Servant. [Entering.] Madam, The bridegroom's come.

[Goes out.]

W. Green. The brute has knocked me down! To bolt it out so! I had started less If he had fired a cannon at my ear. How shall I ever manage to hold up Till all is done! I'm tremor head to foot. You can excuse me, can't you?—Pity me! One may feel queer upon one's wedding-day.

[They go out.]

SCENE THE LAST.—A Drawing-room.

[Enter Servants, showing in SIR WILLIAM FONDLOVE, CONSTANCE, and MASTER WILDRAKE—Servants go out again.]

Sir Wil. [Aside to WILDRAKE.] Good Master Wildrake, look more cheerfully!—Come, You do not honour to my wedding-day. How brisk am I! My body moves on springs! My stature gives no inch I throw away; My supple joints play free and sportfully; I'm every atom what a man should be.

Wild. I pray you pardon me, Sir William!

Sir Wil. Smile, then, And talk and rally me! I did expect, Ere half an hour had passed, you would have put me A dozen times to the blush. Without such things, A bridegroom knows not his own wedding-day. I see! Her looks are glossary to thine, She flouts thee still, I marvel not at thee; There's thunder in that cloud! I would to-day It would disperse, and gather in the morning. I fear me much thou know'st not how to woo. I'll give thee a lesson. Ever there's a way, But knows one how to take it? Twenty men Have courted Widow Green. Who has her now? I sent to advertise her that to-day I meant to marry her. She wouldn't open My note. And gave I up? I took the way To make her love me! I did send, again To pray her leave my daughter should be bridemaid. That letter too came back? Did I give up? I took the way to make her love me! Yet, Again I sent to ask what church she chose To marry at; my note came back again; And did I yet give up? I took the way To make her love me! All the while I found She was preparing for the wedding. Take A hint from me! She comes! My fluttering heart Gives note the empress of its realms is near. Now, Master Wildrake, mark and learn from me How it behoves a bridegroom play his part.

[Enter WIDOW GREEN, supported by her Bridemaids, and followed by AMELIA.]

W. Green. I cannot raise my eyes—they cannot bear The beams of his, which, like the sun's, I feel Are on me, though I see them not enlightening The heaven of his young face; nor dare I scan The brightness of his form, which symmetry And youth and beauty in enriching vie. He kneels to me! Now grows my breathing thick, As though I did await a seraph's voice, Too rich for mortal ear.

Sir Wil. My gentle bride!

W. Green. Who's that! who speaks to me?

Sir Wil. These transports check. Lo, an example to mankind I set Of amorous emprise; and who should thrive In love, if not Love's soldier, who doth press The doubtful siege, and will not own repulse. Lo, here I tender thee my fealty, To live thy duteous slave. My queen thou art, In frowns or smiles, to give me life or death. Oh, deign look down upon me! In thy face Alone I look on day; it is my sun Most bright; the which denied, no sun doth rise. Shine out upon me, my divinity! My gentle Widow Green! My wife to be; My love, my life, my drooping, blushing bride!

W. Green. Sir William Fondlove, you're a fool!

Sir Wil. A fool!

W. Green. Why come you hither, sir, in trim like this? Or rather why at all?

Sir Wil. Why come I hither? To marry thee!

W. Green. The man will drive me mad! Sir William Fondlove, I'm but forty, sir, And you are sixty, seventy, if a day; At least you look it, sir. I marry you! When did a woman wed her grandfather?

Sir Wil. Her brain is turned!

W. Green. You're in your dotage, sir, And yet a boy in vanity! But know Yourself from me; you are old and ugly, sir.

Sir Wil. Do you deny you are in love with me?

W. Green. In love with thee!

Sir Wil. That you are jealous of me?

W. Green. Jealous!

Sir Wil. To very lunacy.

W. Green. To hear him!

Sir Wil. Do you forget what happened yesterday?

W. Green. Sir William Fondlove!—

Sir Wil. Widow Green, fair play!— Are you not laughing? Is it not a jest? Do you believe me seventy to a day? Do I look it? Am I old and ugly? Why, Why do I see those favours in the hall, These ladies dressed as bridemaids, thee as bride, Unless to marry me?

[Knock.]

W. Green. He is coming, sir, Shall answer you for me!

[Enter WALLER, with Gentlemen as Bridemen.]

Wal. Where is she? What! All that bespeaks the day, except the fair That's queen of it? Most kind of you to grace My nuptials so! But that I render you My thanks in full, make full my happiness, And tell me where's my bride?

W. Green. She's here.

Wal. Where?

W. Green. Here, Fair Master Waller!

Wal. Lady, do not mock me.

W. Green. Mock thee! My heart is stranger to such mood, 'Tis serious tenderness and duty all. I pray you mock not me, for I do strive With fears and soft emotions that require Support. Take not away my little strength, And leave me at the mercy of a feather. I am thy bride! If 'tis thy happiness To think me so, believe it, and be rich To thy most boundless wishes! Master Waller, I am thy waiting bride, the Widow Green!

Wal. Lady, no widow is the bride I seek, But one the church has never given yet The nuptial blessing to!

W. Green. What mean you, sir? Why come a bridegroom here, if not to me You sued to be your bride? Is this your hand, sir? [Showing letter.]

Wal. It is, addressed to your fair waiting-maid.

W. Green. My waiting-maid! The laugh is passing round, And now the turn is yours, sir. She is gone! Eloped! run off! and with the gentleman That brought your billet-doux.

Wal. Is Trueworth false? He must be false. What madness tempted me To trust him with such audience as I knew Must sense, and mind, and soul of man entrance, And leave him but the power to feel its spell! Of his own lesson he would profit take, And plead at once an honourable love, Supplanting mine, less pure, reformed too late! And if he did, what merit I, except To lose the maid I would have wrongly won; And, had I rightly prized her, now had worn! I get but my deservings!

[Enter TRUEWORTH, leading in LYDIA, richly dressed, and veiled front head to foot.]

Master Trueworth, Though for thy treachery thou hast excuse, Thou must account for it; so much I lose! Sir, you have wronged me to amount beyond Acres, and gold, and life, which makes them rich. And compensation I demand of you, Such as a man expects, and none but one That's less than man refuses! Where's the maid You falsely did abstract?

True. I took her hence, But not by guile, nor yet enforcement, sir; But of her free will, knowing what she did. That, as I found, I cannot give her back, I own her state is changed, but in her place This maid I offer you, her image far As feature, form, complexion, nature go! Resemblance halting, only there, where thou Thyself didst pause, condition, for this maid Is gently born and generously bred. Lo! for your fair loss, fair equivalent!

Wal. Show me another sun, another earth I can inherit, as this Sun and Earth; As thou didst take the maid, the maid herself Give back! herself, her sole equivalent!

True. Her sole equivalent I offer you! My sister, sir, long counted lost, now found, Who fled her home unwelcome bands to 'scape, Which a half-father would have forced upon her, Taking advantage of her brother's absence Away on travel in a distant land! Returned, I missed her; of the cause received Invention, coward, false and criminating! And gave her up for lost; but happily Did find her yesterday—Behold her, sir!

[Removes veil.]

Wal. Lydia!

W. Green. My waiting-maid!

Wal. Thy sister, Trueworth! Art thou fit brother to this virtuous maid?

True. [Giving LYDIA to WALLER.] Let this assure thee.

Lydia. [To WIDOW GREEN.] Madam, pardon me My double character, for honesty, No other end assumed—and my concealment Of Master Waller's love. In all things else I trust I may believe you hold me blameless; At least, I'll say for you, I should be so, For it was pastime, madam, not a task, To wait upon you! Little you exacted, And ever made the most of what I did In mere obedience to you!

W. Green. Give me your hand, No love without a little roguery. If you do play the mistress well as maid, You will hear off the bell! There never was A better girl!—I have made myself a fool. I am undone, if goes the news abroad. My wedding dress I donned for no effect Except to put it off! I must be married. I'm a lost woman, if another day I go without a husband!—What a sight He looks by Master Waller!—Yet he is physic I die without, so needs must gulp it down. I'll swallow him with what good grace I can, Sir William Fondlove!

Sir Wil. Widow Green!

W. Green. I own I have been rude to you. Thou dost not look So old by thirty, forty, years as I Did say. Thou'rt far from ugly—very far! And as I said, Sir William, once before, Thou art a kind and right good-humoured man: I was but angry with you! Why, I'll tell you At more convenient season—and you know An angry woman heeds not what she says, And will say anything!

Sir Wil. I were unworthy The name of man, if an apology So gracious came off profitless, and from A lady! Will you take me, Widow Green?

W. Green. Hem! [Curtsies.]

True. [To WILDRAKE.] Master Wildrake dressed to go to church! She has acknowledged, then, she loves thee?—No? Give me thy hand, I'll lead thee up to her.

Wild. 'Sdeath! what are you about? You know her not. She'll brain thee!

True. Fear not: come along with me. Fair Mistress Constance!

Con. Well, sir!

Wild. [To TRUEWORTH.] Mind!

True. Don't fear. Love you not neighbour Wildrake?

Con. Love, sir?

True. Yes, You do.

Con. He loves another, sir, he does! I hate him. We were children, sir, together For fifteen years and more; there never came The day we did not quarrel, make it up, Quarrel again, and make it up again: Were never neighbours more like neighbours, sir. Since he became a man, and I a woman, It still has been the same; nor eared I ever To give a frown to any other, sir. And now to come and tell me he's in love, And ask me to be bridemaid to his bride! How durst he do it, sir!—To fall in love! Methinks at least he might have asked my leave, Nor had I wondered had he asked myself, sir!

Wild. Then give thyself to me!

Con. How! what!

Wild. Be mine, Thou art the only maid thy neighbour loves.

Con. Art serious, neighbour Wildrake?

Wild. In the church I'll answer thee, if thou wilt take me; though I neither dress, nor walk, nor dance, nor know "The Widow Jones" from an Italian, French, Or German air.

Con. No more of that.—My hand.

Wild. Givest it as free as thou didst yesterday?

Con. [Affecting to strike him.] Nay!

Wild. I will thank it, give it how thou wilt.

W. Green. A triple wedding! May the Widow Green Obtain brief hearing e'er she quits the scene, The Love-Chase to your kindness to commend In favour of an old, now absent, friend!



Footnotes:

THE END