Scene laid in Northumberland, in and near the house of Mrs. Judith.
ACT I.
SCENE I.
THE HIGHROAD BEFORE MRS. JUDITH’S HOUSE.
Enter Charles.
Charles. A cold, wet, and misty evening, and above all to one whose pockets are not lined! My foolish fancy for the Stage has brought me to a declining stage, if not a stage of decline. Heigh ho! how dark it is getting! Just the sort of place to meet with a ghost of Hamlet, not the sort of hamlet that I’m looking after, for I have done with theatrical effects,—I wish that I had done with the effects of cold. How dark and gloomy that church steeple looks over the trees! I’m close to a churchyard, I suppose. And—ey! ey! what on earth are those white things upon the grass? Clothes put out to dry; what an ass I was not to see that before! but fasting makes one nervous. There’s a house. How cheerful the lights look in it! I hear the sound of a piano going. There must be ladies there, and ladies are ever good and kind. What if I were to try my fortune at the door? My poor namesake Prince Charlie must have put wanderers into fashion. Northumberland is near enough to Scotland to have imbibed a little of its spirit of romance. Poor Prince! we are fellows in misfortune as we were partners in ambition. We both sought to play the King, I on the boards, he in Britain; but his frea-king and my moc-king are both changed to aching on the moors, and a skul-king too, which makes us as thin as skeletons. I’ll try and muster up courage for a knock. [Knocks.]
I should not look the worse for a new coat, I think. My knee-ribbons are bleached quite pale with the wind and the rain. Mais n’importe! the man, the man remains the same! These locks have proved the keys to a Lady’s heart e’er now; and then wit and eloquence! When I was flogged at school for affirming that a furbelow must be an article, as I knew it to be an article of dress, my Master observed that all my brains lay at the root of my tongue; and the best position for them too, say I! Who would keep a prompter to bellow to one from the top of the Monument, and where’s the use of carrying one’s brains so high, that one must send a carrier pigeon express for one’s thoughts before one can express them at all? Better have wit to cover ignorance, than silence to conceal sense. One can’t squint into a man’s head to see what it contains. Here comes a light to the door: now for the encounter.
Weasel opens the door.
Is Mrs. [coughs] at home? Pray present my compliments to her, and say that a gentleman who has lost his way entreats the favour of shelter for a night under her hospitable roof.
Weasel. Shall I take up your name, Sir?
Charles. No, Sir, you may take up my words. [Exit Weasel.] Had the fellow been a Constable he might have taken me up also, for in this apparel I look more like a highwayman than a gentleman in a highway. How very cold it is! I wish that the triangular-nosed fellow would make haste; and yet my heart misgives me. I must ‘screw my courage to the sticking point!’ Impudence, impudence is my passport! I hear him shuffling downstairs. Be hardy, bold, and resolute, my heart.