Plume. What, no bastards! and so many recruiting officers in town! I thought 'twas a maxim among them, to leave as many recruits in the country as they carried out.
Wor. Nobody doubts your good will, noble captain, in serving your country; witness our friend Molly at the Castle; there have been tears in town about that business, captain.
Plume. I hope Sylvia has not heard of it.
Wor. Oh, sir, have you thought of her? I began to fancy you had forgot poor Sylvia.
Plume. Your affairs had quite put mine out of my head. 'Tis true, Sylvia and I had once agreed to go to bed together, could we have adjusted preliminaries; but she would have the wedding before consummation, and I was for consummation before the wedding: we could not agree.
Wor. But do you intend to marry upon no other conditions?
Plume. Your pardon, sir, I'll marry upon no condition at all – If I should, I am resolved never to bind myself down to a woman for my whole life, till I know whether I shall like her company for half an hour. Suppose I married a woman without a leg – such a thing might be, unless I examined the goods before-hand. – If people would but try one another's constitutions before they engaged, it would prevent all these elopements, divorces, and the devil knows what.
Wor. Nay, for that matter, the town did not stick to say that —
Plume. I hate country towns for that reason. – If your town has a dishonourable thought of Sylvia, it deserves to be burnt to the ground – I love Sylvia, I admire her frank, generous disposition – there's something in that girl more than woman – In short, were I once a general, I would marry her.
Wor. 'Faith, you have reason – for were you but a corporal, she would marry you – but my Melinda coquets it with every fellow she sees – I'll lay fifty pounds she makes love to you.
Plume. I'll lay you a hundred, that I return it if she does – Look ye, Worthy, I'll win her, and give her to you afterwards.
Wor. If you win her, you shall wear her, 'faith; I would not value the conquest, without the credit of the victory.
Kite. Captain, captain! a word in your ear.
Plume. You may speak out, here are none but friends.
Kite. You know, sir, that you sent me to comfort the good woman in the straw, Mrs. Molly – my wife, Mr. Worthy.
Wor. O ho! very well. I wish you joy, Mr. Kite.
Kite. Your worship very well may – for I have got both a wife and a child in half an hour – But as I was saying – you sent me to comfort Mrs. Molly – my wife, I mean – but what d'ye think, sir? she was better comforted before I came.
Plume. As how?
Kite. Why, sir, a footman in a blue livery had brought her ten guineas to buy her baby-clothes.
Plume. Who, in the name of wonder, could send them?
Kite. Nay, sir, I must whisper that – Mrs. Sylvia.
Plume. Sylvia! generous creature!
Wor. Sylvia! impossible!
Kite. Here are the guineas, sir – I took the gold as part of my wife's portion. Nay, farther, sir, she sent word the child should be taken all imaginable care of, and that she intended to stand godmother. The same footman, as I was coming to you with this news, called after me, and told me, that his lady would speak to me – I went, and upon hearing that you were come to town, she gave me half a guinea for the news, and ordered me to tell you, that Justice Balance, her father, who is just come out of the country, would be glad to see you.
Plume. There's a girl for you, Worthy! – Is there any thing of woman in this? no, 'tis noble, generous, manly friendship. Show me another woman that would lose an inch of her prerogative that way, without tears, fits, and reproaches. The common jealousy of her sex, which is nothing but their avarice of pleasure, she despises, and can part with the lover, though she dies for the man – Come, Worthy – where's the best wine? for there I'll quarter.
Wor. At Horton's.
Plume. Let's away, then. – Mr. Kite, go to the lady, with my humble service, and tell her, I shall only refresh a little, and wait upon her.
Wor. Hold, Kite – have you seen the other recruiting captain?
Kite. No, sir; I'd have you to know I don't keep such company.
Plume. Another! who is he?
Wor. My rival, in the first place, and the most unaccountable fellow – but I'll tell you more as we go.
SCENE II
Mel. Welcome to town, cousin Sylvia. [Salute.] I envied you your retreat in the country; for Shrewsbury, methinks, and all your heads of shires, are the most irregular places for living: here we have smoke, scandal, affectation, and pretension; in short, every thing to give the spleen – and nothing to divert it – then the air is intolerable.
Syl. Oh, madam! I have heard the town commended for its air.
Mel. But you don't consider, Sylvia, how long I have lived in it; for I can assure you that to a lady the least nice in her constitution – no air can be good above half a year. Change of air I take to be the most agreeable of any variety in life.
Syl. As you say, cousin Melinda, there are several sorts of airs.
Mel. Psha! I talk only of the air we breathe, or more properly of that we taste – Have not you, Sylvia, found a vast difference in the taste of airs?
Syl. Pray, cousin, are not vapours a sort of air? Taste air! you might as well tell me I may feed upon air! but pr'ythee, my dear Melinda! don't put on such an air to me. Your education and mine were just the same, and I remember the time when we never troubled our heads about air, but when the sharp air from the Welsh mountains made our fingers ache in a cold morning, at the boarding-school.
Mel. Our education, cousin, was the same, but our temperaments had nothing alike; you have the constitution of an horse.
Syl. So far as to be troubled neither with spleen, cholic, nor vapours. I need no salts for my stomach, no hartshorn for my head, nor wash for my complexion; I can gallop all the morning after the hunting-horn, and all the evening after a fiddle. In short, I can do every thing with my father, but drink and shoot flying; and I am sure I can do every thing my mother could, were I put to the trial.
Mel. You are in a fair way of being put to't, for I am told your captain is come to town.
Syl. Ay, Melinda, he is come, and I'll take care he shan't go without a companion.
Mel. You are certainly mad, cousin!
Syl. "And there's a pleasure in being mad,
Which none but madmen know".
Mel. Thou poor romantic Quixote! – hast thou the vanity to imagine that a young sprightly officer, that rambles o'er half the globe in half a year, can confine his thoughts to the little daughter of a country justice, in an obscure part of the world?
Syl. Psha! what care I for his thoughts; I should not like a man with confined thoughts; it shows a narrowness of soul. In short, Melinda, I think a petticoat a mighty simple thing, and I am heartily tired of my sex.
Mel. That is, you are tired of an appendix to our sex, that you can't so handsomely get rid of in petticoats as if you were in breeches. – O'my conscience, Sylvia, hadst thou been a man, thou hadst been the greatest rake in Christendom.
Syl. I should have endeavoured to know the world, which a man can never do thoroughly without half a hundred friendships,