The next wooer was a "person." Not a "personage." He was Owen McSwinney, a buffoon. He was the premier clown of his day and a local celebrity.
McSwinny was fairly well to do. And, when he died soon afterward, it was found that he had left his whole estate—some two hundred pounds a year—to Peg.
It was not long after this that Richard Brinsley Sheridan, in his early prime, engaged Peg at four hundred pounds a season, to play at his theater. Sheridan was fervid in his admiration of the Irish beauty. Perhaps this fact, as well as the marked success she scored in his plays, led "The Rivals'" author to double her salary after the first season.
Yearly she grew more popular with her audiences. Having won a matchless reputation as a comedian, she turned for a time to tragic characters, and won thereby a wholly new renown as one of England's foremost tragedians. But comedy was her forte. And to it she returned.
Peg always vowed she hated the society of her own sex; a lucky thing for her, since she was not received by ladies of quality, as were many of her fellow actresses, and since her sharp tongue and the fact that men went wild over her made her hated by these fellow actresses. But her popularity with men endured, and she wasted few tears over women's dislikes. Few superwomen have been popular with their own sex.
Peg was elected president of the famed Beefsteak Club, and she always presided at the board in man's attire.
All this time she had been supporting her mother in a luxury undreamed of in the days of the medicophobic bricklayer. And she had educated and jealously safeguarded her younger sister, Mary.
Mary became engaged to Captain George Cholmondeley, son of the Earl of Cholmondeley; a glittering match for a bricklayer's daughter. The earl was justly indignant and posted away to Peg to break off the affair, if need be, by bribing her and the entire tribe of Woffington.
Peg met the irate old fellow with the full battery of her charm. In a trice she had him bewildered, then half relenting. Feebly he tried to bluster. Peg cut him short with:
"My lord, I'm the one to complain; not you. For now I'll have two beggars, instead of one, to feed."