MOLLY. That was the fiddler’s fault; you know he sold his daughter, and gave a receipt for the money.
MR. APSHONES. Hath he not made mischief between several men and their wives? And do you not know that he lusts after every woman he sees, though the poor wretch does not look as if he was quite come from nurse yet?
MOLLY. Sure angels cannot have more sweetness in their looks than he.
MR. APSHONES. Angels! baboons! these are the creatures that resembles our beaus the most. If they have any sweetness in them, ‘tis from the same reason that an orange hath. Why have our women fresher complexions and more health in their countenances here than in London, but because we have fewer beaus among us; in that I will have you think no more of him! for I have no design upon him, and I will prevent his designs upon you. If he comes here any more I will acquaint his mother.
MOLLY. Be first assured that his designs are not honourable, before you rashly ruin them.
MR. APSHONES. I will consent to no clandestine affair. Let the great rob one another, and us, if they please; I will show them the poor can be honest. I desire only to preserve my daughter, let them preserve their son.
MOLLY. O, sir, would you preserve your daughter, you must preserve her love.
AIR XXI.
So deep within your Molly’s heart,
Her Owen’s image lies,
That if with Owen she must part,
Your wretched daughter dies.
Thus when unto the soldier’s breast
The arrow flies too sure,
When thence its fatal point you wrest,
Death is his only cure.
MR. APSHONES. Pugh, pugh, you must cure one love by another: I have a new sweetheart for you — and I’ll throw you in a new suit of clothes into the bargain — which, I can tell you, is enough to balance the affections of women of much higher rank than yourself.
MOLLY. Nothing can recompense the loss of my Owen; and as to what he loses by me, my behaviour shall make him amends.
MR. APSHONES. Poor girl! how ignorant she is of the world; but little she knows that no qualities can make amends for the want of fortune, and that fortune makes a sufficient amends for the want of every good quality.
MOLLY. My dear Owen, I am sure, will think otherwise.
AIR XXII. Let ambition -fire the mind.
Happy with the man I love,
I’ll obsequious watch his will;
Hottest pleasures I shall prove,
While his pleasures I fulfil.
Dames, by proudest titles known,
Shall desire what we possess;
And while they’d less happy own
Grandeur is not happiness.
MR. APSHONES. I will hear no more — remember what I have said, and study to be dutiful — or you are no child of mine.
MOLLY. Oh! unhappy wretch that I am: I must have no husband, or no father — What shall I do — or whither shall I turn? Love pleads strong for a husband, duty for a father — yes, and duty for a husband too; but then what is one who is already so? — Well then, I will antedate my duty. I will think him my husband before he is so. But should he then prove false — and when I’ve lost my father, should I lose my husband too, that is impossible — falsehood and he are incompatible.
AIR XXIII. Sweet are the charms.
Beauties shall quit their darling town,
Lovers shall leave the fragrant shades,
Doctors upon the fee shall frown,
Parsons shall hate the masquerades;
Nay, ere I think of Owen ill,
Women shall leave their dear quadrille.
SCENE II.
MASTER OWEN APSHINKEN, MOLLY.
MASTER OWEN APSHINKEN. My dear Molly, let not the reflection on my past gaieties give thee any uneasiness; be assured I have long been tired with variety, and I find after all the changes I have run through both of women and clothes — a man hath need of no more than one woman and one suit at a time.
AIR XXIV. Under the greenwood-tree.
To wanton pleasures, roving charms,
I bid a long adieu,
While wrapt within my Molly’s arms,
I find enough in you.
By houses this, by horses that,
By clothes a third’s undone,
While this abides — the second rides,
The third can wear but one.
MOLLY. My dear, I will believe thee, and am resolved from this day forward to run all the hazards of my life with thee. — Let thy rieh parents or my poor parents say what they will, let us henceforth have no other desire than to make one another parents.
MASTER OWEN APSHINKEN. With all my heart, my dear; and the sooner we begin to love — the sooner we shall be so.
MOLLY. Begin to love! — Alas, my dear, is it now to begin? —
MASTER OWEN APSHINKEN. Not the theory of love, my angel — to that I have long been an apprentice; so long that I now desire to set up my trade.
MOLLY. Let us then to the parson — I am as willing to be married as thou art.
MASTER OWEN APSHINKEN. Why the parson, my dear? —
MOLLY. We can’t be married without him.
MASTER OWEN APSHINKEN. No, but we can love without him; and what have we to do with marriage while we can love? — Marriage is but a dirty road to love — and those are happiest who arrive at love without travelling through it.
AIR XXV. Dearest charmer.
Will you still bid me tell,
What you discern so well
By my expiring sighs,
My doating eyes?
Look through th’ instructive grove,
Each object prompts to love,
Hear how the turtles coo,
All nature tells you what to do.
MOLLY. Too well I understand you now — No, no, however dirty the road of marriage be — I will to love no other way — Alas! there is no other way but one — and that is dirtier still — None travel through it without sullying their reputations beyond the possibility of cleaning.
MASTER OWEN APSHINKEN. When cleanliness is out of fashion, who would desire to be clean? — And when ladies of quality appear with dirty reputations, why should you fear a little spot on yours?
MOLLY. Ladies of quality may wear bad reputations as well as bad clothes, and be admired in both — but women of lower rank must be decent, or they will be disregarded; for no woman can pass without one good quality, unless she be a woman of very great quality.
MASTER OWEN APSHINKEN. You judge too severely. — Nature never prompts us to a real crime: it is the imposition of a priest, not nature’s voice, which bars us from a pleasure allowed to every beast but man — but why do I this to convince thee by arguments of what thou art sufficiently certain? Why should I refute your tongue, when your fond eyes refute it?
AIR XXVI. Canny Boatman.
How can I trust your words precise.
My soft desires denying,
When, Oh! I read within your eyes,
Your tender heart complying.
Your tongue may cheat,
And with deceit,
Your softer wishes cover;
But Oh! your eyes
Know no disguise,
Nor ever cheat your lover.
MOLLY. Away, false perjured barbarous wretch — is this the love you have for me, to undo me — to ruin me?
MASTER OWEN APSHINKEN. Oh! do not take on thee thus, my dear Molly — I would sooner ruin myself than thee.
MOLLY. Ay, so it appears. — Oh! fool that I was to think thou couldst be constant who hast ruined so many women — to think that thou ever didst intend to marry me, who hast long been practised in the arts of seducing our sex — Henceforth I will sooner think it possible for butter to come when the witch is in the churn — for hay to dry in the rain — for wheat to be ripe at Christmas — for cheese to be made without milk — for a barn to be free from mice — for a warren to be free from rats — for a cherry orchard to be free from blackbirds — or for a churchyard to b
e free from ghosts, as for a young man to be free from falsehood.
MASTER OWEN APSHINKEN. Be not enraged, my sweetest dear. — Let me kiss away thy passion.
MOLLY. Avaunt — a blight is in thy kiss — thy breath is the wind of wantonness — and virtue cannot grow near thee.
AIR XXVII. I’ll range around.
Since you so base and faithless be,
And would — without marrying me,
A maid I’ll go to Pluto’s shore,
Nor think of men or — marriage more.
MASTER OWEN APSHINKEN. You’ll repent that resolution before you get half-way — She’ll go pout and pine away half an hour by herself, then relapse into a fit of fondness, and be all my own.
AIR XXVIII. Chloe is false.
Women in vain love’s powerful torrent
With unequal strength oppose;
Reason a while may stem the strong current,
Love still at last her soul o’erflows;
Pleasures inviting,
Passions exciting.
Her lover charms her,
Of pride disarms her,
Down she goes.
SCENE III
A Field.
ROBIN, WILLIAM, JOHN, THOMAS.
WILLIAM. Here’s as proper a place as can be for our business.
ROBIN. The sooner the better.
JOHN. Come, Thomas, thou and I will not be idle.
THOMAS. I’ll take a knock or two for love, with all my heart.
AIR XXIX. Britons strike home.
WILLIAM. Robin, come on, come on, come on,
As soon as you please.
ROBIN. Will, I will hit thee a slap in the,
Slap in the, slap in the face.
WILLIAM. Would, would I could see it,
I would with both feet
Give thee such a kick by the by.
ROBIN. If you dare, sir, do.
WILLIAM. Why do not, sir, you?
ROBIN. I’m ready, I’m ready,
WILLIAM. And so am I too.
THOMAS. You must fight to some other tune, or you will never fight at all.
SCENE IV.
ROBIN, WILLIAM, JOHN, THOMAS, SUSAN.
SUSAN. What are you doing, you set of lazy rascals? — Do you consider my master will be at home within these two hours, and find nothing ready for his supper?
WILLIAM. Let my master come when he will — If he keeps Robin, I am free to go as soon as he pleases; Robin and I will not live in one house together.
SUSAN. Why, what’s the matter?
ROBIN. He wanted to get my mistress from me, that’s all.
WILLIAM. You lie, sirrah, you lie.
ROBIN. Who do you call liar, you blockhead? — I say, you lie.
WILLIAM. And I say you lie.
ROBIN. And you lie.
WILLIAM. And I say you lie again.
ROBIN. The devil take the greatest liar, I say.
AIR XXX. Mother, quoth Hodge.
SUSAN. Oh fie upon’t, Robin, Oh fie upon’t, Will,
What language like this, what scullion defames?
‘Twere better your tongues should ever be still,
Than always be scolding and calling vile names.
WILLIAM. ‘Twas he that lies
Did first devise,
The first words were his, and the last shall be mine.
ROBIN. You kiss my dog.
WILLIAM. You’re a sly dog.
ROBIN. Loggerhead.
WILLIAM. Blockhead.
ROBIN. Fool.
WILLIAM. Fox.
ROBIN. Swine.
WILLIAM. Sirrah, I’ll make you repent you ever quarrelled with me. — I will tell my master of two silver spoons you stole — I’ll discover your tricks — your selling of glasses, and pretending the frost broke them — making master brew more beer than he needed, and then giving it away to your own family; especially to feed the great swollen belly of that fat-gutted brother of yours — who gets drunk twice a day at master’s expense.
ROBIN. Ha, ha, ha! And is this all?
WILLIAM. No, sirrah, it is not all — then there’s your filing the plate, and when it was found lighter, pretended that it was wasted in cleaning; and your bills for tutty and rotten-stone, when you used nothing but poor whiting. Sirrah, you have been such a rogue, that you have stole above half my master’s plate, and spoiled the rest.
SUSAN. Fie upon’t, William, what have we to do with master’s losses? He is rich, and can afford it. — Don’t let us quarrel among ourselves — let us stand by one another — for, let me tell you, if matters were to be too nicely examined into, I am afraid it would go hard with us all — Wise servants always stick close to one another, like plums in a pudding that’s overwetted, says Susan the cook.
JOHN. Or horse in a stable that’s on fire — says John the groom.
THOMAS. Or grapes upon a wall — says Thomas the gardener.
SUSAN. Every servant should be sauce to his fellowservant — as sauce disguises the faults of a dish — so should he theirs. O William, were we all to have our deserts, we should be finely roasted indeed.
AIR XXXI. Dame of Honour.
A wise man others’ faults conceals
His own to get more clear of;
While folly all she knows reveals,
Sure what she does to hear of.
The parson and the lawyer’s blind,
Each to his brother’s erring —
For should you search, he knows you’d find
No barrel the better herring.
AIR XXXII. We have cheated the Parson.
ROBIN. Here stands honest Bob, who ne’er in his life
Was known to be guilty of faction and strife.
But oh what can
Appease the man,
Who would rob me of both my place and my wife.
WILLIAM. If you prove it, I will be hanged, and that’s fair.
ROBIN. I’ve that in my pocket will make it appear.
WILLIAM. Pry’thee what?
ROBIN. Ask you that,
When you know you have written against me so flat?
Here is your hand, though there is not your name to it — is not this your hand, sir?
WILLIAM. I don’t think it worth my while to tell you whether it is or no.
ROBIN. Was it not enough to try to supplant me in my place, but you must try to get my mistress?
WILLIAM. Your mistress — any man may have your mistress that can outbid you, for it is very well known you never had a mistress without paying for her.
ROBIN. But perhaps you may find me too cunning for you, and while you are attempting my place, you may lose your own.
AIR XXXIII. Hark, hark, the cock crows.
WILLIAM. When master thinks fit,
I am ready to quit
A place I so little regard, sir;
For while thou art here,
Xo merit must e’er
Expect to find any reward, sir.
The groom that is able
To manage his stable,
Of places enough need not doubt, sir;
But you, my good brother,
Will scarce find another,
If master should e’er turn you out, sir.
SUSAN. If you can’t be friends without it, you had best fight it out once for all.
WILLIAM. Ay — so say I.
ROBIN. No, no, I am for no fighting; it is but a word and a blow with William; he would set the whole parish together by the ears, if he could; and it is very well known what difficulties I have been put to to keep peace in it.
WILLIAM. I suppose peace-making is one of the secret services you have done master — for they are such secrets, that your friend the devil can hardly discover — and whence does your peace-making arise, but from your fears of getting a black eye, or bloody nose, in the squabble? — for if you could set the whole parish a boxing, without boxing yourself, it is well known you would do it, sirrah, sirrah — had your love for the tenants been the occasion of your
peace-making, as you call it, you would not be always making master so hard upon them in every court; and prevent him giving them the fat ox at Christmas, on pretence of good husbandry.
ROBIN. Yours you have a great love for, master, we know by your driving to inch, as you do, sirrah. You are such a headstrong devil, that you will overturn the coach one day or other, and break both master and mistress’s necks; it is always neck or nothing with you.
SUSAN. Oh fie! William, pray let me be the mediator between you.
ROBIN. Ay, ay, let Susan be the mediator, I’ll refer my cause to any one — it is equal to me.
WILLIAM. No, no, I shall not refer an affair, wherein my honour is so concerned, to a woman.
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 273
