That you're very handsome.
Cher. That you're a footman.
Arch. That you're an angel.
Cher. I shall be rude.
Arch. So shall I.
Cher. Let go my hand.
Arch. Give me a kiss. [Kisses her.
Boniface. [Calls without.] Cherry, Cherry!
Cher. I'm – My father calls; you plaguy devil, how durst you stop my breath so? – Offer to follow me one step, if you dare. [Exit.
Arch. A fair challenge, by this light; this is a pretty fair opening of an adventure; but we are knight-errants, and so fortune be our guide! [Exit.
ACT THE SECOND
SCENE I
Dor. 'Morrow, my dear sister; are you for church this morning?
Mrs. Sul. Any where to pray; for Heaven alone can help me: but I think, Dorinda, there's no form of prayer in the Liturgy against bad husbands.
Dor. But there's a form of law at Doctors' Commons; and I swear, sister Sullen, rather than see you thus continually discontented, I would advise you to apply to that: for besides the part that I bear in your vexatious broils, as being sister to the husband, and friend to the wife, your examples give me such an impression of matrimony, that I shall be apt to condemn my person to a long vacation all its life – But supposing, madam, that you brought it to a case of separation, what can you urge against your husband? my brother is, first, the most constant man alive.
Mrs. Sul. The most constant husband, I grant ye.
Dor. He never sleeps from you.
Mrs. Sul. No, he always sleeps with me.
Dor. He allows you a maintenance suitable to your quality.
Mrs. Sul. A maintenance! do you take me, madam, for an hospital child, that I must sit down and bless my benefactors, for meat, drink, and clothes? As I take it, madam, I brought your brother ten thousand pounds, out of which I might expect some pretty things, called pleasures.
Dor. You share in all the pleasures that the country affords.
Mrs. Sul. Country pleasures! racks and torments! dost think, child, that my limbs were made for leaping of ditches, and clambering over stiles; or that my parents, wisely foreseeing my future happiness in country pleasures, had early instructed me in the rural accomplishments of drinking fat ale, playing at whist, and smoaking tobacco with my husband; and stilling rosemary water, with the good old gentlewoman my mother-in-law?
Dor. I'm sorry, madam, that it is not more in our power to divert you; I could wish, indeed, that our entertainments were a little more polite, or your taste a little less refined; but pray, madam, how came the poets and philosophers, that laboured so much in hunting after pleasure, to place it at last in a country life?
Mrs. Sul. Because they wanted money, child, to find out the pleasures of the town: Did you ever hear of a poet or philosopher worth ten thousand pounds? if you can show me such a man, I'll lay you fifty pounds you'll find him somewhere within the weekly bills. Not that I disapprove rural pleasures, as the poets have painted them in their landscapes; every Phyllis has her Corydon, every murmuring stream, and every flowery mead give fresh alarms to love – Besides, you'll find, their couples were never married: – But yonder, I see my Corydon, and a sweet swain it is, Heaven knows – Come, Dorinda, don't be angry, he's my husband, and your brother, and between both, is he not a sad brute?
Dor. I have nothing to say to your part of him; you're the best judge.
Mrs. Sul. O sister, sister! if ever you marry, beware of a sullen, silent sot, one that's always musing, but never thinks – There's some diversion in a talking blockhead; and since a woman must wear chains, I would have the pleasure of hearing 'em rattle a little. – Now you shall see; but take this by the way; he came home this morning, at his usual hour of four, waked me out of a sweet dream of something else, by tumbling over the tea-table, which he broke all to pieces; after his man and he has rolled about the room like sick passengers in a storm, he comes flounce into bed, dead as a salmon into a fishmonger's basket; his feet cold as ice, his breath hot as a furnace, and his hands and his face as greasy as his flannel night-cap – Oh matrimony! matrimony! – He tosses up the clothes with a barbarous swing over his shoulders, disorders the whole economy of my bed, and my whole night's comfort is the tuneable serenade of that wakeful nightingale, his nose. – O the pleasure of counting the melancholy clock by a snoring husband! – But now, sister, you shall see how handsomely, being a well-bred man, he will beg my pardon.
Sul. My head aches consumedly.
Mrs. Sul. Will you be pleased, my dear, to drink tea with us this morning? it may do your head good.
Sul. No.
Dor. Coffee, brother?
Sul. Pshaw?
Mrs. Sul. Will you please to dress, and go to church with me? the air may help you.
Sul. Scrub!
Scrub. Sir!
Sul. What day o'the week is this?
Scrub. Sunday, an't please your worship.
Sul. Sunday! bring me a dram; and, d'ye hear, set out the venison pasty, and a tankard of strong beer upon the hall table, I'll go to breakfast. [Going.
Dor. Stay, stay, brother, you shan't get off so; you were very naught last night, and must make your wife reparation: come, come, brother, won't you ask pardon?
Sul. For what?
Dor. For being drunk last night.
Sul. I can afford it, can't I?
Mrs. Sul. But I can't, sir.
Sul. Then you may let it alone.
Mrs. Sul. But I must tell you, sir, that this is not to be borne.
Sul. I'm glad on't.
Mrs. Sul. What is the reason, sir, that you use me thus inhumanly?
Sul. Scrub!
Scrub. Sir!
Sul. Get things ready to shave my head. [Exit.
Mrs. Sul. Have a care of coming near his temples, Scrub, for fear you meet something there that may turn the edge of your razor. [Exit Scrub.] Inveterate stupidity! did you ever know so hard, so obstinate a spleen as his? O sister, sister! I shall never have good of the beast till I get him to town; London, dear London, is the place for managing and breaking a husband.
Dor.
