SCENE II.

_Enter_ LORENZO.

_Lor._ Well, I am the most unlucky rogue! I have been ranging over half the town; but have sprung no game. Our women are worse infidels than the Moors: I told them I was one of the knight-errants, that delivered them from ravishment; and I think in my conscience, that is their quarrel to me.

_Ped._ Is this a time for fooling? Your cousin is run honourably mad in love with her majesty; he is split upon a rock, and you, who are in chase of harlots, are sinking in the main ocean. I think, the devil's in the family. [_Exit._

_Lor._ [_Solus._] My cousin ruined, says he! hum, not that I wish my kinsman's ruin; that were unchristian: but, if the general is ruined, I am heir; there's comfort for a Christian! Money I have; I thank the honest Moors for it; but I want a mistress. I am willing to be lewd; but the tempter is wanting on his part.

_Enter_ ELVIRA, _veiled._

_Elv._ Stranger! Cavalier!--will you not hear me? you Moor-killer, you Matador!--

_Lor._ Meaning me, madam?

_Elv._ Face about, man! you a soldier, and afraid of the enemy!

_Lor._ I must confess, I did not expect to have been charged first: I see souls will not be lost for want of diligence in this devil's reign. [_Aside._] Now, Madam Cynthia, behind a cloud, your will and pleasure with me?

_Elv._ You have the appearance of a cavalier; and if you are as deserving as you seem, perhaps you may not repent of your adventure. If a lady like you well enough to hold discourse with you at first sight; you are gentleman enough, I hope, to help her out with an apology, and to lay the blame on stars, or destiny, or what you please, to excuse the frailty of a woman?

_Lor._ O, I love an easy woman! there's such ado, to crack a thick-shelled mistress; we break our teeth, and find no kernel. 'Tis generous in you, to take pity on a stranger, and not to suffer him to fall into ill hands at his first arrival.

_Elv._ You may have a better opinion of me than I deserve; you have not seen me yet; and, therefore, I am confident you are heart-whole.

_Lor._ Not absolutely slain, I must confess; but I am drawing on apace: you have a dangerous tongue in your head, I can tell you that; and if your eyes prove of as killing metal, there is but one way with me. Let me see you, for the safeguard of my honour; 'tis but decent the cannon should be drawn down upon me before I yield.

_Elv._ What a terrible similitude have you made, colonel, to shew that you are inclining to the wars? I could answer you with another in my profession: Suppose you were in want of money, would you not be glad to take a sum upon content in a sealed bag, without peeping?--but, however, I will not stand with you for a sample. [_Lifts up her veil._

_Lor._ What eyes were there! how keen their glances! you do well to keep them veiled; they are too sharp to be trusted out of the scabbard.

_Elv._ Perhaps now, you may accuse my forwardness; but this day of jubilee is the only time of freedom I have had; and there is nothing so extravagant as a prisoner, when he gets loose a little, and is immediately to return into his fetters.

_Lor._ To confess freely to you, madam, I was never in love with less than your whole sex before; but now I have seen you, I am in the direct road of languishing and sighing; and, if love goes on as it begins, for aught I know, by to-morrow morning you may hear of me in rhyme and sonnet. I tell you truly, I do not like these symptoms in myself. Perhaps I may go shufflingly at first; for I was never before walked in trammels; yet, I shall drudge and moil at constancy, till I have worn off the hitching in my pace.

_Elv._ Oh, sir, there are arts to reclaim the wildest men, as there are to make spaniels fetch and carry: chide them often, and feed them seldom. Now I know your temper, you may thank yourself, if you are kept to hard meat. You are in for years, if you make love to me.

_Lor._ I hate a formal obligation with an _Anno Domini_ at end on't; there may be an evil meaning in the word years, called matrimony.

_Elv._ I can easily rid you of that fear: I wish I could rid myself as easily of the bondage.

_Lor._ Then you are married?

_Elv._ If a covetous, and a jealous, and an old man be a husband.

_Lor._ Three as good qualities for my purpose as I could wish: now love be praised!

_Enter_ ELVIRA'S _Duenna, and whispers to her._

_Elv._ [_Aside._] If I get not home before my husband, I shall be ruined. [_To him._] I dare not stay to tell you where. Farewell!--Could I once more-- [_Exit._

_Lor._ This is unconscionable dealing; to be made a slave, and know not whose livery I wear. Who have we yonder?

_Enter_ GOMEZ.

By that shambling in his walk, it should be my rich old banker, Gomez, whom I knew at Barcelona: As I live 'tis he!--What, old Mammon here! [_To_ GOMEZ.

_Gom._ How! young Beelzebub?

_Lor._ What devil has set his claws in thy haunches, and brought thee hither to Saragossa? Sure he meant a farther journey with thee.

_Gom._ I always remove before the enemy: When the Moors are ready to besiege one town, I shift quarters to the next; I keep as far from the infidels as I can.

_Lor._ That's but a hair's breadth at farthest.

_Gom._ Well, you have got a famous victory; all true subjects are overjoyed at it: There are bonfires decreed; an the times had not been hard, my billet should have burnt too.

_Lor._ I dare say for thee, thou hast such a respect for a single billet, thou wouldst almost have thrown on thyself to save it; thou art for saving every thing but thy soul.

_Gom._ Well, well, you'll not believe me generous, 'till I carry you to the tavern, and crack half a pint with you at my own charges.

_Lor._ No; I'll keep thee from hanging thyself for such an extravagance; and, instead of it, thou shalt do me a mere verbal courtesy. I have just now seen a most incomparable young lady.

_Gom._ Whereabouts did you see this most incomparable young lady?--My mind misgives me plaguily. [_Aside._

_Lor._ Here, man, just before this corner-house: Pray heaven, it prove no bawdy-house.

_Gom._ [_Aside._] Pray heaven, he does not make it one!

_Lor._ What dost thou mutter to thyself? Hast thou any thing to say against the honesty of that house?

_Gom._ Not I, colonel; the walls are very honest stone, and the timber very honest wood, for aught I know; but for the woman, I cannot say, till I know her better: Describe her person, and, if she live in this quarter, I may give you tidings of her.

_Lor._ She is of a middle stature, dark-coloured hair, the most bewitching leer with her eyes, the most roguish cast! her cheeks are dimpled when she smiles, and her smiles would tempt an hermit.

_Gom._ [_Aside._] I am dead, I am buried, I am damned.--Go on, colonel; have you no other marks of her?

_Lor._ Thou hast all her marks; but she has a husband, a jealous, covetous, old hunks: Speak! canst thou tell me news of her?

_Gom._ Yes; this news, colonel, that you have seen your last of her.

_Lor._ If thou help'st me not to the knowledge of her, thou art a circumcised Jew.

_Gom._ Circumcise me no more than I circumcise you, colonel Hernando: Once more, you have seen your last of her.

_Lor._ [_Aside._] I am glad he knows me only by that name of Hernando, by which I went at Barcelona; now he can tell no tales of me to my father.--[_To him._] Come, thou wer't ever good-natured, when thou couldst get by it--Look here, rogue; 'tis of the right damning colour: Thou art not proof against gold, sure!--Do not I know thee for a covetous--

_Gom._ Jealous old hunks? those were the marks of your mistress's husband, as I remember, colonel.

_Lor._ Oh the devil! What a rogue in understanding was I, not to find him out sooner! [_Aside._

_Gom._ Do, do, look sillily, good colonel; 'tis a decent melancholy after an absolute defeat.

_Lor._ Faith, not for that, clear Gomez; but--

_Gom._ But--no pumping, my dear colonel.

_Lor._ Hang pumping! I was thinking a little upon a point of gratitude. We two have been long acquaintance; I know thy merits, and can make some interest;--Go to; thou wert born to authority; I'll make thee Alcaide, Mayor of Saragossa.

_Gom._ Satisfy yourself; you shall not make me what you think, colonel.

_Lor._ Faith, but I will; thou hast the face of a magistrate already.

_Gom._ And you would provide me with a magistrate's head to my magistrate's face; I thank you, colonel.

_Lor._ Come, thou art so suspicious upon an idle story! That woman I saw, I mean that little, crooked, ugly woman,--for t'other was a lie,--is no more thy wife,--As I'll go home with thee, and satisfy thee immediately, my dear friend.

_Gom._ I shall not put you to that trouble; no, not so much as a single visit; not so much as an embassy by a civil old woman, nor a serenade of _twinkledum twinkledum_ under my windows; nay, I will advise you, out of my tenderness to your person, that you walk not near yon corner-house by night; for, to my certain knowledge, there are blunderbusses planted in every loop-hole, that go off constantly of their own accord, at the squeaking of a fiddle, and the thrumming of a guitar.

_Lor._ Art thou so obstinate? Then I denounce open war against thee; I'll demolish thy citadel by force; or, at least, I'll bring my whole regiment upon thee; my thousand red locusts, that shall devour thee in free quarters. Farewell, wrought night-cap. [_Exit_ LORENZO.

_Gom._ Farewell, Buff. Free quarters for a regiment of red-coat locusts? I hope to see them all in the Red-Sea first! But oh, this Jezabel of mine! I'll get a physician that shall prescribe her an ounce of camphire every morning, for her breakfast, to abate incontinency. She shall never peep abroad, no, not to church for confession; and, for never going, she shall be condemned for a heretic. She shall have stripes by Troy weight, and sustenance by drachms and scruples: Nay, I'll have a fasting almanack, printed on purpose for her use, in which No Carnival nor Christmas shall appear, But lents and ember-weeks shall fill the year. [_Exit._