Part 3
_Coun._ I will tell you, madam--you are not ignorant that your husband took you without a fortune; that he generously gave the little our father left you to your younger sister, with the benevolent addition of two thousand pounds--you know too, that by marriage articles, upon a separation or your husband’s death, you are entitled only to a hundred pounds a year; which cautious pittance his prudence wisely insisted on, as a necessary check upon the conduct of giddy, female youth, and thoughtless vanity, when matched with the tempered age of sobriety and discretion--now, madam, I am commissioned to inform you, that the doors are open, and that the stipulated sum will be punctually paid you, as your vicious appetite shall demand; for know, that neither your husband’s love, my affection, nor a residence in this house can be enjoyed by you another hour, but on the hard condition of a thorough reformation.
_Mrs. Dig._ Sir!
_Coun._ Madam, it is true; for if female vanity will be mad, husbands must be peremptory.
_Mrs. Dig._ Pray, sir, do not speak so loud.
_Coun._ Why not?
_Mrs. Dig._ The company will hear you.
_Coun._ I know it--and I intend they shall.
_Mrs. Dig._ Oh, oh, oh! I shall be ashamed for ever--pray do not speak so loud--bless me, brother, you startle me--what is it you mean?
_Coun._ Will you hear what I have to say? will you attend to the dictates of a brother’s love, with modest patience, and virtuous candour?
_Mrs. Dig._ I will.
_Coun._ Sit down--know then, in your husband’s judgment, the sums you have squandered, and those you have been cheated of by your female friends, is your least offence--it is your pride, your midnight revels, insolence of taste, rage of precedency, that grieve him; for they have made you the ridicule of every flirt and coxcomb, and the scorn and pity of every sober person that knows your folly; this reflects disgrace upon your friends, contempt upon the spirit and credit of your husband, and has furnished whispering suspicion with stories and implications, which have secretly fixed an infectious stain upon your chastity. (_both rise_)
_Mrs. Dig._ My chastity! I defy the world!
_Coun._ Aye, madam, you may defy it; but she who does, will find the world too hard a match for her.
_Mrs. Dig._ I care not what slander says--I will rely upon my innocence.
_Coun._ But I will not, madam, nor shall you--it is not sufficient for my sister, your husband’s wife, or female reputation, to rely on innocence alone--women must not only be innocent, they must appear so too.
_Mrs. Dig._ Brother, I don’t know what you mean by all this. I beg you will explain.
_Coun._ I will--know then, this coxcomb Mushroom--
_Mrs. Dig._ Mushroom!
_Coun._ Mushroom!--as a man of wit and spirit, thought himself obliged to take some hints your levity had given him.
_Mrs. Dig._ I give him hints--brother, you wrong me.
_Coun._ Pray hear me--this spark, I say, like a true man of intrigue, not only returns your hints with a letter of gallantry, but bribes your own woman to deliver it.
_Mrs. Dig._ My woman!
_Coun._ The same.
_Mrs. Dig._ I am ignorant of all this, and will turn her out of the house this instant.
_Coun._ Softly! hear the whole! the maid, instead of carrying the letter to you, delivers that, and many others, to her master, who, in your name, hand, stile, and sentiment, has answered them all, and carried on an amorous correspondence with the gentleman, even up to an assignation; and, now, at this very instant, the spark is preparing for the happy interview, and has made the town the confidants of his good fortune.
_Mrs. Dig._ O heavens!
_Coun._ Now judge what your husband, brother, and your friends must feel, and what the world must think of her, whose conduct could entitle a coxcomb to such liberties.
_Mrs. Dig._ Brother, I shall make no defence--the story shocks me! and though I know my own intentions, yet what people may say--but, be assured, I shall be more prudent for the future--perhaps I have been to blame--pray advise me--only say what I shall do to be revenged upon the fellow for his impudence, and what will convince my husband, you, and all the world of my innocence, and I will do it. I protest you have given such a motion to my heart, and such a trouble and a trembling, as it never felt before.
_Coun._ It is a virtuous motion--encourage it--for the anxiety and tears of repentance, though the rarest, are the brightest ornaments a modern fine lady can be deck’d in.
Katty _and_ O’Dogherty _without_.
_O’Dogh._ I shall be in here with the counsellor, Katty, and the moment he comes, bring me word.
_Katty._ I shall, sir.
_Coun._ Here your husband comes.
_Mrs. Dig._ I am ashamed to see him.
_Enter_ O’Dogherty.
_O’Dogh._ Well, brother, have you spoke to her?
_Coun._ There she is, sir--and as she should be--bathed in the tears of humility and repentance.
_O’Dogh._ Ogh! I am sorry to see this indeed--I am afraid you have gone too far. If I had been by, I assure you, brother, you should not have made her cry.--Yerrow, Nancy, child, turn about, and don’t be crying there.
_Mrs. Dig._ Sir, I am asham’d to see your face--my errors I acknowledge--and for the future--
_O’Dogh._ Pooh, pooh--I will have no submissions nor acknowledgments; if you have settled every thing with your brother, that is sufficient.
_Mrs. Dig._ I hope he is satisfied--and it shall be the business of my life--
_O’Dogh._ Pooh, pooh! say no more I tell you, but come, give me a kiss, and let us be friends at once--there--so, in that kiss, now, let all tears and uneasiness subside with you, as all fears and resentment shall die with me.
_Coun._ Come, sister, give me your hand, for I must have my kiss of peace too. I own I have been a little severe with you, but your disease required sharp medicines.
_O’Dogh._ Now we are friends, Nancy, I have a favour or two to beg of you.
_Mrs. Dig._ Pray, command them.
_O’Dogh._ Why, then, the first thing that I ask, is, that you will send away that French rascal the cook, with his compots and combobs, his alamodes and aladobes, his crapandoes and frigandoes, and a thousand outlandish kickshaws, that I am sure were never designed for Christian food; and let the good rough rumps of beef, the jolly surloins, the geese and turkies, cram fowls, bacon and greens; and the pies, puddings and pasties, that used to be perfectly shoving one another off of the table, so that there was not room for the people’s plates; with a fine large cod too, as big as a young alderman--I say, let all those French kickshaws be banished from my table, and these good old Irish dishes be put in their places; and then the poor every day will have something to eat.
_Mrs. Dig._ They shall, sir.
_O’Dogh._ And as to yourself, my dear Nancy, I hope I shall never have any more of your London English; none of your this here’s, your that there’s, your winegars, your weals, your vindors, your toastesses, and your stone postesses; but let me have our own good plain, old Irish English, which I insist upon is better than all the English English that ever coquets and coxcombs brought into the land.
_Mrs. Dig._ I will get rid of these as fast as possible.
_O’Dogh._ And pray, above all things, never call me Mr. Diggerty--my name is Murrogh O’Dogherty, and I am not ashamed of it; but that damn’d name Diggerty always vexes me whenever I hear it.
_Mrs. Dig._ Then, upon my honour, Mr. O’Dogherty, it shall never vix you again.
_O’Dogh._ Ogh, that’s right, Nancy--O’Dogherty for ever--O’Dogherty!--there’s a sound for you--why they have not such a name in all England as O’Dogherty--nor as any of our fine sounding Milesian names--what are your Jones and your Stones, your Rice and your Price, your Heads and your Foots, and Hands and your Wills, and Hills and Mills, and Sands, and a parcel of little pimping names that a man would not pick out of the street, compared to the O’Donovans, O’Callaghans, O’Sullivans, O’Brallaghans, O’Shaghnesses, O’Flahertys, O’Gallaghers, and O’Doghertys,--Ogh, they have courage in the very sound of them, for they come out of the mouth like a storm; and are as old and as stout as the oak at the bottom of the bog of Allen, which was there before the flood--and though they have been dispossessed by upstarts and foreigners, buddoughs and sassanoughs, yet I hope they will flourish in the Island of Saints, while grass grows or water runs.
_Enter_ Katty.
_Katty._ Mr. Mushroom is come, sir.
_O’Dogh._ What, in his woman’s cloaths?
_Katty._ Yes, sir.
_O’Dogh._ Impudent rascal! and where have you put him, Katty?
_Katty._ In the back parlour, sir.
_O’Dogh._ Odzooks! Katty, go down, and shew him up here--this is the largest room to exercise the gentleman in--begone, quick, and leave all the rest to me.
_Katty._ I am gone, sir. [_Exit._
_O’Dogh._ My dear, you must act a part in this farce; the better to bring the rascal into ridicule.
_Mrs. Dig._ Any thing to be revenged of him for his ill opinion of me.
_O’Dogh._ Step into your own room, then, and I will come and instruct you how to behave. [_Exit Mrs._ Dig.
And, brother, do you go and open the affair to the company, and bring them here to listen to the Count’s gallantry, and to be witnesses of his making me a cuckold.
_Coun._ I warrant you I will prepare them for the scene. But, brother, be sure you make the gentleman smart. [_Exit._
_O’Dogh._ Ogh, leave him to me--by the honour of the whole Irish nation I will make him remember the name of Diggerty, as sensibly as ever his school-master did hic, hæc, hoc, genitivo hujus--an impudent rascal! make a cuckold of an Irishman--what, take our own trade out of our hands--and a branch of business we value ourselves so much upon too--why, sure that and the Linen Manufacture are the only free trade we have.--O, here the company come.
_Enter all the Company._
_L. Kin._ Well, where is this Count, this hero of intrigue?
_O’Dogh._ Below stairs.
_L. Bab._ And in woman’s cloaths, Mr. Dogherty?
_O’Dogh._ And in woman’s cloaths, Lady Bab, come to make a cuckold of me; and if you will all hide yourselves in the next room, you may see how the operation proceeds--hush--here he comes--get in, get in--and do not stir--here he is--begone. [_They all retire.--Exit_ O’Dogh.
_Enter_ Katty, _and_ Mushroom _in woman’s cloaths_.
_Katty._ Step into this room for a moment, sir, and I will let my mistress know you are here--I protest I should not have known you.
_Mush._ Should not you? Ha, ha, ha! Why I think I do make a handsome woman, Mrs. Katty.
_Katty._ Handsome! why you are a perfect beauty! you are the very picture of a Connaught lady, that visits my mistress--well, I will go and see if the coast is clear, and let her know you are come.
_Mush._ Do, dear Mrs. Katty, and tell her my soul is all rapture, extacy, and transport, and rides upon the wings of love.
_Katty._ I will, I will, sir. [_Exit._
_Mush._ A man must speak nonsense to these creatures, or they will not believe he loves them. I shall have more intrigues upon my hands in this country than I shall know what to do with; for I find the women all like me. As to Lady Kinnegad, I see she is determined to have me.
_L. Kin._ Indeed! Conceited puppy!
_Mush._ But she is gross, coarse, and stinks of sweets intolerably.
_L. Kin._ Rascal!
_Mush._ Gazette is well enough; I am sure I can have her. Yes, she’s a blood, but she won’t do above once and away.
_Gazette._ Saucy fellow!--but once indeed--I assure you!
_Mush._ Jolly has some thoughts of me too, I see--but she’s an idiot, a fool--damned silly.
_Mrs. Jolly._ Mighty well, sir--very well--
_Mush._ But of all the spectacles that ever attempted to awaken gallantry, sure Nature never formed such another antidote as poor Lady Bab.
_L. Bab._ Oh the villain!--an antidote--an antidote--
_Mush._ She always puts me in mind of an old house newly painted and white washed.
_L. Bab._ I will go tear his eyes out.
_Mush._ Then she is continually feeding that nose of hers, and smells stronger of rappee than Lady Kinnegad does of the Spice Islands.
_L. Kin._ Oh, the rascal!
_Mush._ That Kinnegad is a damned tartar; she and Mrs. Cardmark have fleeced poor Diggerty horridly--when I get Diggerty to England, I will introduce her to my Lord; for by that time I shall be tir’d of her. Oh, here the party comes.
_Enter Mrs._ Diggerty _and_ Katty.
My angel! my goddess!
_Mrs. Dig._ O dear Mr. Mushroom, how could you venture so? I am ready to die with apprehension, lest my husband should discover you.
_Mush._ Never fear, my charmer; love despises all dangers, when such beauty as your’s is the prize.
_Mrs. Dig._ But I hope, Mr. Mushroom, your passion is sincere?
_Mush._ Madam, the winged architect of the Cyprian goddess has fabricated a pathetic structure in this breast, which the iron teeth of Time can never destroy.
_Mrs. Dig._ O dear Mr. Mushroom, you are veestly kind.
_Katty._ Come, come, madam, do you lose no time, retire to your chamber, there you will be safe, here you may be interrupted.
_Mrs. Dig._ Do you step and send the servants out of the way.
_Mush._ Do, do, dear Mrs. Katty.
_Katty._ I will, I will. [_Exit._
_Mush._ Dear creature, do but lay your hand upon my heart, and feel what an alarm of love and gratitude it beats.
Katty _and_ O’Dogherty _without_.
_O’Dogh._ Well, but Katty, if she is so very ill, that is the very reason why I must see her.
_Mush._ Zounds! your husband’s voice!
_Mrs. Dig._ O heavens!
_Enter_ Katty.
_Katty._ My master, my master!
_Mrs. Dig._ What will become of me?
_Katty._ Run you down the back stairs, madam, and leave him to me.
_Mrs. Dig._ Dear sir, farewel; for heaven’s sake, don’t discover yourself.
_Mush._ No, no, madam, never fear me, not for the world.
_Mrs. Dig._ Adieu. [_Exit._
_Mush._ What the devil shall I do, Mrs. Katty?
_Katty._ Sit you still, sir, at all events--I will put out the candles. (_Puts them out._)--He will take you for my mistress; pretend to be very ill; leave the rest to me. Sure you can mimic a fine lady that has the vapours or the cholic.
_Mush._ O nobody better!--nobody better--
_Enter_ O’Dogherty _with a Pistol_.
_O’Dogh._ Heyday! what in the dark, my dear?
_Katty._ Yes, sir, my mistress is very ill, and cannot bear the light.
_O’Dogh._ What is her complaint?
_Katty._ The cholic, sir.
_O’Dogh._ The cholic, sir! and what good can darkness do the cholic, sir--get candles.
_Mush._ Oh, oh!--no candles--no lights, pray my dear, no lights.
_Katty._ No, no lights--my lady has the headache, as well as the cholic, and the lights make her much worse; therefore, pray let her sit in the dark, she will soon be well--are you any better, madam?
_Mush._ A great deal, but no lights, pray--oh, oh,--no lights! no lights!
_O’Dogh._ Well, my dear, you shall have no lights, you shall have no lights--leave us, Katty--I have some business with your mistress. [_Exit_ Katty.
How are you, my dear? are you any better?
_Mush._ Oh, a great deal, my dear.
_O’Dogh._ I am mighty glad of it, my soul. But now, my dear, I have long wanted to have a little serious conversation with you upon a business that has given me the utmost uneasiness, nay indeed the utmost torture of mind; so without farther ceremony, and in one word, to come to the point--I am jealous, my dear.
_Mush._ How! jealous!
_O’Dogh._ Indeed I am, as are half the husbands of this town, and all occasioned by one man, which is that coxcomb, Count Mushroom.
_Mush._ He is a very great coxcomb, I own, my dear.
_O’Dogh._ You may say that with a safe conscience--and a great jackanapes he is too into the bargain; though, I must own, the fellow has something genteel in him notwithstanding.
_Mush._ O yes, my dear, he is a very pretty fellow--that all the world allows.
_O’Dogh._ It is very true, but his prettiness will be his ruin; for as he makes it his business and his glory to win the affections of women, wherever he goes, and as he has made conquests of several married women in this town, there are half a dozen husbands of us that have agreed to poison him.
_Mush._ How! poison him! O horrid! why that will be murder, my dear.
_O’Dogh._ O that is none of our business--let him look to that--we must leave that to the law--the fellow is always following you to the play-house, balls, and routs, and is constantly smiling at you, and ogling, and sighing--but if ever I catch him at those tricks again, as sure as his name is Mushroom, I will put the lining of this little pistol into the very middle of his scull.
_Mush._ Oh, oh, oh!
_O’Dogh._ He told me this morning that he had a new intrigue upon his hands this afternoon--I wish I knew where it was; by all that’s honourable, I would help the husband to put eight or ten inches of cold iron into the rascal’s bowels.
_Mush._ Oh, oh, oh!
_O’Dogh._ What is the matter, my dear? what makes you start and cry out so?--give me your hand--why you are all in a tremor!--ogho, why you have got the shaking ague.
_Mush._ I am mighty ill--mighty ill--
_O’Dogh._ Why you are all in a cold sweat--you had best go up stairs and lie down.
_Mush._ No, no, no,--oh, no!--
_O’Dogh._ Why you shall have some immediate help--here, Katty--John--William--who’s there?
_Enter_ William.
_Will._ Did your honour call, sir?
_O’Dogh._ Fly this minute to the next street to Mr. Carnage the surgeon, and bid him hasten hither to bleed my wife; then run as fast as you can to doctor Fillgrave, and tell him my wife is very ill, and must be blistered directly. Begone--fly--
_Will._ I will, sir. [_Exit._
_Mush._ Soh! what the devil shall I do now. I shall certainly be discovered. (_Aside._)
_O’Dogh._ How are you now, my dear?
_Mush._ O better, better, a great deal.
_O’Dogh._ Oh, but for fear of the worst, I will have you bled plentifully, my dear, and half a score good rousing blisters laid on by way of prevention; for it is a very sickly time, my life.
_Mush._ Aye, so it is, my soul. But, my dear, I begin to be a little better; pray send the maid hither.
_O’Dogh._ What do you want with the maid, my angel?
_Mush._ I want her upon a particular occasion, my love--oh, oh, oh--
_O’Dogh._ Very well, my dear, I’ll send her to you. I think we have the Count of the three blue balls in a fine pickle; but I have not done with him yet. I have laid a ridiculous snare for him, if he will but fall into it, that will not only expose him to the world, but cure him for ever, I think, of trespassing upon matrimonial premisses. [_Exit._
_Mush._ Was ever poor devil so sweated! I wish I were out of the kingdom! I shall certainly be poisoned among them! they are a damned barbarous people. I have often heard of the wild Irish, but never believed there were such till now. Poison a man, only for having an intrigue with a friend’s wife. Zounds, we never mind such things in England; but they are unpolished beings here.
_Enter_ Katty _with two candles_.
_Mush._ Oh! Mrs. Katty, get me out of the house, or I am a dead man--he suspects I have a design upon his wife, and carries a loaded pistol to shoot me.
_Katty._ O heavens, sir--I don’t know what to do with you--here comes my poor mistress, frighted out of her wits too.
_Enter Mrs._ Diggerty.
_Mush._ O, madam! if you don’t contrive to convey me out of the house some way or other, I shall be detected, poisoned, shot, or run through the vitals.
_Mrs. Dig._ I am so distracted, I cannot think--you must even discover yourself to him, and say you came hither in that disguise out of a frolic.
_Mush._ Zounds, a frolic! Madam, he is as jealous as a Spanish miser, or an Italian doctor; he has a pistol in his pocket loaden with a brace of balls--he would shoot me, run me through the body, or poison me directly, should he discover me--have you no closet, or cup-board? dear, Mrs. Katty, cannot you contrive to get me out of the house in some shape or other?
_Katty._ Why yes, sir, I have a contrivance that I think might save you.
_Mush._ What is it? what is it? quick, quick, for heaven’s sake; for he certainly has a pistol in his pocket--he shewed it to me.
_Katty._ Why, sir, I have a large portmanteau trunk, by the help of which, I think, you might be safely conveyed out of the house, if you would but submit to be shut up in it.
_Mush._ Submit! zounds! any thing, any thing, dear Mrs. Katty, to save my own life and a lady’s honour. Why, child, it is an excellent contrivance, and, in my condition, perhaps the only one that could relieve me. For heaven’s sake, let me see it--where is it?
_Katty._ It stands just without the door here in the passage--(_Brings it in._) Here it is, sir, if it is but big enough--that’s all the danger.
_Mush._ Zounds! let me try it--let me try it--quick--quick--put in my cloaths--there--cram me in--buckle me up--stay, stay--leave this end a little open for air, or I shall be stifled--very well--excellent well--Mrs. Katty--there--cram me in--it will do--snug--snug--damned snug--
_Mrs. Dig._ Now call the men to carry it up to your room.
_Katty._ Here, John, William--
_Servants without._
_Serv._ Madam.
_Katty._ Come here quickly.
_Enter_ John _and_ William.
_Katty._ Here take this portmanteau on your shoulders, and carry it up to my room--make haste. [_The servants turn it up endways, with_ Mushroom’_s head to the ground, then raise it on their shoulders_.]
_Enter_ O’Dogherty.
_O’Dogh._ Where are you going with that portmantle?
_John._ Up to Mrs. Katty’s room.
_O’Dogh._ Set it down here--what have you got in this portmantle, Katty?
_Katty._ It is, sir--it is--
_O’Dogh._ What, what is it?
_Katty._ Why it is--it is--
_O’Dogh._ Speak this minute, or I will put my sword up to the hilts in it.
_Mush._ Ah! Hold, hold--my dear Diggerty, hold--’tis I--’tis I--
_O’Dogh._ I--who the devil is I?--
_Mush._ Mushroom--your friend Mushroom.
_O’Dogh._ What! Count Mushroom!
_Mush._ The same--the very same.--
_O’Dogh._ Hold the candle--aye, it is my friend the Count indeed.
_Mush._ Zounds, my dear Diggerty--you have dropped the hot wax on my face--do pray let me out.
_O’Dogh._ And so this was the new intrigue you told me of this afternoon.
_Mush._ Ah, my dear Diggerty, I was but in jest, upon my honour.
_O’Dogh._ Aye, now you are right, Count--the intrigue was but in jest on my wife’s side, indeed--here, ladies, come hither, and see this hero of intrigue and taste that they all admire so much.
_Mush._ Ah, dear Diggerty, don’t expose me.
_Enter the Company._
_Omnes._ Ha, ha, ha!
_O’Dogh._ Here, John--set him upon his legs on the ground--so--there--Lady Kinnegad, pray let me introduce you to the knight of the leathern portmantle.