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Syd. I've heard of him; go on!

Wood. This Roderick and I were schoolfellows, studied together at the university, travelled together through most parts of Europe, and were inseparable friends, till, by evil chance, we became rivals in love. I obtained Mrs. Woodville's hand, and married her; he was excluded, and renounced society. This man, the bitterest enemy I have, is now the master of my fate.

Syd. Then I conclude those pistols are for him.

Wood. I do not quite say that; he shall have a fair alternative.

Syd. I much doubt if any thing can be fair, when one party has just gained a fortune, and the other lost one: however, if you mean it should be fair, take me with you : whether you shake hands or exchange shots, I will see justice done on both sides; for I will be bold to aver, there never yet was an affair in which I had the honour to be either principal or second, where equity was not as strictly administered, as if my Lord Chancellor had decreed it from the bench.

Wood. Be it so, then, if so it must be. Come with me to this newly-enriched cottager, and if I fail in this last effort, I exact from you an honourable secrecy and an immediate secession. [Exeunt, R.

SCENE III.-The Cottage.

Enter PENRUDDOCK and WEAZEL from Cottage, L. s. E.

Pen. Pray leave me, sir; return to your papers, if you please; I would be alone a moment. Wed. Very well, sir, it's very well; I only wanted just to explain. [Goes into the Cottage muttering. Pen. This property's immense. Woodville's proud house is mine: now that false friend is punished: all those scenes of gay prosperity, with which he caught the vain weak heart of Arabella, are suddenly reversed; and just retaliation, not less terrible because so tardy, surprises him at last. Farewell, my cottage! scene of my past content! I thank thee: possessing nought but thee, I have not envied palaces; possessed of them, I have forsaken thee; such is mau's fickle nature-in solitude a philosopher, wise in adversity, and only patient under injuries till opportunity occurs to him of revenging them.

Enter WOODVILLE and SYDENHAM, R.

Wood. That's he; the very man.-Sir, let me hope I have happily encountered you; I believe I am addressing myself to Mr. Penruddock.

Pen. (L.) I am Penruddock.

Wood. (c.) Perhaps you have lost the recollection of my person.

Pen. I wish I had-you have left some traces of it in my memory, Mr. Woodville; and nothing is more opposite to my desires than to revive them.

Wood. That this would be my greeting, I expected; for though I ever knew you to be just, yet, in our earliest years, I thought I could discover dawnings of a relentless nature. If twenty years of calm reflection have passed away without assuaging your determined animosity, an opportunity is now before you of hatching that revenge which you have brooded on so long.

Pen. Pursue your own reflections, sir, and interrupt not mine. [Going. Syd. [Crosses to Pen.] Stop, if you please-I am no party in this conference, but as a common friend to every thing that wears the face of man: I can perceive you have been wronged, in time long past, by this gentleman; so have I, recently and deeply wronged, inasmuch as he has abused my friendship, by ruining himself in defiance of my better counsel-What then? He is sorry for it, and I forgive him; he is in misery, and I pity him.

Pen. Well, sir, at your remonstrance I will stay; only be pleased to let me know for whose sake I submit myself to Mr. Woodville's conversation?

Syd. I am a very idle fellow, sir; Sydenham my name; one that has thrown away much good will upon his friends, without once practising your happy art of being unmoved by their misfortunes.

Pen. Humph!-Mr. Woodville will proceed.

Wood. [Crosses to Pen.] If you, Mr. Penruddock, can find no motive to forgive the wrongs I did you in the matter of my marriage, I shall suggest none; neither will I offer at one word in mitigation of those wrongs; they were as great as you believe them; greater, perhaps, than you are perfectly apprized of. In the first glow of your resentment you demanded satisfaction; in justice, I must own that your appeal was warranted, but I was then a happy man, with beauty in my arms, and fortune at my feet; and 1 eva

ded it. Now, if your heat is not cooled, and you still thirst for revenge, lo! I am ready; I have arms for both, fit to decide our quarrel, and an honourable friend competent to adjust it. [Produces pistols. Syd. Fairly proposed.-If such is your pleasure, gentlemen both, I am perfectly at your disposal.

Pen. Give me the pistol: place your man where you like ; this is my ground.

Syden. [Crosses to Pen.] Stop, sir, the forms of honour are not yet complete.-Mr. Woodville, if I rightly understood you, you have an alternative to propose; if that be so, state it.

Pen. I have little disposition to hear any trifling. Wood. Nor I to trifle; therefore no more of it! A woman's mediation can be of no avail: however, Mr. Sydenham, if I fall, give this to the survivor.

:

[Presents a pacquet. Syd. Hah! Mrs. Woodville's hand!-this must not be rejected an angel's mediation claims respect, and he must read it, or make his passage through my body ere he shall approach you.-Woodville, disarm yourself-[Takes his pistol.]-Mr. Penruddock, this pacquet is addressed to you; take it; but first, if you please, give me your weapon, as he has done. Now I maintain an armed neutrality (Cros ses, R.) [Takes both pistols. [Penruddock withdraws aside, opens the pacquet, peruses it awhile, and then retires into his cottage: while this is passing, Sydenham speaks as follows.]

Syd. It staggers him-he pauses; yet I perceive no change; he flies, however, and we keep the field.-Do you know the purport of that paper?

Wood. I know nothing of its purport but by conjecture: 'twas written by Arabella, since she heard of his accession to the fortune of Sir George, and probably contains a strong appeal to his feelings, founded upon past connections. I have reason to believe it chiefly points at my son, who has so long been a prisoner in France, and now at last has got his liberty upon exchange; but I dare say this churl is steeled against humanity.

Syd. I know not what to think of him; that man's soul has no flow; impenetrable frost locks up its current: therefore be prepared.-And now, Harry, if you have any thing upon your mind to encharge me with, avail yourself of the moment, and impart it to me; the issue of these rencontres is uncertain.

Wood. Alas! I have been so improvident a husband, that I dare hardly send my last farewell to my much injured wife; so unjust a father, that I have scarce presumption to bequeath a blessing to my son. In temporal affairs I am so totally undone, and life is now so perfectly a blank, that he who takes it from me, takes what I am tired of; and I solemnly conjure my family never to stir the question of my death, nor prosecute the author of it.

[Weazle speaks from the cottage-window.

Wea. Gentlemen, I am commanded by Mr. Penruddock to say that he is very particularly occupied, and declines any further explanation on the business of your visit; you will hear from him again.

Wood. At his own choice and leisure; so inform him. Wea. Very well, gentlemen! Perhaps you don't know me-My name is Timothy Weazel-I wish you a good day. [Retires. Syd. Come, Woodville, we have thrown that cynic cur a bone, so let him guaw it. [Exeunt, R.

END OF THE FIRST ACT.

ACT II.

SCENE I-A Chamber in Tempest's House.

Enter TEMPEST and EMILY, L.

Tem. Go your ways; vanish out of my sight, for a graceless young hussey.-You know I love you, Emily, you know I do, dear as the eyes in my head, better than the heart in my body, and therefore you baffle, and bamboozle, and make a bumpkin of me; that's what you do: you see I am a damn'd fond forgiving old fool, and you impose upon my good

nature.

Emi. No very hard task, I should hope. Only call upon you now and then for a few grains of charitable patience. Tem. Grains of charitable nonsense, grains of hypocritical impertinence: what business have you to make any calls upon me, that you know I can't answer? I have no such thing as patience about me, no such dull mechanical property belonging to me; never had, never will have, never wish to have.

Emi. Well, sir, let it pass then; but you must own it's

C

a little unreasonable to expect that I should abound in that article, of which you, my father, do not possess a single

atom?

Tem. Not at all unreasonable, for your mother was a miracle of patience; I am sure put it very sufficiently to the trial why I took her with no other view but as we take a diet-drink in the spring, to sweeten the juices. Tempest, the son of Lord Hurricane, was never born to be calm; 'sblood and fire! I have never been in smooth water since first I was launched upon the surface of the globe. I was a younger son, and kicked into the world without a sixpence; my father gave me no education, taught me nothing, kept me in ignorance, and buffeted me every day for being a dunce.

Emi. That was hard, indeed, to give so little and demand so much-but some fathers are quite out of the way of reason.

Tem. That's a wipe at me, I suppose, but no matterFirst I was turn'd into the army, there I got broken bones and empty pockets; then I was banished to the coast of Africa, to govern the savages of Senegambia; there I made a few blunders in color, by taking whites for blacks and blacks for whites; but before my enemies could get hold of me, Death laid hands upon them, and I triumphed over their malice by the mortality of the climate.

Emi. Upon my word, sir, you have been tossed and tumbled about in this rough world pretty handsomely

Tem. Yes, so handsomely, that I will take care you shan't be tossed and tumbled about, till you have a good pilot on board, and a safe harbour under your lee, to lay up in for life.

Emi. That's as much as to say I shall embark with Sir David Daw, and lay up in his fusty old castle on the banks of the Wye, in Monmouthshire, to wit. A precious pilot I shall have, and a famous voyage we shall make of it!Helm a-weather! cries he, and bear away for the coast of Wales-Helm a-lee! say I, and set all sails for the port of London. He is for steering West, I am for steering East; so between us we run wild out of the track, and make a wreck of ship and cargo in the scuffle for command.

Tem. You talk nonsense, Emily, you gabble without wit or wisdom. Sir David Daw is a very respectable gentleman in his own country.

Emi. Then he is a very silly gentleman for coming out of it.

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