I pay all at sight, and without questioning who brought the bill. Jac. Hey-day! you dispatch your mistresses as fast, as if you meant to o'er-run all woman-kind: Sure you aim at the universal-monarchy. Wild. Now I think on't, I have a foolish fancy to send the lady a taste of my love by thee. Jac. Tis impossible your love should be so humble, to descend to a mulatto. Wild. One would think so, but I cannot help it. Gad, I think the reason is, because there's something more of sin in thy colour than in ours. I know not what's the matter, but a turkey-cock is not more provoked at red, than I bristle at the sight of black. Come, be kinder to me. Young, and slip an opportunity? "Tis an evening lost out of your life. Jac. These fine things you have said over a thousand times; your cold compliment's the cold pye of love, which you serve up to every guest whom you invite. Wild. Come; because thou art very moving, here's part of the gold, which thou brought'st to corrupt me for thy lady: Truth is, I had promised a sum to a Spanish lady; but thy eyes have allured it from me. Jac. You'll repent it to-morrow. Wild. Let to-morrow starve, or provide for himself, as to-night has done: To-morrow is a cheat in love, and I will not trust it. Jac. Ay, but heaven, that sees all thingsWild. Heaven, that sees all things, will say nothing: That is all eyes, and no tongue; Et la lune, et les estoiles,-you know the song. Jac. A poor slave, as I am Wild. It has been always my humour to love downward. I love to stoop to my prey, and to have it in my power to souse at, when I please. When a man comes to a great lady, he is fain to approach her with fear and reverence; methinks there's something of godliness in't. Jac. Yet I cannot believe, but the meanness of my habit must needs scandalize you. Wild. I tell thee, my friend, and so forth, that I exceedingly honour coarse linen; 'tis as proper sometimes in an under garment, as a coarse towel is to rub and scrub me. Jac. Now I am altogether of the other side; I can love no where but above me: Methinks the rattling of a coach and six sounds more eloquently than the best harangue a wit could make me. Wild. Do you make no more esteem of a wit then? Jac. His commendations serve only to make others have a mind to me; he does but say grace to me like a chaplain, and, like him, is the last that shall fall on. He ought to get no more by it, than a poor silk-weaver does by the ribband which he works, to make a gallant fine. Wild. Then what is a gentleman to hope from you? Jac. To be admitted to pass my time with, while a better comes: To be the lowest step in my staircase, for a knight to mount upon him, and a lord upon him, and a marquis upon him, and a duke upon him, till I get as high as I can climb. Wild. For aught I see, the great ladies have the appetites, which you slaves should have; and you slaves the pride, which ought to be in ladies. For, I observe, that all women of your condition are like women of the play-house, still picking at each other, who shall go the best dressed, and the richest habits; till you work up one another by your high flying, as the heron and jerfalcon do. If you can not out-shine your fellow with one lover, you fetch her up with another: And, in short, all you get by it is only to put finery out of countenance; and to make the ladies of quality go plain, because they 'will avoid the scandal of your bravery. Beat. [Running in.] Madam, come away; I hear company in the garden. Wild. You are not going? Jac. Yes, to cry out a rape, if you follow me. Wild. However, I am glad you have left your treasure behind you: Farewell, fairy! Jac. Farewell, changeling!-Come, Beatrix. [Exeunt Women. Mask. Do you know how you came by this money, sir? You think, I warrant, that it came by fortune. Wild. No, sirrah, I know it came by my own industry. Did not I come out diligently to meet this gold, in the very way it was to come? What could fate do less for me? They are such thoughtless, and undesigning rogues as you, that make a drudge of poor Providence, and set it a shifting for you. Give me a brave fellow like myself, that, if you throw him down into the world, lights every where upon his legs, and helps himself without being beholden to fate, that is the hospital of fools. Mask. But, after all your jollity, what think you if it was Jacintha that gave it you in this disguise? I am sure I heard her call Beatrix as she went away. Wild. Umh! thou awaken'st a most villainous apprehension in me! methought, indeed, I knew the voice: but the face was such an evidence against it! if it were so, she is lost for ever. Mask. And so is Beatrix. Wild. Now could I cut my throat for madness. Mask. Now could I break my neck for despair, if I could find a precipice absolutely to my liking. Wild. 'Tis in vain to consider on't. There's but one way; go you, Maskall, and find her out, and invent some excuse for me, and be sure to beg leave I may come and wait upon her with the gold, before she sleeps. Mask. In the mean time you'll be thinking at your lodging. Wild. But make haste then to relieve me; for I think over all my thoughts in half an hour. [Exit MASK. Wild. [Solus.] Hang it! now I think on't, I shall be but melancholic at my lodging; I'll go pass my hour at the gaming-house, and make use of this money while I have tools, to win more to it. Stay, let me see,-I have the box and throw. My Don he sets me ten pistoles; I nick him: Ten more, I sweep them too. Now, in all reason, he is nettled, and sets me twenty: I win them too. Now he kindles, and butters me with forty. They are all my own: In fine, he is vehement, and bleeds on to fourscore or an hundred; and I, not willing to tempt fortune, come away a moderate winner of two hundred pistoles. SCENE II. The SCENE opens and discovers AURELIA and CAMILLA: Behind them a table and lights set on it. The Scene is a Garden with an arbour in it. The garden-door opens! How now, Aurelia and Camilla in expectation of Don Melchor at the garden door! I'll away, least I prevent the design, and within this half hour come sailing back with full pockets, as wantonly as a laden galleon from the Indies. [Exit. Aur. But dost thou think the Englishman can keep his promise? For, I confess, I furiously desire to see the idea of Don Melchor. Cam. But, madam, if you should see him, it will not be he, but the devil in his likeness; and then why should you desire it? Aur. In effect 'tis a very dark enigma; and one must be very spiritual to understand it. But be what it will, body or phantom, I am resolved to meet it. Cam. Can you do it without fear? Aur. No; I must avow it, I am furiously fearful; but yet I am resolved to sacrifice all things to my love. Therefore, let us pass over that chapter. [Don MELCHOR, without. Cam. Do you hear, madam, there's one treading already; how if it be he? Aur. If it be he! that is to say his spectre, that is to say his phantom, that is to say his idea, that is to say, he, and not he. Cam. [Crying out.] Ah, madam, 'tis he himself; but he's as big again as he used to be, with eyes like saucers. I'll save myself. [Runs under the table. Enter Don MELCHOR: They both shriek. Aur. Oh heaven! humanity is not able to sup[Running. port it. Mel. Dear Aurelia, what mean you? Aur. The tempter has imitated his voice too; avoid, avoid, spectre. Cam. If he should find me under the table now! vant? Aur. I am not thy dear; I renounce thee, spirit of darkness! Mel. This spirit of darkness is come to see an angel of light by her command; and to assure her of his constancy, that he will be her's eternally. |