Enter SYDENHAM. Syden. Woodville, what ails you? are you mad? do you fight duels with your own servant ? Wood. Duels !— Syden. You are right: I see he is not armed. What the devil and all his doings possesses you to point your pistol at a naked man? If you consider him as your equal, give him the fellow to it; if you would punish him as your servant, turn him away. Wood. But he will not be turn'd away. True. Not whilst it was my duty to stay by you ; now Mr. Sydenham is come, I will intrude no longer. [Exit. Syden. Harry Woodville, are you in your senses, to act in this manner? Wood. Are you not out of yours, to come thus far to ask me such a question? Syden. Perhaps I am, but there's no reasoning about friendship; when I see a fellow, whom I love, throw away his happiness, game away his fortune, and then run from the ruin he has made, I have a foolish nature about me, that in spite of all his frenzy will run after him; and though he may break loose from all the world beside, damn me if he shall shake off me, though he had twenty pistols in his reach, and I not one in mine. Wood. Your friendship, Mr. Sydenham, is not wanted at this moment, and give me leave to say it is unwelcome. Syden. Very likely; I care little about the welcome that you give me, as I am not quite sure you are the man I was in search of: my friend was a gentleman, though an unwise one; he would hear reason, though he was unapt to follow it; above all things he was not that frantic desperado, as to turn his pistol either against his servant or himself. 1 Wood. Well, sir, my pistol is put up-now what have you to say to me? Syden. I don't know if I shall say any thing to you; certainly nothing to soothe you. It is not because a man has pistols in his pocket, that he is formidable, or that I should flatter him: every fellow, that has not spirit to face misfortune, may be his own assassin; every wretch, who has lost all feelings of humanity, may commit a murder on his fellow creature. Wood. You are very bitter: what would you me do ? Syden. Return to your afflicted wife. have Wood. That I can never do; my home is horrible, nor am I in possession of a home; Penruddock's myrmidons are in my house; besides, there's worse than that; my son is come to England; Henry will be upon me, and to meet his gallant injured presence would be worse than death. Syden. I wish you had reflected on that horror, whilst there was time to have prevented it.-If fathers, whilst their sons are bleeding in their country's battles, will hurl the fatal dice, and stake their fortunes on the cast, alas for their posterity! Wood. Why urge that dreadful truth? You have no son, you are no gamester. Syden. No matter, though I never gamed myself, my friends did, and I have lost them: who has more cause to curse his luck than I have? Wood. Have you now vented all your spleen, and will you leave me? Syden. I am not sure: tell me what plan you are upon; why are you rambling on this heath? Wood. I'll tell you that at once-Sir George Penruddock, my chief creditor, is dead; he has bequeathed his fortune to his cousin Roderick of that name. This man inhabits a small tenement here close at hand; a strange sequestered creature, burying him self amongst his books, disgusted with the world, and probably a perfect misanthrope Syden. I have heard of him; go on. Wood. This Roderick and I were schoolfellows, studied together at the university, travelled together through most parts of Europe; and were inseparable friends, till by evil chance, we became rivals in love: I obtained Mrs. Woodville's hand, and married her; he was excluded, and renounced society: this man, the bitterest enemy I have, is now the master of my fate. Syden. Then I conclude those pistols are for him. Wood. I do not quite say that; he shall have a fair alternative. Syden. I much doubt if any thing can be fair, when one party has just gained a fortune, and the other lost one: however, if you mean it should be fair, take me with you; whether you shake hands or exchange shots, I will see justice done on both sides: for I will be bold to aver, there never yet was an affair, in which I had the honour to be either principal or second, where equity was not as strictly administered, as if my Lord Chancellor had decreed it from the bench, Wood. Be it so then, if so it must be: Come with me to this newly-enriched cottager, and if I fail in this last effort, I exact from you an honourable secrecy and an immediate secession. [Exeunt. SCENE III. PENRUDDOCK'S Cottage. Enter PENRUDDOCK and WEAZEL, from the Cottage. Weazel. My good sir, only consider Penrud. Leave me, sir. Weazel. This very circumstance, I say— Penrud. Return to your papers. Weazel. Just for one moment, sir. [Exit into the Cottage. Penrud. This property is immense. Woodville's proud house is mine; now that false friend is punished all those scenes of gay prosperity, with which he caught the vain weak heart of Arabella, are suddenly reversed, and just retaliation, not less terrible because so tardy, surprises him at last. Farewell, my cottage! scene of my past content, I thank thee: possessing nought but thee, I have not envied palaces; possessed of them, I have forsaken thee; such is man's fickle nature, in solitude a philosopher, wise in adversity, and only patient under injuries, till opportunity occurs to him of revenging them. Enter WOODVILLE and SYDENHAM. Wood. That's he; the very man.-Sir, let me hope I have happily encountered you; I believe I am addressing myself to Mr. Penruddock. Penrud. I am Penruddock. Wood. Perhaps you have lost the recollection of my person? Penrud. I wish I had-You have left some traces of it in my memory, Mr. Woodville; and nothing can be more opposite to my desires than to revive them. Wood. That this would be my greeting I expected: for though I ever knew you to be just, yet, in our earliest years, I thought I could discover dawnings of a relentless nature. If twenty years of calm reflection have passed away without assuaging your determined animosity, an opportunity is now before you of hatching that revenge, which you have brooded on so long. Penrud. Pursue your own reflections, sir, and in-terrupt not mine. [Going. Syden. Stop, if you please-I am no party in this conference, but as a common friend to every thing that wears the face of man: I can perceive you have been wronged, in time long past, by this gentleman ; so have I, recently and deeply wronged; inasmuch as he has abused my friendship, by ruining himself, in defiance of my better counsel--What then? he is sorry for it, and I forgive him he is in misery, and I pity him. Penrud. Well, sir, at your remonstrance I will stay; only be pleased to let me know for whose sake I submit myself to Mr. Woodville's conversation. Syden. I am a very idle fellow, sir; Sydenham my name; one that has thrown away much good will upon his friends, without once practising your happy art of being unmoved by their misfortunes. Penrud. Humph!-Mr. Woodville will proceed. Wood. If you, Mr. Penruddock, can find no motive to forgive the wrongs I did you in the matter of my marriage, I shall suggest none, neither will I offer one word in mitigation of those wrongs; they were as great as you believe them; greater, perhaps, than you are perfectly apprized of. In the first glow of your resentment you demanded satisfaction; in justice I must own, that your appeal was warranted, but I was then a happy man, with beauty in my arms, and fortune at my feet, and I evaded it. Now if your heat is not cooled, and you still thirst for revenge, lo! I am ready; I have arms for both, fit to decide our quarrel, and an honourable friend competent to adjust it. [Produces Pistols. Syden. Fairly proposed-if such is your pleasure, gentlemen both, I am perfectly at your disposal. Penrud. Give me the pistol: [Takes a Pistol.] place your man where you like; this is my ground. Syden. Stop, sir, the forms of honour are not yet complete. Mr. Woodville, if I rightly understood |