for it.
DICK.
My Meg, poor woman! she never had so much money in all her life.
LADY AMARANTHE.
I must insist upon it; you will offend me.
JUSTINE--(_taking the purse out of her lady's hand, and forcing it upon
DICK._)
Dieux! est-il bete!--you no understand?--It is de gold and de silver
money (_laughing._) Comme il a l'air ebahi!
DICK--(_putting up the money._)
Many thanks, and I pray God bless your ladyship!
LADY AMARANTHE--(_gaily._)
Good morning, Mr. Dick. Remember me to your wife.
DICK.
I will, my lady. I wish your ladyship, and you, miss, a good morning.
(_To himself._) Five guineas!--what will Meg say?--Now I'll be a master
shoemaker. (_Going out in an ecstasy, he knocks his head against the
wall._)
LADY AMARANTHE.
Take care, friend. Montrez-lui la porte, Justine!
JUSTINE.
Mais venez donc, Monsieur Dick--par ici--et n'allez pas donner le nez
contre la porte!
[_DICK follows JUSTINE out of the door,
after making several bows._
LADY AMARANTHE.
Poor man!--well, he's silenced--he does not look as if he would sing,
morning or night, for the next twelve months.
_Re-enter JUSTINE._
JUSTINE.
Voici Madame Mincetaille, qui vient pour essayer la robe-de-bal de
madame.
LADY AMARANTHE.
Ah! allons donc.
[_They go out._
_The SCENE changes to the Cobbler's Garret._
_Enter MARGERY, in haste; a basket in her hand. She looks about her._
MARGERY.
Not come back yet! what can keep him, I wonder! (_Takes off her bonnet
and shawl._) Well, I must get the dinner ready. (_Pauses, and looks
anxious._) But, somehow, I feel not easy in my mind. What could they
want with him?--Hark! (_Goes to the door_) No--what a time he is! But
suppose they should 'dite him for a nuisance--O me! or send him to the
watchhouse--O my poor dear Dick! I must go and see after him! I must go
this very instant moment! (_Snatches up her bonnet._) Oh, I hear him
now; but how slowly he comes up!
[_Runs to the door, and leads him in._
_Enter DICK._
MARGERY.
Oh, my dear, dear Dick, I am so glad you are come at last! But how pale
you look! all I don't know how! What's the matter? why don't you speak
to me, Dick, love?
DICK--(_fanning himself with his hat._)
Let me breathe, wife.
MARGERY.
But what's the matter? where have you been? who did you see? what did
they say to you? Come, tell me quick.
DICK.
Why, Meg, how your tongue does gallop! as if a man could answer twenty
questions in a breath.
MARGERY.
Did you see the lady herself? Tell me that.
DICK--(_looking round the room auspiciously._)
Shut the door first.
MARGERY.
There.
[_Shuts it._
DICK.
Shut the other.
MARGERY.
The other?--There.
[_Shuts it._
DICK.
Lock it fast, I say.
MARGERY.
There's no lock; and that you know.
DICK--(_frightened._)
No lock;--then we shall all be robbed!
MARGERY.
Robbed of what? Sure, there's nothing here for any one to rob! You never
took such a thing into your head before.
[_DICK goes to the door, and tries to fasten it._
MARGERY--(_aside._)
For sartain, he's bewitched--or have they given him something to
drink?--or, perhaps, he's ill. (_Very affectionately, and laying her
hand on his shoulder._) Are you not well, Dick, love? Will you go to
bed, sweetheart?
DICK--(_gruffly._)
No. Go to bed in the broad day!--the woman's cracked.
MARGERY--(_whimpering._)
Oh, Dick, what in the world has come to you?
DICK.
Nothing--nothing but good, you fool. There--there--don't cry, I tell
you.
MARGERY--(_wiping her eyes._)
And did you see the lady?
DICK.
Ay, I seed her; and a most beautiful lady she is, and she sends her
sarvice to you?
MARGERY.
Indeed! lauk-a-daisy! I'm sure I'm much obliged--but what did she say
to you?
DICK.
Oh, she said this, and that, and t'other--a great deal.
MARGERY.
But what, Dick?
DICK.
Why, she said--she said as how I sung so fine, she couldn't sleep o'
mornings.
MARGERY.
Sleep o' mornings! that's a good joke! Let people sleep o' nights,
I say.
DICK--(_solemnly._)
But she can't, poor soul, she's very ill; she has pains here, and pains
there, and everywhere.
MARGERY.
Indeed! poor lady! then you mustn't disturb her no more, Dick, that's a
sure thing.
DICK.
Ay, so I said; and so she gave me this.
[_Takes out the purse, and holds it up._
MARGERY--(_clapping her hands._)
O goodness! what a fine purse!--Is there any thing in it?
DICK--(_chinks the money._)
Do ye hear that? Guess now.
MARGERY--(_timidly._)
Five shillings, perhaps, eh?
DICK.
Five shillings!--five guineas, girl.
MARGERY--(_with a scream._)
Five guineas! five guineas! (_skips about_) tal, lal, la! five guineas!
(_Runs and embraces her husband._) Oh, Dick! we'll be so rich and so
happy. I want a power of things. I'll have a new gown--lavender, shall
it be?--Yes, it shall be lavender; and a dimity petticoat; and a lace
cap, like Mrs. Pinchtoe's, with pink ribbons--how she will stare! and
I'll have two silver spoons, and a nutmeg-grater, and----
DICK.
Ho, ho, ho! what a jabber! din, din, din! You'll have this, and you'll
have that! First, I'll have a good stock of neat's leather.
MARGERY.
Well, well, give me the purse; I'll take care of it.
[_Snatches at it._
DICK.
No, thankee, _I'll_ take care of it.
MARGERY--(_coaxing._)
You know I always keep the money, Dick!
DICK.
Ay, Meg, but I'll keep this, do ye mind?
MARGERY.
What! keep it all to yourself?--No, you won't; an't I your wife, and
haven't I a right? I ax you that.
DICK.
Pooh! don't be bothering me.
MARGERY.
Come, give it me at once, there's a dear Dick!
DICK.
What, to waste it all in woman's nonsense and frippery? Don't be a fool!
we're rich, and we'll keep it safe.
MARGERY.
Why, where's the use of money but to spend? Come, come, I _will_ have it.
DICK.
Hey-day! you will?--You shan't; who's the master here, I say?
MARGERY--(_passionately._)
Why, if you come to that, who's the mistress here, I say?
DICK.
Now, Meg, don't you go for to provoke me.
MARGERY.
Pooh! I defy you.
DICK--(_doubling his fist._)
Don't you put me in a passion, Meg!
MARGERY.
Get along; I don't care that for you! (_snaps her fingers._) You used to
be my own dear Dick, and now you're a cross, miserly curmudgeon--
DICK--(_quite furious._)
You will have it then! Why, then, take it, with a mischief; take that,
and that, and that!
[_He beats her; she screams._
MARGERY.
Oh! oh! oh!--pray don't--pray--(_Breaks from him, and throws herself
into a chair._) O Dick! to go for to strike me! O that I should ever see
the day!--you cruel, unkind----Oh! oh!
[_Covers her face with her apron, sobs, and cries; and
he stands looking at her sheepishly. A long pause._
DICK--(_in great agitation._)
Eh, why! women be made of eggshells, I do think. Why, Meg, I didn't
hurt you, did I? why don't you speak? Now, don't you be sulky, come; it
wasn't much. A man is but flesh and blood, after all; come, I say--I'll
never get into a passion with you again to my dying day--I won't--come,
don't cry; (_tries to remove the apron_,) come, kiss, and be friends.
Won't you forgive your own dear Dick, won't you? (_ready to cry_) She
won't!--Here, here's the money, and the purse and all--take it, do what
you like with it. (_She shakes her head._) What, you won't then? why,
then, there--(_throws it on the ground._) Deuce fetch me if ever I
touch it again! and I wish my fingers had been burnt before ever I took
it,--so I do! (_with feeling._) We were so happy this morning, when we
hadn't a penny to bless ourselves with, nor even a bit to eat; and now,
since all this money has come to us of a suddent, why, it's all as one
as if old Nick himself were in the purse. I'll tell you what, Meg, eh!
shall I? Shall I take it back to the lady, and give our duty to her, and
tell her we don't want her guineas, shall I, Meg? shall I, dear heart?
[_During the last few words MARGERY lets the apron
fall from her face, looks up at him, and smiles._
DICK.
Oh, that's right, and we'll be happy again, and never quarrel more.
MARGERY.
No, never! (_They embrace._) Take it away, for I can't bear the sight of
it.
DICK.
Take it _you_ then, for you know, Meg, I said I would never touch it
again; and what I says, I says--and what I says, I sticks to.
[_Pushes it towards her with his foot._
MARGERY.
And so do I: and I vowed to myself that I wouldn't touch it, and I
won't.
[_Kicks it back to him._
DICK.
How shall we manage then? Oh, I have it. Fetch me the tongs here.
(_Takes up the purse in the tongs, and holds it at arm's length._) Now
I'm going. So, Meg, if you repent, now's the time. Speak--or for ever
hold your tongue.
MARGERY.
Me repent? No, my dear Dick! I feel, somehow, quite light, as if a great
weight were gone away from here. (_Laying her hands on her bosom._)
Money may be a good thing when it comes little by little, and we gain
it honestly by our own hard work; but when it comes this way, in a
lump--one doesn't know how or why--it's quite too surprising, as one
may say;--it gets into one's head, like--the punch, Dick!
DICK.
Aye, and worser--turns it all the wrong way; but I've done with
both:--I'll have no more to say to drinking, and fine ladies, and purses
o' money;--we'll go and live in the stall round the corner, and I'll
take to my work and my singing again--eh, Meg?
MARGERY.
Bless you, my dear, dear Dick! (_kisses him._)
DICK.
Ay, that's as it should be:--so now come along. We never should have
believed this, if we hadn't tried; but it's just what my old mother used
to say--MUCH COIN, MUCH CARE.[28]
* * * * *
THE END.
LONDON:
IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Some of the sentences which follow (marked by inverted
commas,) are taken from a portrait of Mrs. Siddons, dated 1812, and
attributed to Sir Walter Scott.]
[Footnote 2: I am permitted to give the following little extract as farther
illustrating that tenderness of nature which I have only touched
upon. "I owe ---- ---- a letter, but I don't know how it is, now
that I am arrived at that time of life when I supposed I should be
able to sit down and indulge my natural indolence, I find the business
of it thickens and increases around me; and I am now as
much occupied about the affairs of others as I have been about my
own. I am just now expecting my son George's two babies from
India. The ship which took them from their parents, I thank heaven,
is safely arrived: _Oh! that they could know it!_ For the present I
shall have them near me. There is a school between my little
hut and the church, where they will have delicious air, and I shall
be able to see the poor dears every day."]
[Footnote 3: I believe it _has_ been said; but, like Madlle. de
Montpensier my imagination and my memory are sometimes confounded.]
[Footnote 4: Ben Jonson.]
[Footnote 5: George the Fourth, after conversing with her, said with
emphasis, "She is the only _real_ queen!"]
[Footnote 6: In a letter to Mrs. Thrale.]
[Footnote 7: In the Grosvenor gallery. There is a duplicate of this
picture in the Dulwich gallery.]
[Footnote 8: She afterwards played Lady Randolph for Mr. Charles
Kemble's benefit, and performed Lady Macbeth at the request of the
Princess Charlotte in 1816. This was her final appearance. She was
then sixty-one, and her powers unabated. I recollect a characteristic
passage in one of her letters relating to this circumstance: she says,
"The princess honoured me with several gracious (not _graceful_) nods;
but the newspapers gave me credit for much more _sensibility_ than I
either felt or displayed on the occasion. I was by no means so much
_overwhelmed_ by her Royal Highness's kindness, as they were pleased
to represent me."]
[Footnote 9:
"For time hath laid his hand so gently on her
As he too had been awed."
DE MONTFORT.]
[Footnote 10: The last play she read aloud was Henry V. only ten days
before she died.]
[Footnote 11: Now Mrs. George Combe.]
[Footnote 12: These sketches, once intended for publication, are now in
the possession of Lord Francis Egerton. The introduction and notes were
written in March, 1830--the conclusion in March, 1834.]
[Footnote 13: The alteration and interpolations are by Garrick, of whom
it was said and believed, that "he never read through a whole play of
Shakspeare's except with some nefarious design of cutting and mangling
it."]
[Footnote 14: She played in London the following parts successively:--
Juliet, Belvidera, the Grecian Daughter, Mrs. Beverley, Portia,
Isabella, Lady Townly, Calista, Bianca, Beatrice, Constance, Camiola,
Lady Teazle, Donna Sol, (in Lord Francis Egerton's translation of
Hemani, when played before the queen at Bridgewater House,) Queen
Katherine, Catherine of Cleves, Louisa of Savoy, in Francis I., Lady
Macbeth, Julia in the Hunchback.]
[Footnote 15: The only parts which, to my knowledge, she chose for
herself, were Portia, Camiola, and Julia in the Hunchback. She was
accused of having declined playing Inez de Castro in Miss Mitford's
tragedy, and I heard her repel that accusation very indignantly.
She added--"Setting aside my respect for Miss Mitford, I never, on
principle, have refused a part. It is my business to do whatever is
deemed advantageous to the whole concern, to do as much good as I can;
not to think of myself. If they bid me act Scrubb, I would act it!"]
[Footnote 16: At Dresden and at Frankfort I saw the Merchant of Venice
played as it stands in Shakspeare, with all the stately scenes between
Portia and her suitors--the whole of the character of Jessica--the
lovely moon-light dialogue between Jessica and Lorenzo, and the beautiful
speeches given to Portia, all which, by sufferance of an English audience,
are omitted on our stage. When I confessed to some of the great German
critics, that the Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, &c.
were performed in England not only with important omissions of the text,
but with absolute alterations, affecting equally the truth of character,
and the construction of the story, they looked at me, at first, as if
half incredulous, and their perception of the barbarism, as well as the
absurdity, was so forcibly expressed on their countenances, and their
contempt so justifiable, that I confess I felt ashamed for my countrymen.]
[Footnote 17: The resemblance was in the brow and eye. When she was
sitting to Sir Thomas Lawrence, he said, "These are the eyes of Mrs.
Siddons." She said, "You mean _like_ those of Mrs. Siddons." "No," he
replied, "they are the _same_ eyes, the construction is the same, and
to draw them is the same thing."
I have ever been at a loss for a word which should express the peculiar
property of an eye like that of Mrs. Siddons, which could not be called
piercing or penetrating, or any thing that gives the idea of searching
or acute; but it was an eye which, in its softest look, and, to a late
period of her life, went straight into the depths of the soul as a ray
of light finds the bottom of the ocean. Once, when I was conversing
with the celebrated German critic, Boettigar, of Dresden, and he was
describing the person of Madame Schirmer, after floundering in a sea
of English epithets, none of which conveyed his meaning, he at last
exclaimed with enthusiasm--"Madam! her eye was _perforating_!"]
[Footnote 18: In the Hunchback.]
[Footnote 19: In the Fatal Marriage.]
[Footnote 20: I recollect being present when some one was repeating to
her a very high-flown and enthusiastic eulogy, of which she was the
subject. She listened very quietly, and then said with indescribable
_naivete_--"Perhaps I ought to blush to have all these things thus
repeated to my face; but the truth is, I _cannot_. I cannot, by any
effort of my own imagination, see myself as people speak of me. It
gives no reflection back to my mind. I cannot fancy myself like this.
All I can clearly understand is, that you and every body are very much
pleased, and I am very glad of it!"]
[Footnote 21: It must be remembered that it was not _only_ fashionable
incense and public applause; it was the open enthusiastic admiration
of such men as Sir Walter Scott, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Moore, Rogers,
Campbell, Barry Cornwall, and others of great name, who brought rich
flattery in prose and in verse, and laid it at her feet. Just before
she came on the stage she had spent about a year in Scotland with her
excellent relative and friend, Mrs. Henry Siddons, and always referred
to this period as her "Sabbatical year, granted to her to prepare her
mind and principles for _this great trial_."]
[Footnote 22: Her own words.]
[Footnote 23: First published in 1827. The anecdote on which this tale
is founded, I met with in the first volume of Dow's Translation of
Ferishta's History of Judea.]
[Footnote 24: _Vide_ the Heetopadessa.]
[Footnote 25: Afterwards the Emperor Jehangire.]
[Footnote 26: This little tale was written in March, 1826, and in the
hands of the publishers long before the appearance of Bainim's novel of
"The Nowlans" which contains a similar incident, probably founded on the
same fact.]
[Footnote 27: This little tale (written in 1830) is founded on a
striking incident related in Humboldt's narrative. The facts remain
unaltered.]
[Footnote 28: It need hardly be observed that this little trifle was
written exclusively for very young actors, to whom the style was
adapted; and though below all criticism, it has been included here to
gratify those for whom it was originally written, and as a memorial of
past times. The subject is imitated from one of Theodore Leclerq's
_Proverbes Dramatiques_.]
* * * * *
[Transcriber's Note: Errata as given in the original have been applied to
the text. Other than the most exceedingly obvious typographical errors,
all inconsistent spelling, hyphenation, diacriticals, archaic usage, etc.
have been preserved as printed in the original.]