenchman, I suppose?

Mrs Hardcastle	I protest, I dressed it myself from a print in the Ladies' 
Memorandum-book for the last year.

Hastings	Indeed! Such a head in a side-box at the play-house would draw as 
many gazers as my Lady Mayoress at a City Ball.

Mrs Hardcastle	I vow, since inoculation began, there is no such thing to be 
seen as a plain woman; so one must dress a little particular, or one may 
escape in the crowd.

Hastings	But that can never be your case, madam, in any dress! [Bowing]

Mrs Hardcastle	Yet, what signifies my dressing when I have such a piece of 
antiquity by my side as Mr Hardcastle: all I can say will never argue down 
a single button from his clothes. I have often wanted him to throw off his 
great flaxen wig, and where he was bald, to plaster it over, like my Lord 
Pately, with powder.

Hastings	You are right, madam; for, as among the ladies there are none 
ugly, so among the men there are none old.

Mrs Hardcastle	But what do you think his answer was? Why, with his usual 
Gothic vivacity, he said I only wanted him to throw off his wig to convert 
it into a tete for my own wearing.

Hastings	Intolerable! At your age you may wear what you please, and it must 
become you.

Mrs Hardcastle	Pray, Mr Hastings, what do you take to be the most 
fashionable age about town?

Hastings	Some time ago forty was all the mode; but I'm told the ladies 
intend to bring up fifty for the ensuing winter.

Mrs Hardcastle	Seriously. Then I shall be too young for the fashion.

Hastings	No lady begins now to put on jewels till she's past forty. For 
instance, Miss there, in a polite circle, would be considered as a child, 
as a mere maker of samplers.

Mrs Hardcastle	And yet Mrs Niece thinks herself as much a woman, and is as 
fond of jewels, as the oldest of us all.

Hastings	Your niece, is she? And that young gentleman, a brother of yours, 
I should presume?

Mrs Hardcastle	My son, sir. They are contracted to each other. Observe 
their little sports. They fall in and out ten times a day, as if they were 
man and wife already. [To them] Well, Tony, child, what soft things are you 
saying to your cousin Constance this evening?

Tony	I have been saying no soft things; but that it's very hard to be 
followed about so. Ecod! I've not a place in the house now that's left to 
myself but the stable.

Mrs Hardcastle	Never mind him, Con, my dear. He's in another story behind 
your back.

Miss Neville	There's something generous in my cousin's manner. He falls out 
before faces to be forgiven in private.

Tony	That's a damned confounded - crack.

Mrs Hardcastle	Ah! he's a sly one. Don't you think they are like each other 
about the mouth, Mr Hastings? The Blenkinsop mouth to a T. They're of a 
size, too. Back to back, my pretties, that Mr Hastings may see you. Come, 
Tony.

Tony	You had as good not make me, I tell you. [Measuring.]

Miss Neville	O lud! he has almost cracked my head.

Mrs Hardcastle	O, the monster! For shame, Tony. You a man, and behave so!

Tony	If I'm a man, let me have my fortin. Ecod! I'll not be made a fool of 
no longer.

Mrs Hardcastle	Is this, ungrateful boy, all that I'm to get for the pains I 
have taken in your education? I that have rocked you in your cradle, and 
fed that pretty mouth with a spoon! Did not I work that waistcoat to make 
you genteel? Did not I prescribe for you every day, and weep while the 
receipt was operating?

Tony	Ecod! you had reason to weep, for you have been dosing me ever since I 
was born. I have gone through every receipt in the Complete Housewife ten 
times over; and you have thoughts of coursing me through Quincy next 
spring. But, ecod! I tell you, I'll not be made a fool of no longer.

Mrs Hardcastle	Wasn't it all for your good, viper? Wasn't it all for your 
good?

Tony	I wish you'd let me and my good alone, then. Snubbing this way when 
I'm in spirits. If I'm to have any good, let it come of itself; not to keep 
dinging it, dinging it into one so.

Mrs Hardcastle	That's false. I never see you when you're in spirits. No, 
Tony, you then go to the alehouse or kennel. I'm never to be delighted with 
your agreeable wild notes, unfeeling monster!

Tony	Ecod! Mamma, your own notes are the wildest of the two.

Mrs Hardcastle	Was ever the like? But I see he wants to break my heart, I 
see he does.

Hastings	Dear Madam, permit me to lecture the young gentleman a little. I'm 
certain I can persuade him to his duty.

Mrs Hardcastle	Well, I must retire. Come, Constance, my love. You see, Mr 
Hastings, the wretchedness of my situation - was ever poor woman so plagued 
with a dear sweet, pretty, provoking, undutiful boy?

Exeunt MRS HARDCASTLE and MISS NEVILLE.

Tony	[singing] There was a young man riding by, and fain would have his 
will. Rang do didlo dee. Don't mind her. Let her cry. It's the comfort of 
her heart. I have seen her and sister cry over a book for an hour together; 
and they said they liked the book the better the more it made them cry.

Hastings	Then you're no friend to the ladies, I find, my pretty young 
gentleman?

Tony	That's as I find 'um.

Hastings	Not to her of your mother's choosing, I dare answer? And yet she 
appears to me a pretty, well-tempered girl.

Tony	That's because you don't know her as well as I. Ecod! I know every 
inch about her; and there's not a more bitter cantankerous toad in all 
Christendom.

Hastings	[aside] Pretty encouragement this, for a lover!

Tony	I have seen her since the height of that. She has as many tricks as a 
hare in a thicket, or a colt the first day's breaking.

Hastings	To me she appears sensible and silent.

Tony	Ay, before company. But when she's with her playmate, she's as loud as 
a hog in a gate.

Hastings	But there is a meek modesty about her that charms me.

Tony	Yes, but curb her never so little, she kicks up, and you're flung in a 
ditch.

Hastings	Well, but you must allow her a little beauty. - Yes, you must 
allow her some beauty.

Tony	Bandbox! She's all a made-up thing, mun. Ah! could you but see Bet 
Bouncer of these parts, you might then talk of beauty. Ecod, she has two 
eyes as black as sloes, and cheeks as broad and red as a pulpit cushion. 
She'd make two of she.

Hastings	Well, what say you to a friend that would take this bitter bargain 
off your hands?

Tony	Anon.

Hastings	Would you thank him that would take Miss Neville, and leave you to 
happiness and your dear Betsy?

Tony	Ay; but where is there such a friend, for who would take her?

Hastings	I am he. If you but assist me, I'll engage to whip her off to 
France, and you shall never hear more of her.

Tony	Assist you! Ecod, I will, to the last drop of my blood. I'll clap a 
pair of horses to your chaise that shall trundle you off in a twinkling, 
and may be get you a part of her fortin beside, in jewels, that you little 
dream of.

Hastings	My dear 'Squire, this looks like a lad of spirit.

Tony	Come along, then, and you shall see more of my spirit before you have 
done with me.

	[Singing]
					We are the boys
					That fears no noise
					Where the thundering cannons roar.

[Exeunt]

Act 3.

Enter HARDCASTLE, solus.

Hardcastle	What could my old friend Sir Charles mean by recommending his 
son as the modestest young man in town? To me he appears the most impudent 
piece of brass that ever spoke with a tongue. He has taken possession of 
the easy chair by the fireside already. He took off his boots in the 
parlour, and desired me to see them taken care of. I'm desirous to know how 
his impudence affects my daughter. She will certainly be shocked at it.

Enter MISS HARDCASTLE, plainly dressed.

Hardcastle	Well, my Kate, I see you have changed your dress, as I bade you; 
and yet, I believe, there was no great occasion.

Miss Hardcastle	I find such a pleasure, sir, in obeying your commands, that 
I take care to observe them without ever debating their propriety.

Hardcastle	And yet, Kate, I sometimes give you some cause, particularly 
when I recommended my modest gentleman to you as a lover today.

Miss Hardcastle	You taught me to expect something extraordinary, and I find 
the original exceeds the description.

Hardcastle	I was never so surprised in my life! He has quite confounded all 
my faculties!

Miss Hardcastle	I never saw anything like it - and a man of the world too!

Hardcastle	Ay, he learned it all abroad - what a fool was I to think a 
young man could learn modesty by travelling. He might as soon learn wit at 
a masquerade.

Miss Hardcastle	It seems all natural to him.

Hardcastle	A good deal assisted by bad company and a French dancing-master.

Miss Hardcastle	Sure you mistake, papa! A French dancing-master could never 
have taught him that timid look - that awkward address - that bashful 
manner -

Hardcastle	Whose look? whose manner, child?

Miss Hardcastle	Mr Marlow's - his mauvaise honte, his timidity, struck me 
at the first sight.

Hardcastle	Then your first sight deceived you; for I think him one of the 
most brazen first sights that ever astonished my senses.

Miss Hardcastle	Sure, sir, you rally! I never saw any one so modest.

Hardcastle	And can you be serious? I never saw such a bouncing, swaggering 
puppy since I was born. Bully Dawson was but a fool to him.

Miss Hardcastle	Surprising! He met me with a respectful bow, a stammering 
voice, and a look fixed on the ground.

Hardcastle	He met me with a loud voice, a lordly air, and a familiarity 
that made my blood freeze again.

Miss Hardcastle	He treated me with diffidence and respect; censured the 
manners of the age; admired the prudence of girls that never laughed; tired 
me with apologies for being tiresome; then left the room with a bow, and 
Madam, I would not for the world detain you.

Hardcastle	He spoke to me as if he knew me all his life before; asked 
twenty questions, and never waited for an answer; interrupted my best 
remarks with some silly pun; and when I was in my best story of the Duke of 
Marlborough and Prince Eugene, he asked if I had not a good hand at making 
punch. Yes, Kate, he asked your father if he was a maker of punch!

Miss Hardcastle	One of us must certainly be mistaken.

Hardcastle	If he be what he has shown himself, I'm determined he shall 
never have my consent.

Miss Hardcastle	And if he be the sullen thing I take him, he shall never 
have mine.

Hardcastle	In one thing then we are agreed - to reject him.

Miss Hardcastle	Yes; but upon conditions. For if you should find him less 
impudent, and I more presuming; if you find him more respectful, and I more 
importunate - I don't know - the fellow is well enough for a man - 
Certainly, we don't meet many such at a horse-race in the country.

Hardcastle	If we should find him so - But that's impossible. The first 
appearance has done my business. I'm seldom deceived in that.

Miss Hardcastle	And yet there may be many good qualities under that first 
appearance.

Hardcastle	Ay, when a girl finds a fellow's outside to her taste, she then 
sets about guessing the rest of his furniture. With her, a smooth face 
stands for good sense, and a genteel figure for every virtue.

Miss Hardcastle	I hope, sir, a conversation begun with a compliment to my 
good sense won't end with a sneer at my understanding?

Hardcastle	Pardon me, Kate. But if young Mr Brazen can find the art of 
reconciling contradictions, he may please us both, perhaps.

Miss Hardcastle	And as one of us must be mistaken, what if we go to make 
further discoveries?

Hardcastle	Agreed. But depend on't I'm in the right.

Miss Hardcastle	And depend on't I'm not much in the wrong.

Exeunt.

Enter TONY, running in with a casket.

Tony	Ecod! I have got them. Here they are. My cousin Con's necklaces, bobs 
and all. My mother shan't cheat the poor souls out of their fortin neither. 
O! my genus, is that you?

Enter HASTINGS.

Hastings	My dear friend, how have you managed with your mother? I hope you 
have amused her with pretending love for your cousin, and that you are 
willing to be reconciled at last? Our horses will be refreshed in a short 
time, and we shall soon be ready to set off.

Tony	And here's something to bear your charges by the way [Giving the 
casket] - your sweetheart's jewels. Keep them; and hang those, I say, that 
would rob you of one of them.

Hastings	But how have you procured them from your mother?

Tony	Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs. I procured them by the 
rule of thumb. If I had not a key to every drawer in mother's bureau, how 
could I go to the alehouse so often as I do? An honest man may rob himself 
of his own at any time.

Hastings	Thousands do it every day. But to be plain with you; Miss Neville 
is endeavouring to procure them from her aunt this very instant. If she 
succeeds, it will be the most delicate way at least of obtaining them.

Tony	Well, keep them till you know how it will be. But I know how it will 
be well enough: she'd as soon part with the only sound tooth in her head.

Hastings	But I dread the effects of her resentment, when she finds she has 
lost them.

Tony	Never you mind her resentment, leave me to manage that. I don't value 
her resentment the bounce of a cracker. Zounds! here they are. Morrice! 
Prance!

Exit HASTINGS.

Enter MRS HARDCASTLE and MISS NEVILLE.

Mrs Hardcastle	Indeed, Constance, you amaze me. Such a girl as you want 
jewels! It will be time enough for jewels, my dear, twenty years hence, 
when your beauty begins to want repairs.

Miss Neville	But what will repair beauty at forty will certainly improve it 
at twenty, madam.

Mrs Hardcastle	Yours, my dear, can admit of none. That natural blush is 
beyond a thousand ornaments. Besides, child, jewels are quite out at 
present. Don't you see half the ladies of our acquaintance - my Lady Kill-
daylight, and Mrs Crump, and the rest of them - carry their jewels to town, 
and bring nothing but paste and marcasites back.

Miss Neville	But who knows, madam, but somebody that shall be nameless 
would like me best with all my little finery about me?

Mrs Hardcastle	Consult your glass, my dear, and then see if, with such a 
pair of eyes, you want any better sparklers. What do you think, Tony, my 
dear? does your cousin Con want any jewels in your eyes to set off her 
beauty?

Tony	That's as thereafter may be.

Miss Neville	My dear aunt, if you knew how it would oblige me.

Mrs Hardcastle	A parcel of old-fashioned rose and table-cut things. They 
would make you look like the court of King Solomon at a puppet-show. 
Besides, I believe, I can't readily come at them. They may be missing, for 
aught I know to the contrary.

Tony	[Apart to Mrs HARDCASTLE] Then why don't you tell her so at once, as 
she's so longing for them? Tell her they're lost. It's the only way to 
quiet her. Say they're lost, and call me to bear witness.

Mrs Hardcastle	[Apart to TONY] You know, my dear, I'm only keeping them for 
you. So if I say they're gone, you'll bear me witness, will you? He! he! 
he!

Tony	Never fear me. Ecod! I'll say I saw them taken out with my own eyes.

Miss Neville	I desire them but for a day, madam. Just to be permitted to 
show them as relics, and then they may be locked up again.

Mrs Hardcastle	To be plain with you, my dear Constance, if I could find 
them you should have them. They're missing, I assure you. Lost, for aught I 
know; but we must have patience wherever they are.

Miss Neville	I'll not believe it! This is but a shallow pretence to deny 
me. I know they are too valuable to be so slightly kept, and as you are to 
answer for the loss -

Mrs Hardcastle	Don't be alarmed, Constance. If they be lost, I must restore 
an equivalent. But my son knows they are missing, and not to be found.

Tony	That I can bear witness to. They are missing, and not to be found; 
I'll take my oath on't.

Mrs Hardcastle	You must learn resignation, my dear; for though we lose our 
fortune, yet we should not lose our patience. See me, how calm I am.

Miss Neville	Ay, people are generally calm at the misfortunes of others.

Mrs Hardcastle	Now I wonder a girl of your good sense should waste a 
thought upon such trumpery. We shall soon find them; and in the meantime 
you shall make use of my garnets till your jewels be found.

Miss Neville	I detest garnets.

Mrs Hardcastle	The most becoming things in the world to set off a clear 
complexion. You have often seen how well they look upon me. You shall have 
them.

Exit.

Miss Neville	I dislike them of all things. You shan't stir. - Was ever 
anything so provoking - to mislay my own jewels, and force me to wear her 
trumpery?

Tony	Don't be a fool. If she gives you the garnets, take what you can get. 
The jewels are your own already. I have stolen them out of her bureau, and 
she does not know it. Fly to your spark, he'll tell you more of the matter. 
Leave me to manage her.

Miss Neville	My dear cousin!

Tony	Vanish. She's here, and has missed them already.

Exit MISS NEVILLE.

	Zounds! how she fidgets and spits about like a Catherine wheel.

Enter MRS HARDCASTLE.

Mrs Hardcastle	Confusion! thieves! robbers! we are cheated, plundered, 
broke open, undone.

Tony	What's the matter, what's the matter, mamma? I hope nothing has 
happened to any of the good family!

Mrs Hardcastle	We are robbed. My bureau has been broken open, the jewels 
taken out, and I'm undone.

Tony	Oh! is that all? Ha! ha! ha! By the laws, I never saw it acted better 
in my life. Ecod, I thought you was ruined in earnest, ha! ha! ha!

Mrs Hardcastle	Why, boy, I am ruined in earnest. My bureau has been broken 
open, and all taken away.

Tony	Stick to that - ha! ha! ha! stick to that. I'll bear witness, you 
know; call me to bear witness.

Mrs Hardcastle	I tell you, Tony, by all that's precious, the jewels are 
gone, and I shall be ruined for ever.

Tony	Sure I know they're gone, and I'm to say so.

Mrs Hardcastle	My dearest Tony, but hear me. They're gone, I say.

Tony	By the laws, mamma, you make me for to laugh, ha! ha! I know who took 
them well enough, ha! ha! ha!

Mrs Hardcastle	Was there ever such a blockhead, that can't tell the 
difference between jest and earnest? I tell you I'm not in jest, booby.

Tony	That's right, that's right; you must be in a bitter passion, and then 
nobody will suspect either of us. I'll bear witness that they are gone.

Mrs Hardcastle	Was there ever such a cross-grained brute, that won't hear 
me? Can you bear witness that you're no better than a fool? Was ever poor 
woman so beset with fools on one hand, and thieves on the other?

Tony	I can bear witness to that.

Mrs Hardcastle	Bear witness again, you blockhead you, and I'll turn you out 
of the room directly. My poor niece, what will become of her? Do you laugh, 
you unfeeling brute, as if you enjoyed my distress?

Tony	I can bear witness to that.

Mrs Hardcastle	Do you insult me, monster? I'll teach you to vex your 
mother, I will.

Tony	I can bear witness to that.

He runs off, she follows him.

Enter MISS HARDCASTLE and MAID.

Miss Hardcastle	What an unaccountable creature is that brother of mine, to 
send them to the house as an inn! ha! ha! I don't wonder at his impudence.

Maid	But what is more, madam, the young gentleman, as you passed by in your 
present dress, asked me if you were the barmaid. He mistook you for the 
barmaid, madam.

Miss Hardcastle	Did he? Then, as I live, I'm resolved to keep up the 
delusion. Tell me, Pimple, how do you like my present dress? Don't you 
think I look something like Cherry in the Beaux Stratagem?

Maid	It's the dress, madam, that every lady wears in the country, but when 
she visits or receives company.

Miss Hardcastle	And are you sure he does not remember my face or person?

Maid	Certain of it.

Miss Hardcastle	I vow, I thought so; for, though we spoke for some time 
together, yet his fears were such that he never once looked up during the 
interview. Indeed, if he had, my bonnet would have kept him from seeing me.

Maid	But what do you hope from keeping him in his mistake?

Miss Hardcastle	In the first place, I shall be seen, and that is no small 
advantage to a girl who brings her face to market. Then I shall perhaps 
make an acquaintance, and that's no small victory gained over one who never 
addresses any but the wildest of her sex. But my chief aim is to take my 
gentleman off his guard and, like an invisible champion of romance, examine 
the giant's force before I offer to combat.

Maid	But you are sure you can act your part, and disguise your voice so 
that he may mistake that, as he has already mistaken your person?

Miss Hardcastle	Never fear me. I think I have got the true bar cant - Did 
your honour call? - Attend the Lion there - Pipes and tobacco for the 
Angel. - The Lamb has been outrageous this half-hour.

Maid	It will do, madam. But he's here.

Exit MAID.

Enter MARLOW.

Marlow	What a bawling in every part of the house! I have scarce a moment's 
repose. If I go to the best room, there I find my host and his story; if I 
fly to the gallery, there we have my hostess with her curtsey down to the 
ground. I have at last got a moment to myself, and now for recollection.

Walks and muses.

Miss Hardcastle	Did you call, sir? Did your honour call?

Marlow	[musing] As for Miss Hardcastle, she's too grave and sentimental for 
me.

Miss Hardcastle	Did your honour call?

She still places herself before him, he turning away.

Marlow	No, child. [Musing] Besides, from the glimpse I had of her, I think 
she squints.

Miss Hardcastle	I'm sure, sir, I heard the bell ring.

Marlow	No, no. [Musing] I have pleased my father, however, by coming down, 
and I'll tomorrow please myself by returning. [Taking out his tablets, and 
perusing.]

Miss Hardcastle	Perhaps the other gentleman called, sir?

Marlow	I tell you, no.

Miss Hardcastle	I should be glad to know, sir. We have such a parcel of 
servants!

Marlow	No, no, I tell you. [Looks full in her face.] Yes, child, I think I 
did call. I wanted - I wanted - I vow, child, you are vastly handsome.

Miss Hardcastle	O la, sir, you'll make one ashamed.

Marlow	Never saw a more sprightly malicious eye. Yes, yes, my dear, I did 
call. Have you got any of your - a - what d'ye call it in the house?

Miss Hardcastle	No, sir, we have been out of that these ten days.

Marlow	One may call in this house, I find, to very little purpose. Suppose 
I should call for a taste, just by way of a trial, of the nectar of your 
lips; perhaps I might be disappointed in that too.

Miss Hardcastle	Nectar! nectar! That's a liquor there's no call for in 
these parts. French, I suppose. We sell no French wines here, sir.

Marlow	Of true English growth, I assure you.

Miss Hardcastle	Then it's odd I should not know it. We brew all sorts of 
wines in this house, and I have lived here these eighteen years.

Marlow	Eighteen years! Why, one would think, child, you kept the bar before 
you were born. How old are you?

Miss Hardcastle	O! sir, I must not tell my age. They say women and music 
should never be dated.

Marlow	To guess at this distance, you can't be much above forty. 
[Approaching] Yet, nearer, I don't think so much. [Approaching] By coming 
close to some women they look younger still; but when we come very close 
indeed. [Attempting to kiss her]

Miss Hardcastle	Pray, sir, keep your distance. One would think you wanted 
to know one's age, as they do horses, by mark of mouth.

Marlow	I protest, child, you use me extremely ill. If you keep me at this 
distance, how is it possible you and I can ever be acquainted?

Miss Hardcastle	And who wants to be acquainted with you? I want no such 
acquaintance, not I. I'm sure you did not treat Miss Hardcastle, that was 
here awhile ago, in this obstropalous manner. I'll warrant me, before her 
you looked dashed, and kept bowing to the ground, and talked, for all the 
world, as if you was before a justice of peace.

Marlow	[aside] Egad, she has hit it, sure enough! [To her] In awe of her, 
child? Ha! ha! ha! A mere awkward squinting thing; no, no. I find you don't 
know me. I laughed and rallied her a little; but I was unwilling to be too 
severe. No, I could not be too severe, curse me!

Miss Hardcastle	O! then, sir, you are a favourite, I find, among the 
ladies?

Marlow	Yes, my dear, a great favourite. And yet hang me, I don't see what 
they find in me to follow. At the Ladies' Club in town I'm called their 
agreeable Rattle. Rattle, child, is not my real name, but one I'm known by. 
My name is Solomons. Mr Solomons, my dear, at your service. [Offering to 
salute her]

Miss Hardcastle	Hold, sir; you are introducing me to your club, not to 
yourself. And you're so great a favourite there, you say?

Marlow	Yes, my dear. There's Mrs Mantrap, Lady Betty Blackleg, the Countess 
of Sligo, Mrs Langhorns, old Miss Biddy Buckskin, and your humble servant, 
keep up the spirit of the place.

Miss Hardcastle	Then it's a very merry place, I suppose?

Marlow	Yes, as merry as cards, supper, wine, and old women can make us.

Miss Hardcastle	And their agreeable Rattle, ha! ha! ha!

Marlow	[aside] Egad! I don't quite like this chit. She looks knowing, 
methinks. You laugh, child?

Miss Hardcastle	I can't but laugh to think what time they all have for 
minding their work or their family.

Marlow	[aside] All's well; she don't laugh at me. [To her] Do you ever 
work, child?

Miss Hardcastle	Ay, sure. There's not a screen or quilt in the whole house 
but what can bear witness to that.

Marlow	Odso! then you must show me your embroidery. I embroider and draw 
patterns myself a little. If you want a judge of your work, you must apply 
to me. [Seizing her hand.]

Miss Hardcastle	[Struggling.] Ay, but the colours do not look well by 
candlelight. You shall see all in the morning.

Marlow	And why not now, my angel? Such beauty fires beyond the power of 
resistance. - Pshaw! the father here! My old luck: I never nicked seven 
that I did not throw ames-ace three times following.

Exit MARLOW.

Enter HARDCASTLE, who stands in surprise.

Hardcastle	So, madam! So I find this is your modest lover. This is your 
humble admirer, that kept his eyes fixed on the ground, and only adored at 
humble distance. Kate, Kate, art thou not ashamed to deceive your father 
so?

Miss Hardcastle	Never trust me, dear papa, but he's still the modest man I 
first took him for; you'll be convinced of it as well as I.

Hardcastle	By the hand of my body, I believe his impudence is infectious! 
Didn't I see him seize your hand? Didn't I see him haul you about like a 
milkmaid? And now you talk of his respect and his modesty, forsooth!

Miss Hardcastle	But if I shortly convince you of his modesty, that he has 
only the faults that will pass off with time, and the virtues that will 
improve with age, I hope you'll forgive him.

Hardcastle	The girl would actually make one run mad! I tell you, I'll not 
be convinced. I am convinced. He has scarce been three hours in the house, 
and he has already encroached on all my prerogatives. You may like his 
impudence, and call it modesty; but my son-in-law, madam, must have very 
different qualifications.

Miss Hardcastle	Sir, I ask but this night to convince you.

Hardcastle	You shall not have half the time, for I have thoughts of turning 
him out this very hour.

Miss Hardcastle	Give me that hour then, and I hope to satisfy you.

Hardcastle	Well, an hour let it be then. But I'll have no trifling with 
your father. All fair and open, do you mind me.

Miss Hardcastle	I hope, sir, you have ever found that I considered your 
commands as my pride; for your kindness is such, that my duty as yet has 
been inclination.

Exeunt.



Act 4

Enter HASTINGS and MISS NEVILLE.

Hastings	You surprise me! Sir Charles Marlow expected here this night! 
Where have you had your information?

Miss Neville	You may depend upon it. I just saw his letter to Mr 
Hardcastle, in which he tells him he intends setting out a few hours after 
his son.

Hastings	Then, my Constance, all must be completed before he arrives. He 
knows me; and should he find me here, would discover my name, and perhaps 
my designs, to the rest of the family.

Miss Neville	The jewels, I hope, are safe?

Hastings	Yes, yes, I have sent them to Marlow, who keeps the keys of our 
baggage. In the meantime, I'll go to prepare matters for our elopement. I 
have had the 'Squire's promise of a fresh pair of horses; and if I should 
not see him again, will write him further directions.

Exit.

Miss Neville	Well! success attend you. In the meantime, I'll go and amuse 
my aunt with the old pretence of a violent passion for my cousin.

Exit.

Enter MARLOW, followed by a SERVANT.

Marlow	I wonder what Hastings could mean by sending me so valuable a thing 
as a casket to keep for him, when he knows the only place I have is the 
seat of a post-coach at an inn-door. Have you deposited the casket with the 
landlady, as I ordered you? Have you put it into her own hands?

Servant	Yes, your honour.

Marlow	She said she'd keep it safe, did she?

Servant	Yes, she said she'd keep it safe enough; she asked me how I came by 
it; and she said she had a great mind to make me give an account of myself.

Exit SERVANT.

Marlow	Ha! ha! ha! They're safe, however. What an unaccountable set of 
beings have we got amongst! This little barmaid though runs in my head most 
strangely, and drives out the absurdities of all the rest of the family. 
She's mine, she must be mine, or I'm greatly mistaken.

Enter HASTINGS.

Hastings	Bless me! I quite forgot to tell her that I intended to prepare at 
the bottom of the garden. Marlow here, and in spirits too!

Marlow	Give me joy, George! Crown me, shadow me with laurels! Well, George, 
after all, we modest fellows don't want for success among the women.

Hastings	Some women, you mean. But what success has your honour's modesty 
been crowned with now, that it grows so insolent upon us?

Marlow	Didn't you see the tempting, brisk, lovely little thing that runs 
about the house with a bunch of keys to its girdle?

Hastings	Well, and what then?

Marlow	She's mine, you rogue you. Such fire, such motion, such eyes, such 
lips; but, egad! she would not let me kiss them though.

Hastings	But are you so sure, so very sure of her?

Marlow	Why, man, she talked of showing me her work above stairs, and I am 
to improve the pattern.

Hastings	But how can you, Charles, go about to rob a woman of her honour?

Marlow	Pshaw! pshaw! We all know the honour of the barmaid of an inn. I 
don't intend to rob her, take my word for it; there's nothing in this house 
I shan't honestly pay for.

Hastings	I believe the girl has virtue.

Marlow	And if she has, I should be the last man in the world that would 
attempt to corrupt it.

Hastings	You have taken care, I hope, of the casket I sent you to lock up? 
Is it in safety?

Marlow	Yes, yes. It's safe enough. I have taken care of it. But how could 
you think the seat of a post-coach at an inn-door a place of safety? Ah! 
numskull! I have taken better precautions for you than you did for yourself 
- I have -

Hastings	What?

Marlow	I have sent it to the landlady to keep for you.

Hastings	To the landlady!

Marlow	The landlady.

Hastings	You did?

Marlow	I did. She's to be answerable for its forthcoming, you know.

Hastings	Yes, she'll bring it forth with a witness.

Marlow	Wasn't I right? I believe you'll allow that I acted prudently upon 
this occasion.

Hastings	[aside] He must not see my uneasiness.

Marlow	You seem a little disconcerted though, methinks. Sure nothing has 
happened?

Hastings	No, nothing. Never was in better spirits in all my life. And so 
you left it with the landlady who, no doubt, very readily undertook the 
charge.

Marlow	Rather too readily; for she not only kept the casket but, through 
her great precaution, was going to keep the messenger, too. Ha! ha! ha!

Hastings	He! he! he! They're safe, however.

Marlow	As a guinea in a miser's purse.

Hastings	[aside] So now all hopes of fortune are at an end, and we must set 
off without it. [To him] Well, Charles, I'll leave you to your meditations 
on the pretty barmaid, and - he! he! he! - may you be as successful for 
yourself as you have been for me!

Exit.

Marlow	Thank ye, George. I ask no more. Ha! ha! ha!

Enter HARDCASTLE.

Hardcastle	I no longer know my own house. It's turned all topsy-turvy. His 
servants have got drunk already. I'll bear it no longer; and yet, from my 
respect for his father, I'll be calm. [To him] Mr Marlow, your servant. I'm 
your very humble servant. [Bowing low.]

Marlow	Sir, your humble servant. [Aside] What's to be the wonder now?

Hardcastle	I believe, sir, you must be sensible, sir, that no man alive 
ought to be more welcome than your father's son, sir. I hope you think so?

Marlow	I do from my soul, sir. I don't want much entreaty. I generally make 
my father's son welcome wherever he goes.

Hardcastle	I believe you do, from my soul, sir. But though I say nothing to 
your own conduct, that of your servants is insufferable. Their manner of 
drinking is setting a very bad example in this house, I assure you.

Marlow	I protest, my very good sir, that is no fault of mine. If they don't 
drink as they ought, they are to blame. I ordered them not to spare the 
cellar. I did, I assure you. [To the side scene] Here, let one of my 
servants come up. [To him] My positive directions were that, as I did not 
drink myself, they should make up for my deficiencies below.

Hardcastle	Then they had your orders for what they do? I'm satisfied!

Marlow	They had, I assure you. You shall hear from one of themselves.

Enter SERVANT, drunk.

Marlow	You, Jeremy! Come forward, sirrah! What were my orders? Were you not 
told to drink freely, and call for what you thought fit, for the good of 
the house?

Hardcastle	[aside] I begin to lose my patience.

Jeremy	Please your honour, liberty and Fleet Street for ever! Though I'm 
but a servant, I'm as good as another man. I'll drink for no man before 
supper, sir, dammy! Good liquor will sit upon a good supper, but a good 
supper will not sit upon - hiccup - upon my conscience, sir.

Marlow	You see, my old friend, the fellow is as drunk as he can possibly 
be. I don't know what you'd have more, unless you'd have the poor devil 
soused in a beer-barrel.

Hardcastle	Zounds! he'll drive me distracted if I contain myself any 
longer. Mr Marlow - Sir; I have submitted to your insolence for more than 
four hours, and I see no likelihood of its coming to an end. I'm now 
resolved to be master here, sir, and I desire that you and your drunken 
pack may leave my house directly.

Marlow	Leave your house! - Sure you jest, my good friend! What, when I'm 
doing what I can to please you?

Hardcastle	I tell you, sir, you don't please me; so I desire you'll leave 
my house.

Marlow	Sure you cannot be serious? At this time o' night, and such a night? 
You only mean to banter me.

Hardcastle	I tell you, sir, I'm serious. And, now that my passions are 
roused, I say this house is mine, sir; this house is mine, and I command 
you to leave it directly.

Marlow	Ha! ha! ha! A puddle in a storm. I shan't stir a step, I assure you. 
[In a serious tone] This your house, fellow! It's my house. This is my 
house. Mine, while I choose to stay. What right have you to bid me leave 
this house, sir? I never met with such impudence, curse me, never in my 
whole life before.

Hardcastle	Nor I, confound me if ever I did. To come to my house, to call 
for what he likes, to turn me out of my own chair, to insult the family, to 
order his servants to get drunk, and then to tell me This house is mine, 
sir. By all that's impudent, it makes me laugh. Ha! ha! ha! Pray, sir 
[bantering], as you take the house, what think you of taking the rest of 
the furniture? There's a pair of silver candlesticks, and there's a fire-
screen, and here's a pair of brazen-nosed bellows - perhaps you may take a 
fancy to them?

Marlow	Bring me your bill, sir. Bring me your bill, and let's make no more 
words about it.

Hardcastle	There are a set of prints, too. What think you of the Rake's 
Progress, for your own apartment?

Marlow	Bring me your bill, I say; and I'll leave you and your infernal 
house directly.

Hardcastle	Then there's a mahogany table that you may see your own face in.

Marlow	My bill, I say.

Hardcastle	I had forgot the great chair for your own particular slumbers, 
after a hearty meal.

Marlow	Zounds! bring me my bill, I say, and let's hear no more on't.

Hardcastle	Young man, young man, from your father's letter to me I was 
taught to expect a well-bred modest man as a visitor here, but now I find 
him no better than a coxcomb and a bully; but he will be down here 
presently, and shall hear more of it.

Exit.

Marlow	How's this? Sure I have not mistaken the house. Everything looks 
like an inn. The servants cry "coming"; the attendance is awkward; the 
barmaid, too, to attend us. But she's here, and will further inform me. 
Whither so fast, child? A word with you.

Enter MISS HARDCASTLE.

Miss Hardcastle	Let it be short, then. I'm in a hurry. [Aside] I believe be 
begins to find out his mistake; but it's too soon quite to undeceive him.

Marlow	Pray, child, answer me one question. What are you, and what may your 
business in this house be?

Miss Hardcastle	A relation of the family, sir.

Marlow	What, a poor relation.

Miss Hardcastle	Yes, sir. A poor relation appointed to keep the keys, and 
to see that the guests want nothing in my power to give them.

Marlow	That is, you act as the barmaid of this inn.

Miss Hardcastle	Inn! O law - what brought that in your head? One of the 
best families in the country keep an inn! Ha! ha! ha! old Mr Hardcastle's 
house an inn!

Marlow	Mr Hardcastle's house! Is this Mr Hardcastle's house, child?

Miss Hardcastle	Ay, sure! Whose else should it be?

Marlow	So then, all's out, and I have been damnably imposed on. O, confound 
my stupid head, I shall be laughed at over the whole town. I shall be stuck 
up in caricatura in all the print-shops. The dullissimo maccaroni. To 
mistake this house of all others for an inn, and my father's old friend for 
an innkeeper! What a swaggering puppy must he take me for! What a silly 
puppy do I find myself! There again, may I be hanged, my dear, but I 
mistook you for the barmaid.

Miss Hardcastle	Dear me! dear me! I'm sure there's nothing in my behaviour 
to put me on a level with one of that stamp.

Marlow	Nothing, my dear, nothing. But I was in for a list of blunders, and 
could not help making you a subscriber. My stupidity saw everything the 
wrong way. I mistook your assiduity for assurance, and your simplicity for 
allurement. But it's over - this house I no more show my face in.

Miss Hardcastle	I hope, sir, I have done nothing to disoblige you. I'm sure 
I should be sorry to affront any gentleman who has been so polite, and said 
so many civil things to me. I'm sure I should be sorry [Pretending to cry] 
if he left the family upon my account. I'm sure I should be sorry if people 
said anything amiss, since I have no fortune but my character.

Marlow	[aside] By Heaven, she weeps. This is the first mark of tenderness I 
ever had from a modest woman, and it touches me. [To her] Excuse me, my 
lovely girl, you are the only part of the family I leave with reluctance. 
But to be plain with you, the difference of our birth, fortune, and 
education, makes an honourable connection impossible; and I can never 
harbour a thought of seducing simplicity that trusted in my honour, of 
bringing ruin upon one whose only fault was being too lovely.

Miss Hardcastle	[aside] Generous man! I now begin to admire him. [To him] 
But I am sure my family is as good as Miss Hardcastle's; and though I'm 
poor, that's no great misfortune to a contented mind; and, until this 
moment, I never thought that it was bad to want fortune.

Marlow	And why now, my pretty simplicity?

Miss Hardcastle	Because it puts me at a distance from one that, if I had a 
thousand pounds, I would give it all to.

Marlow	[aside] This simplicity bewitches me, so that if I stay I'm undone. 
I must make one bold effort, and leave her. [To her] Your partiality in my 
favour, my dear, touches me most sensibly, and were I to live for myself 
alone, I could easily fix my choice. But I owe too much to the opinion of 
the world, too much to the authority of a father; so that - I can scarcely 
speak it - it affects me. Farewell.

Exit.

Miss Hardcastle	I never knew half his merit till now. He shall not go, if I 
have power or art to detain him. I'll still preserve the character in which 
I stooped to conquer, but will undeceive my papa, who, perhaps, may laugh 
him out of his resolution.

Exit.

Enter TONY and MISS NEVILLE.

Tony	Ay, you may steal for yourselves the next time. I have done my duty. 
She has got the jewels again, that's a sure thing; but she believes it was 
all a mistake of the servants.

Miss Neville	But, my dear cousin, sure you won't forsake us in this 
distress? If she in the least suspects that I am going off, I shall 
certainly be locked up, or sent to my aunt Pedigree's, which is ten times 
worse.

Tony	To be sure, aunts of all kinds are damned bad things. But what can I 
do? I have got you a pair of horses that will fly like Whistlejacket, and 
I'm sure you can't say but I have courted you nicely before her face. Here 
she comes, we must court a bit or two more, for fear she should suspect us.

They retire, and seem to fondle.

Enter MRS HARDCASTLE.

Mrs Hardcastle	Well, I was greatly fluttered, to be sure. But my son tells 
me it was all a mistake of the servants. I shan't be easy, however, till 
they are fairly married, and then let her keep her own fortune. But what do 
I see? - fondling together, as I'm alive! I never saw Tony so sprightly 
before. Ah! have I caught you, my pretty doves? What, billing, exchanging 
stolen glances and broken murmurs? Ah!

Tony	As for murmurs, mother, we grumble a little now and then, to be sure. 
But there's no love lost between us.

Mrs Hardcastle	A mere sprinkling, Tony, upon the flame, only to make it 
burn brighter.

Miss Neville	Cousin Tony promises to give us more of his company at home. 
Indeed, he shan't leave us any more. It won't leave us, cousin Tony, will 
it?

Tony	O! it's a pretty creature. No, I'd sooner leave my horse in a pound 
than leave you when you smile upon one so. Your laugh makes you so 
becoming.

Miss Neville	Agreeable cousin! Who can help admiring that natural humour, 
that pleasant, broad, red, thoughtless [patting his cheek] - ah! it's a 
bold face.

Mrs Hardcastle	Pretty innocence!

Tony	I'm sure I always loved cousin Con's hazel eyes, and her pretty long 
fingers, that she twists this way and that over the haspicholls, like a 
parcel of bobbins.

Mrs Hardcastle	Ah, he would charm the bird from the tree. I was never so 
happy before. My boy takes after his father, poor Mr Lumpkin, exactly. The 
jewels, my dear Con, shall be yours incontinently. You shall have them. 
Isn't he a sweet boy, my dear? You shall be married tomorrow, and we'll put 
off the rest of his education, like Dr. Drowsy's sermons, to a fitter 
opportunity.

Enter DIGGORY.

Diggory	Where's the 'Squire? I have got a letter for your worship.

Tony	Give it to my mamma. She reads all my letters first.

Diggory	I had orders to deliver it into your own hands.

Tony	Who does it come from?

Diggory	Your worship mun ask that o' the letter itself.

Tony	I could wish to know though. [Turning the letter, and gazing on it.]

Miss Neville	[aside] Undone! undone! A letter to him from Hastings. I know 
the hand. If my aunt sees it, we are ruined for ever. I'll keep her 
employed a little if I can. [To Mrs HARDCASTLE] But I have not told you, 
madam, of my cousin's smart answer just now to Mr Marlow. We so laughed - 
you must know, madam - this way a little, for he must not hear us.

They confer.

Tony	[still gazing] A damned cramp piece of penmanship as ever I saw in my 
life. I can read your print hand very well. But here are such handles, and 
shanks, and dashes, that one can scarce tell the head from the tail. To 
Anthony Lumpkin, Esquire. It's very odd, I can read the outside of my 
letters, where my own name is, well enough; but when I come to open it, 
it's all - buzz. That's hard, very hard; for the inside of the letter is 
always the cream of the correspondence.

Mrs Hardcastle	Ha! ha! ha! Very well, very well. And so my son was too hard 
for the philosopher.

Miss Neville	Yes, madam; but you must hear the rest, madam. A little more 
this way, or he may hear us. You'll hear how he puzzled him again.

Mrs Hardcastle	He seems strangely puzzled now himself, methinks.

Tony	[still gazing] A damned up and down hand, as if it was disguised in 
liquor. - [Reading] Dear Sir, - ay, that's that - then there's an M, and a 
T, and an S, but whether the next be an izzard, or an R, confound me, I 
cannot tell!

Mrs Hardcastle	What's that, my dear? Can I give you any assistance?

Miss Neville	Pray, aunt, let me read it. Nobody reads a cramp hand better 
than I. [Twitching the letter from him] Do you know who it is from?

Tony	Can't tell, except from Dick Ginger, the feeder.

Miss Neville	Ay, so it is. [Pretending to read] Dear 'Squire, hoping that 
you're in health, as I am at this present. The gentlemen of the Shakebag 
Club has cut the gentlemen of Goose-green quite out of feather. The odds - 
um - odd battle - um - long fighting - um - here, here, it's all about 
cocks and fighting; it's of no consequence, here, put it up, put it up. 
[Thrusting the crumpled letter upon him.]

Tony	But I tell you, miss, it's of all the consequence in the world. I 
would not lose the rest of it for a guinea. Here, mother, do you make it 
out. Of no consequence! [Giving MRS HARDCASTLE the letter.]

Mrs Hardcastle	How's this? - [Reads] Dear 'Squire, I'm now waiting for Miss 
Neville, with a post-chaise and pair, at the bottom of the garden, but I 
find my horses yet unable to perform the journey. I expect you'll assist us 
with a pair of fresh horses, as you promised. Dispatch is necessary, as the 
hag, (ay, the hag) your mother, will otherwise suspect us. Yours, Hastings. 
- Grant me patience. I shall run distracted! My rage chokes me.

Miss Neville	I hope, madam, you'll suspend your resentment for a few 
moments, and not impute to me any impertinence, or sinister design, that 
belongs to another.

Mrs Hardcastle	[curtseying very low] Fine spoken, madam, you are most 
miraculously polite and engaging, and quite the very pink of courtesy and 
circumspection, madam. [Changing her tone] And you, you great ill-fashioned 
oaf, with scarce sense enough to keep your mouth shut - were you, too, 
joined against me? But I'll defeat all your plots in a moment. As for you, 
madam, since you have got a pair of fresh horses ready, it would be cruel 
to disappoint them. So, if you please, instead of running away with your 
spark, prepare, this very moment, to run off with me. Your old aunt 
Pedigree will keep you secure, I'll warrant me. You too, sir, may mount 
your horse, and guard us upon the way. Here, Thomas, Roger, Diggory! I'll 
show you that I wish you better than you do yourselves.

Exit.

Miss Neville	So now I'm completely ruined.

Tony	Ay, that's a sure thing.

Miss Neville	What better could be expected from being connected with such a 
stupid fool, and after all the nods and signs I made him?

Tony	By the laws, miss, it was your own cleverness, and not my stupidity, 
that did your business. You were so nice and so busy with your Shakebags 
and Goose-greens, that I thought you could never be making believe.

Enter HASTINGS.

Hastings	So, sir, I find by my servant that you have shown my letter, and 
betrayed us. Was this well done, young gentleman?

Tony	Here's another. Ask miss there who betrayed you. Ecod, it was her 
doing, not mine.

Enter MARLOW.

Marlow	So I have been finely used here among you. Rendered contemptible, 
driven into ill manners, despised, insulted, laughed at.

Tony	Here's another. We shall have old Bedlam broke loose presently.

Miss Neville	And there, sir, is the gentleman to whom we all owe every 
obligation.

Marlow	What can I say to him, a mere boy, an idiot, whose ignorance and age 
are a protection?

Hastings	A poor contemptible booby, that would but disgrace correction.

Miss Neville	Yet with cunning and malice enough to make himself merry with 
all our embarrassments.

Hastings	An insensible cub.

Marlow	Replete with tricks and mischief.

Tony	Baw! damme, but I'll fight you both, one after the other - with 
baskets.

Marlow	As for him, he's below resentment. But your conduct, Mr Hastings, 
requires an explanation. You knew of my mistakes, yet would not undeceive 
me.

Hastings	Tortured as I am with my own disappointments, is this a time for 
explanations? It is not friendly, Mr Marlow.

Marlow	But, sir -

Miss Neville	Mr Marlow, we never kept on your mistake, till it was too late 
to undeceive you.

Enter SERVANT.

Servant	My mistress desires you'll get ready immediately, madam. The horses 
are putting to. Your hat and things are in the next room. We are to go 
thirty miles before morning.

Exit SERVANT.

Miss Neville	Well, well; I'll come presently.

Marlow	[to HASTINGS] Was it well done, sir, to assist in rendering me 
ridiculous? To hang me out for the scorn of all my acquaintance? Depend 
upon it, sir, I shall expect an explanation.

Hastings	Was it well done, sir, if you're upon that subject, to deliver 
what I entrusted to yourself to the care of another, sir?

Miss Neville	Mr Hastings! Mr Marlow! Why will you increase my distress by 
this groundless dispute? I implore, I entreat you -

Enter SERVANT.

Servant	Your cloak, madam. My mistress is impatient.

Exit SERVANT.

Miss Neville	I come. Pray be pacified. If I leave you thus, I shall die 
with apprehension.

Enter SERVANT.

Servant	Your fan, muff, and gloves, madam. The horses are waiting.

Miss Neville	O, Mr Marlow! if you knew what a scene of constraint and ill-
nature lies before me, I'm sure it would convert your resentment into pity.

Marlow	I'm so distracted with a variety of passions that I don't know what 
I do. Forgive me, madam. George, forgive me. You know my hasty temper, and 
should not exasperate it.

Hastings	The torture of my situation is my only excuse.

Miss Neville	Well, my dear Hastings, if you have that esteem for me that I 
think, that I am sure you have, your constancy for three years will but 
increase the happiness of our future connection. If -

Mrs Hardcastle	[within] Miss Neville. Constance, why Constance, I say.

Miss Neville	I'm coming. Well, constancy, remember, constancy is the word.

Exit.

Hastings	My heart! - how can I support this? To be so near happiness, and 
such happiness!

Marlow	[to TONY] You see now, young gentleman, the effects of your folly. 
What might be amusement to you is here disappointment, and even distress.

Tony	[from a reverie] Ecod, I have hit it. It's here. Your hands. Yours and 
yours, my poor Sulky. My boots there, ho! Meet me two hours hence at the 
bottom of the garden; and if you don't find Tony Lumpkin a more good-
natured fellow than you thought for, I'll give you leave to take my best 
horse, and Bet Bouncer into the bargain. Come along. My boots, ho! 

Exeunt.



Act 5

Scene continues

Enter HASTINGS and SERVANT.

Hastings	You saw the old lady and Miss Neville drive off, you say?

Servant	Yes, your honour. They went off in a post-coach, and the young 
'Squire went on horseback. They're thirty miles off by this time.

Hastings	Then all my hopes are over.

Servant	Yes, sir. Old Sir Charles is arrived. He and the old gentleman of 
the house have been laughing at Mr Marlow's mistake this half hour. They 
are coming this way.

Hastings	Then I must not be seen. So now to my fruitless appointment at the 
bottom of the garden. This is about the time.

Exit.

Enter SIR CHARLES and HARDCASTLE.

Hardcastle	Ha! ha! ha! The peremptory tone in which he sent forth his 
sublime commands!

Sir Charles	And the reserve with which I suppose he treated all your 
advances.

Hardcastle	And yet he might have seen something in me above a common 
innkeeper, too.

Sir Charles	Yes, Dick, but he mistook you for an uncommon innkeeper, ha! 
ha! ha!

Hardcastle	Well, I'm in too good spirits to think of anything but joy. Yes, 
my dear friend, this union of our families will make our personal 
friendships hereditary; and though my daughter's fortune is but small -

Sir Charles	Why, Dick, will you talk of fortune to me? My son is possessed 
of more than a competence already, and can want nothing but a good and 
virtuous girl to share his happiness and increase it. If they like each 
other, as you say they do -

Hardcastle	If, man! I tell you they do like each other. My daughter as good 
as told me so.

Sir Charles	But girls are apt to flatter themselves, you know.

Hardcastle	I saw him grasp her hand in the warmest manner myself; and here 
he comes to put you out of your ifs, I warrant him.

Enter MARLOW.

Marlow	I come, sir, once more, to ask pardon for my strange conduct. I can 
scarce reflect on my insolence without confusion.

Hardcastle	Tut, boy, a trifle! You take it too gravely. An hour or two's 
laughing with my daughter will set all to rights again. She'll never like 
you the worse for it.

Marlow	Sir, I shall be always proud of her approbation.

Hardcastle	Approbation is but a cold word, Mr Marlow; if I am not deceived, 
you have something more than approbation thereabouts - You take me?

Marlow	Really, sir, I have not that happiness.

Hardcastle	Come, boy, I'm an old fellow, and know what's what as well as 
you that are younger. I know what has passed between you; but mum.

Marlow	Sure, sir, nothing has passed between us but the most profound 
respect on my side, and the most distant reserve on hers. You don't think, 
sir, that my impudence has been passed upon all the rest of the family.

Hardcastle	Impudence! No, I don't say that - not quite impudence - though 
girls like to be played with, and rumpled a little, too, sometimes. But she 
has told no tales, I assure you.

Marlow	I never gave her the slightest cause.

Hardcastle	Well, well, I like modesty in its place well enough. But this is 
overacting, young gentleman. You may be open. Your father and I will like 
you all the better for it.

Marlow	May I die, sir, if I ever -

Hardcastle	I tell you, she don't dislike you; and as I'm sure you like her 
-

Marlow	Dear sir - I protest, sir -

Hardcastle	I see no reason why you should not be joined as fast as the 
parson can tie you.

Marlow	But hear me, sir -

Hardcastle	Your father approves the match, I admire it; every moment's 
delay will be doing mischief, so -

Marlow	But why won't you hear me? By all that's just and true, I never gave 
Miss Hardcastle the slightest mark of my attachment, or even the most 
distant hint to suspect me of affection. We had but one interview, and that 
was formal, modest, and uninteresting.

Hardcastle	[aside] This fellow's formal modest impudence is beyond bearing.

Sir Charles	And you never grasped her hand, or made any protestations?

Marlow	As Heaven is my witness, I came down in obedience to your commands. 
I saw the lady without emotion, and parted without reluctance. I hope 
you'll exact no farther proofs of my duty, nor prevent me from leaving a 
house in which I suffer so many mortifications.

Exit.

Sir Charles	I'm astonished at the air of sincerity with which he parted.

Hardcastle	And I'm astonished at the deliberate intrepidity of his 
assurance.

Sir Charles	I dare pledge my life and honour upon his truth.

Hardcastle	Here comes my daughter, and I would stake my happiness upon her 
veracity.

Enter MISS HARDCASTLE.

Hardcastle	Kate, come hither, child. Answer us sincerely and without 
reserve: Has Mr Marlow made you any professions of love and affection?

Miss Hardcastle	The question is very abrupt, sir. But since you require 
unreserved sincerity, I think he has.

Hardcastle	[to SIR CHARLES] You see.

Sir Charles	And pray, madam, have you and my son had more than one 
interview?

Miss Hardcastle	Yes, sir, several.

Hardcastle	[to SIR CHARLES] You see.

Sir Charles	But did be profess any attachment?

Miss Hardcastle	A lasting one.

Sir Charles	Did he talk of love?

Miss Hardcastle	Much, sir.

Sir Charles	Amazing! And all this formally?

Miss Hardcastle	Formally.

Hardcastle	Now, my friend, I hope you are satisfied.

Sir Charles	And how did he behave, madam?

Miss Hardcastle	As most professed admirers do - said some civil things of 
my face, talked much of his want of merit, and the greatness of mine; 
mentioned his heart, gave a short tragedy speech, and ended with pretended 
rapture.

Sir Charles	Now I'm perfectly convinced, indeed. I know his conversation 
among women to be modest and submissive. This forward, canting, ranting 
manner by no means describes him; and I am confident he never sat for the 
picture.

Miss Hardcastle	Then, what, sir, if I should convince you to your face of 
my sincerity? If you and my papa, in about half an hour, will place 
yourselves behind that screen, you shall hear him declare his passion to me 
in person.

Sir Charles	Agreed. And if I find him what you describe, all my happiness 
in him must have an end.

Exit.

Miss Hardcastle	And if you don't find him what I describe - I fear my 
happiness must never have a beginning.

Exeunt.

Scene changes to the back of the Garden.

Enter HASTINGS.

Hastings	What an idiot am I, to wait here for a fellow who probably takes a 
delight in mortifying me. He never intended to be punctual, and I'll wait 
no longer. What do I see? It is he! and perhaps with news of my Constance.

Enter TONY, booted and spattered.

Hastings	My honest 'Squire! I now find you a man of your word. This looks 
like friendship.

Tony	Ay, I'm your friend, and the best friend you have in the world, if you 
knew but all. This riding by night, by-the-bye, is cursedly tiresome. It 
has shook me worse than the basket of a stage-coach.

Hastings	But how? Where did you leave your fellow-travellers? Are they in 
safety? Are they housed?

Tony	Five and twenty miles in two hours and a half is no such bad driving. 
The poor beasts have smoked for it. Rabbit me, but I'd rather ride forty 
miles after a fox than ten with such varmint.

Hastings	Well, but where have you left the ladies? I die with impatience.

Tony	Left them! Why where should I leave them but where I found them?

Hastings	This is a riddle.

Tony	Riddle me this then - What's that goes round the house, and round the 
house, and never touches the house?

Hastings	I'm still astray.

Tony	Why, that's it, mon. I have led them astray. By jingo, there's not a 
pond or a slough within five miles of the place but they can tell the taste 
of.

Hastings	Ha! ha! ha! I understand - you took them in a round, while they 
supposed themselves going forward, and so you have at last brought them 
home again.

Tony	You shall hear. I first took them down Feather-bed Lane, where we 
stuck fast in the mud. I then rattled them crack over the stones of Up-and-
down Hill. I then introduced them to the gibbet on Heavy-tree Heath; and 
from that, with a circumbendibus, I fairly lodged them in the horse-pond at 
the bottom of the garden.

Hastings	But no accident, I hope?

Tony	No, no. Only mother is confoundedly frightened. She thinks herself 
forty miles off. She's sick of the journey; and the cattle can scarce 
crawl. So, if your own horses be ready, you may whip off with cousin, and 
I'll be bound that no soul here can budge a foot to follow you.

Hastings	My dear friend, how can I be grateful?

Tony	Ay, now it's dear friend, noble 'Squire. Just now, it was all idiot, 
cub, and run me through the guts. Damn your way of fighting, I say. After 
we take a knock in this part of the country, we kiss and be friends. But if 
you had run me through the guts, then I should be dead, and you might go 
kiss the hangman.

Hastings	The rebuke is just. But I must hasten to relieve Miss Neville. If 
you keep the old lady employed, I promise to take care of the young one.

Exit HASTINGS.

Tony	Never fear me. Here she comes. Vanish. She's got from the pond, and 
draggled up to the waist like a mermaid.

Enter MRS HARDCASTLE.

Mrs Hardcastle	Oh, Tony, I'm killed. Shook. Battered to death. I shall 
never survive it. That last jolt that laid us against the quickset hedge 
has done my business.

Tony	Alack, mamma, it was all your own fault. You would be for running away 
by night, without knowing one inch of the way.

Mrs Hardcastle	I wish we were at home again. I never met so many accidents 
in so short a journey. Drenched in the mud, overturned in a ditch, stuck 
fast in a slough, jolted to a jelly, and at last to lose our way. 
Whereabouts do you think we are, Tony?

Tony	By my guess we should come upon Crackskull Common, about forty miles 
from home.

Mrs Hardcastle	O lud! O lud! The most notorious spot in all the country. We 
only want a robbery to make a complete night on't.

Tony	Don't be afraid, mamma, don't be afraid. Two of the five that kept 
here are hanged, and the other three may not find us. Don't be afraid. Is 
that a man that's galloping behind us? No; it's only a tree. - Don't be 
afraid.

Mrs Hardcastle	The fright will certainly kill me.

Tony	Do you see anything like a black hat moving behind the thicket?

Mrs Hardcastle	O death!

Tony	No; it's only a cow. Don't be afraid, mamma, don't he afraid.

Mrs Hardcastle	As I'm alive, Tony, I see a man coming towards us. Ah! I'm 
sure on't. If he perceives us, we are undone.

Tony	[aside] Father-in-law, by all that's unlucky, come to take one of his 
night walks. [To her] Ah, it's a highwayman with pistols as long as my arm. 
A damned ill-looking fellow.

Mrs Hardcastle	Good Heaven defend us! He approaches.

Tony	Do you hide yourself in that thicket, and leave me to manage him. If 
there be any danger, I'll cough and cry hem. When I cough, be sure to keep 
close.

MRS HARDCASTLE hides behind a tree in the back scene.

Enter HARDCASTLE.

Hardcastle	I'm mistaken, or I heard voices of people in want of help. Oh, 
Tony, is that you? I did not expect you so soon back. Are your mother and 
her charge in safety?

Tony	Very safe, sir, at my aunt Pedigree's. Hem.

Mrs Hardcastle	[from behind] Ah, I find there's danger.

Hardcastle	Forty miles in three hours; sure that's too much, my youngster.

Tony	Stout horses and willing minds make short journeys, as they say. Hem.

Mrs Hardcastle	[from behind] Sure he'll do the dear boy no harm.

Hardcastle	But I heard a voice here; I should be glad to know from whence 
it came.

Tony	It was I, sir, talking to myself, sir. I was saying that forty miles 
in four hours was very good going. Hem. As to be sure it was. Hem. I have 
got a sort of cold by being out in the air. We'll go in, if you please. 
Hem.

Hardcastle	But if you talked to yourself you did not answer yourself. I'm 
certain I heard two voices, and am resolved  [raising his voice] to find 
the other out.

Mrs Hardcastle	[from behind] Oh! he's coming to find me out. Oh!

Tony	What need you go, sir, if I tell you? Hem. I'll lay down my life for 
the truth - hem - I'll tell you all, sir. [Detaining him.]

Hardcastle	I tell you I will not be detained. I insist on seeing. It's in 
vain to expect I'll believe you.

Mrs Hardcastle	[running forward from behind] O lud, he'll murder my poor 
boy, my darling! Here, good gentleman, whet your rage upon me. Take my 
money, my life, but spare that young gentleman - spare my child, if you 
have any mercy.

Hardcastle	My wife, as I'm a Christian. From whence can she come, or what 
does she mean?

Mrs Hardcastle	[kneeling] Take compassion on us, good Mr Highwayman. Take 
our money, our watches, all we have, but spare our lives. We will never 
bring you to justice, indeed we won't, good Mr Highwayman.

Hardcastle	I believe the woman's out of her senses. What, Dorothy, don't 
you know me?

Mrs Hardcastle	Mr Hardcastle, as I'm alive! My fears blinded me. But who, 
my dear, could have expected to meet you here, in this frightful place, so 
far from home? What has brought you to follow us?

Hardcastle	Sure, Dorothy, you have not lost your wits? So far from home, 
when you are within forty yards of your own door! [To him] This is one of 
your old tricks, you graceless rogue, you! [To her] Don't you know the 
gate, and the mulberry-tree; and don't you remember the horse-pond, my 
dear?

Mrs Hardcastle	Yes, I shall remember the horse-pond as long as I live - I 
have caught my death in it. [To TONY] And it is to you, you graceless 
varlet, I owe all this? I'll teach you to abuse your mother, I will.

Tony	Ecod, mother, all the parish says you have spoiled me, and so you may 
take the fruits on't.

Mrs Hardcastle	I'll spoil you, I will.

Follows him off the stage. Exit.

Hardcastle	There's morality, however, in his reply.

Exit.

Enter HASTINGS and MISS NEVILLE.

Hastings	My dear Constance, why will you deliberate thus? If we delay a 
moment, all is lost for ever. Pluck up a little resolution, and we shall 
soon be out of the reach of her malignity.

Miss Neville	I find it impossible. My spirits are so sunk with the 
agitations I have suffered that I am unable to face any new danger. Two or 
three years' patience will at last crown us with happiness.

Hastings	Such a tedious delay is worse than inconstancy. Let us fly, my 
charmer. Let us date our happiness from this very moment. Perish fortune! 
Love and content will increase what we possess beyond a monarch's revenue. 
Let me prevail.
 
Miss Neville	No, Mr Hastings, no. Prudence once more comes to my relief, 
and I will obey its dictates. In the moment of passion, fortune may be 
despised, but it ever produces a lasting repentance. I'm resolved to apply 
to Mr Hardcastle's compassion and justice for redress.

Hastings	But though he had the will, he has not the power to relieve you.

Miss Neville	But he has influence, and upon that I am resolved to rely.

Hastings	I have no hopes. But since you persist, I must reluctantly obey 
you.

Exeunt.


Scene changes.

Enter SIR CHARLES and MISS HARDCASTLE

Sir Charles	What a situation am I in! If what you say appears, I shall then 
find a guilty son. If what he says be true, I shall then lose one that, of 
all others, I most wished for a daughter.

Miss Hardcastle	I am proud of your approbation; and, to show I merit it, if 
you place yourselves as I directed, you shall hear his explicit 
declaration. But he comes.

Sir Charles	I'll to your father, and keep him to the appointment.

Exit SIR CHARLES.

Enter MARLOW

Marlow	Though prepared for setting out, I come once more to take leave; nor 
did I, till this moment, know the pain I feel in the separation.

Miss Hardcastle	[in her own natural manner] I believe sufferings cannot be 
very great, sir, which you can so easily remove. A day or two longer, 
perhaps, might lessen your uneasiness, by showing the little value of what 
you now think proper to regret.

Marlow	[aside] This girl every moment improves upon me. [To her] It must 
not be, madam. I have already trifled too long with my heart. My very pride 
begins to submit to my passion. The disparity of education and fortune, the 
anger of a parent, and the contempt of my equals, begin to lose their 
weight; and nothing can restore me to myself but this painful effort of 
resolution.

Miss Hardcastle	Then go, sir. I'll urge nothing more to detain you. Though 
my family be as good as hers you came down to visit, and my education, I 
hope, not inferior, what are these advantages without equal affluence? I 
must remain contented with the slight approbation of imputed merit; I must 
have only the mockery of your addresses, while all your serious aims are 
fixed on fortune.

Enter HARDCASTLE and SIR CHARLES from behind.

Sir Charles	Here, behind this screen.

Hardcastle	Ay, ay; make no noise. I'll engage my Kate covers him with 
confusion at last.

Marlow	By heavens, madam! fortune was ever my smallest consideration. Your 
beauty at first caught my eye; for who could see that without emotion? But 
every moment that I converse with you, steals in some new grace, heightens 
the picture, and gives it stronger expression. What at first seemed rustic 
plainness now appears refined simplicity. What seemed forward assurance now 
strikes me as the result of courageous innocence and conscious virtue.

Sir Charles	What can it mean? He amazes me!

Hardcastle	I told you how it would be. Hush!

Marlow	I am now determined to stay, madam; and I have too good an opinion 
of my father's discernment, when he sees you, to doubt his approbation.

Miss Hardcastle	No, Mr Marlow, I will not, cannot detain you. Do you think 
I could suffer a connection in which there is the smallest room for 
repentance? Do you think I would take the mean advantage of a transient 
passion, to load you with confusion? Do you think I could ever relish that 
happiness which was acquired by lessening yours?

Marlow	By all that's good, I can have no happiness but what's in your power 
to grant me. Nor shall I ever feel repentance but in not having seen your 
merits before. I will stay, even contrary to your wishes; and though you 
should persist to shun me, I will make my respectful assiduities atone for 
the levity of my past conduct.

Miss Hardcastle	Sir, I must entreat you'll desist. As our acquaintance 
began, so let it end, in indifference. I might have given an hour or two to 
levity; but, seriously, Mr Marlow, do you think I could ever submit to a 
connection where I must appear mercenary, and you imprudent? Do you think I 
could ever catch at the confident addresses of a secure admirer?

Marlow	[kneeling] Does this look like security? Does this look like 
confidence? No, madam, every moment that shows me your merit, only serves 
to increase my diffidence and confusion. Here let me continue -

Sir Charles	I can hold it no longer. Charles, Charles, how hast thou 
deceived me! Is this your indifference, your uninteresting conversation?

Hardcastle	Your cold contempt; your formal interview! What have you to say 
now?

Marlow	That I'm all amazement! What can it mean?

Hardcastle	It means that you can say and unsay things at pleasure; that you 
can address a lady in private, and deny it in public; that you have one 
story for us, and another for my daughter.

Marlow	Daughter? - this lady your daughter?

Hardcastle	Yes, sir, my only daughter. My Kate; whose else should she be?

Marlow	Oh, the devil.

Miss Hardcastle	Yes, sir, that very identical tall squinting lady you were 
pleased to take me for [curtseying]. She that you addressed as the mild, 
modest, sentimental man of gravity, and the bold, forward, agreeable Rattle 
of the Ladies' Club - ha! ha! ha!

Marlow	Zounds! there's no bearing this; it's worse than death!

Miss Hardcastle	In which of your characters, sir, will you give us leave to 
address you? As the faltering gentleman, with looks on the ground, that 
speaks just to be heard, and hates hypocrisy; or the loud confident 
creature, that keeps it up with Mrs Mantrap, and old Miss Biddy Buckskin, 
till three in the morning? Ha! ha! ha!

Marlow	Oh, curse on my noisy head. I never attempted to be impudent yet, 
that I was not taken down. I must be gone.

Hardcastle	By the hand of my body, but you shall not. I see it was all a 
mistake, and I am rejoiced to find it. You shall not, sir, I tell you. I 
know she'll forgive you. Won't you forgive him, Kate? We'll all forgive 
you. Take courage, man.

They retire, she tormenting him, to the back scene.

Enter MRS HARDCASTLE and TONY.

Mrs Hardcastle	So, so, they're gone off. Let them go, I care not.

Hardcastle	Who gone?

Mrs Hardcastle	My dutiful niece and her gentleman, Mr Hastings, from town. 
He who came down with our modest visitor here.

Sir Charles	Who, my honest George Hastings? As worthy a fellow as lives, 
and the girl could not have made a more prudent choice.

Hardcastle	Then, by the hand of my body, I'm proud of the connection.

Mrs Hardcastle	Well, if he has taken away the lady, he has not taken her 
fortune; that remains in this family to console us for her loss.

Hardcastle	Sure, Dorothy, you would not be so mercenary?

Mrs Hardcastle	Ay, that's my affair, not yours.

Hardcastle	But you know if your son, when of age, refuses to marry his 
cousin, her whole fortune is then at her own disposal.

Mrs Hardcastle	Ay, but he's not of age, and she has not thought proper to 
wait for his refusal.

Enter HASTINGS and MISS NEVILLE.

Mrs Hardcastle	[aside] What, returned so soon! I begin not to like it.

Hastings	[to HARDCASTLE] For my late attempt to fly off with your niece let 
my present confusion be my punishment. We are now come back, to appeal from 
your justice to your humanity. By her father's consent, I first paid her my 
addresses, and our passions were first founded in duty.

Miss Neville	Since his death, I have been obliged to stoop to dissimulation 
to avoid oppression. In an hour of levity, I was ready to give up my 
fortune to secure my choice. But I'm now recovered from the delusion, and 
hope from your tenderness what is denied me from a nearer connection.

Mrs Hardcastle	Pshaw, pshaw! this is all but the whining end of a modern 
novel.

Hardcastle	Be it what it will, I'm glad they're come back to reclaim their 
due. Come hither, Tony, boy. Do you refuse this lady's hand whom I now 
offer you?

Tony	What signifies my refusing? You know I can't refuse her till I'm of 
age, father.

Hardcastle	While I thought concealing your age, boy, was likely to conduce 
to your improvement, I concurred with your mother's desire to keep it 
secret. But since I find she turns it to a wrong use, I must now declare 
you have been of age these three months.

Tony	Of age! Am I of age, father?

Hardcastle	Above three months.

Tony	Then you'll see the first use I'll make of my liberty. [Taking Miss 
NEVILLE's hand] Witness all men by these presents, that I, Anthony Lumpkin, 
Esquire, of blank place, refuse you, Constantia Neville, spinster, of no 
place at all, for my true and lawful wife. So Constance Neville may marry 
whom she pleases, and Tony Lumpkin is his own man again.

Sir Charles	O brave 'Squire!

Hastings	My worthy friend!

Mrs Hardcastle	My undutiful offspring!

Marlow	Joy, my dear George, I give you joy sincerely. And could I prevail 
upon my little tyrant here to be less arbitrary, I should be the happiest 
man alive, if you would return me the favour.

Hastings	[to Miss HARDCASTLE] Come, madam, you are now driven to the very 
last scene of all your contrivances. I know you like him, I'm sure he loves 
you, and you must and shall have him.

Hardcastle	[joining their hands] And I say so, too. And, Mr Marlow, if she 
makes as good a wife as she has a daughter, I don't believe you'll ever 
repent your bargain. So now to supper - tomorrow we shall gather all the 
poor of the parish about us, and the mistakes of the night shall be crowned 
with a merry morning. So, boy, take her - as you have been mistaken in the 
mistress, my wish is, that you may never be mistaken in the wife.

Exeunt Omnes.

EPILOGUE
Spoken by Miss Hardcastle.

	Well, having stooped to conquer with success,
	And gained a husband without aid from dress,
	Still as a barmaid, I could wish it too,
	As I have conquered him to conquer you:
	And let me say, for all your resolution,
	That pretty barmaids have done execution.
	Our life is all a play, composed to please,
	"We have our exits and our entrances."
	The first act shows the simple country maid,
	Harmless and young, of everything afraid;
	Blushes when hired, and with unmeaning action,
	I hopes as how to give you satisfaction.
	Her second act displays a livelier scene, -
	Th' unblushing barmaid of a country inn,
	Who whisks about the house, at market caters,
	Talks loud, coquets the guests, and scolds the waiters.
	Next the scene shifts to town, and there she soars,
	The chop-house toast of ogling connoisseurs.
	On 'Squires and Cits she there displays her arts,
	And on the gridiron broils her lovers' hearts -
	And as she smiles, her triumphs to complete,
	Even Common Councilmen forget to eat.
	The fourth act shows her wedded to the 'Squire,
	And madam now begins to hold it higher;
	Pretends to taste, at Operas cries caro,
	And quits her Nancy Dawson, for Che Faro.
	Dotes upon dancing, and in all her pride,
	Swims round the room, the Heinel of Cheapside:
	Ogles and leers with artificial skill,
	Till having lost in age the power to kill,
	She sits all night at cards, and ogles at spadille.
	Such, through our lives, the eventful history -
	The fifth and last act still remains for me.
	The barmaid now for your protection prays,
	Turns female barrister, and pleads for bayes.