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_ ACT II SCENE III
An Apartment in JOB THORNBERRY'S House.
Enter JOB THORNBERRY, in a Night Gown, and BUR.
BUR.
Don't take on so--don't you, now! pray, listen to reason.
JOB.
I won't.
BUR.
Pray do!
JOB.
I won't. Reason bid me love my child, and help my friend:--what's
the consequence? my friend has run one way, and broke up my trade;
my daughter has run another, and broke my----No, she shall never
have it to say she broke my heart. If I hang myself for grief,
she shan't know she made me.
BUR.
Well, but, master--
JOB.
And reason told me to take you into my shop, when the fat church
wardens starved you at the workhouse,--damn their want of feeling
for it!--and you were thump'd about, a poor, unoffending,
ragged-rump'd boy, as you were--I wonder you hav'n't run away from me too.
BUR.
That's the first real unkind word you ever said to me.
I've sprinkled your shop two-and-twenty years,
and never miss'd a morning.
JOB.
The bailiffs are below, clearing the goods:
you won't have the trouble any longer.
BUR.
Trouble! Lookye, old Job Thornberry--
JOB.
Well! What, you are going to be saucy to me, now I'm ruin'd?
BUR.
Don't say one cutting thing after another.--You have been as
noted, all round our town, for being a kind man, as being a blunt one.
JOB.
Blunt or sharp, I've been honest. Let them look at my ledger--they'll find it right. I began upon a little; I made that little great, by industry; I never cringed to a customer, to get him into my books, that I might hamper him with an overcharged bill, for long credit; I earn'd my fair profits; I paid my fair way; I break by the treachery of a friend, and my first dividend will be seventeen shillings in the pound. I wish every tradesman in England may clap his hand on his heart, and say as much, when he asks a creditor to sign his certificate.
BUR.
'Twas I kept your ledger, all the time.
JOB.
I know you did.
BUR.
From the time you took me out of the workhouse.
JOB.
Psha! rot the workhouse!
BUR.
You never mention'd it to me yourself till to-day.
JOB.
I said it in a hurry.
BUR.
And I've always remember'd it at leisure. I don't want to brag, but I hope I've been found faithful. It's rather hard to tell poor John Bur, the workhouse boy, after clothing, feeding, and making him your man of trust, for two and twenty years, that you wonder he don't run away from you, now you're in trouble.
JOB.
[Affected.]
John--I beg your pardon.
[Stretching out his Hand.]
BUR.
[Taking his Hand.]
Don't say a word more about it.
JOB.
I--
BUR.
Pray, now, master, don't say any more!
--Come, be a man! get on your things;
and face the bailiffs that are rummaging the goods.
JOB.
I can't, John; I can't.
My heart's heavier than all the iron and brass in my shop.
BUR.
Nay, consider what confusion!--pluck up a courage; do, now!
JOB.
Well, I'll try.
BUR.
Aye, that's right: here's your clothes.
[Taking them from the Back of a Chair.]
They'll play the devil with all the pots and pans,
if you aren't by.--Why, I warrant you'll do
! Bless you, what should ail you?
JOB.
Ail me? do you go and get a daughter, John Bur;
then let her run away from you, and you'll know what ails me.
BUR.
Come, here's your coat and waistcoat.
[Going to help him on with his Clothes]
This is the waistcoat young mistress work'd with her own hands,
for your birth-day, five years ago. Come, get into it, as
quick as you can.
JOB.
[Throwing it on the Floor violently.]
I'd as lieve get into my coffin. She'll have me there soon.
Psha! rot it! I'm going to snivel. Bur, go, and get me another.
BUR.
Are you sure you won't put it on?
JOB.
No, I won't.
[BUR pauses.]
No, I tell you.--
[Exit BUR.]
How proud I was of that waistcoat five years ago!--I little thought what would happen now, when I sat in it, at the top of my table, with all my neighbours to celebrate the day;--there was Collop on one side of me, and his wife on the other; and my daughter Mary sat at the farther end;--smiling so sweetly;--like an artful, good for nothing----I shou'dn't like to throw away a waistcoat neither.--I may as well put it on.--Yes--it would be poor spite not to put it on. [Putting his Arms into it.]--She's breaking my heart; but, I'll wear it, I'll wear it. [Buttoning it as he speaks, and crying involuntarily.] It's my child's--She's undutiful,--ungrateful, --barbarous,--but she's my child,--and she'll never work me another.
[Enter BUR.]
BUR. Here's another waistcoat, but it has laid by so long, I think it's damp.
JOB. I was thinking so myself, Bur; and so----
BUR. Eh--what, you've got on the old one? Well, now, I declare, I'm glad of that. Here's your coat. [Putting it on him.]--'Sbobs! this waistcoat feels a little damp, about the top of the bosom.
JOB.
[Confused.]
Never mind, Bur, never mind.--A little water has dropt
on it; but it won't give me cold, I believe.
[A noise without.]
BUR. Heigh! they are playing up old Harry below!
I'll run, and see what's the matter.
Make haste after me, do, now!
[Exit BUR.]
JOB. I don't care for the bankruptcy now. I can face my creditors, like an honest man; and I can crawl to my grave, afterwards, as poor as a church-mouse. What does it signify? Job Thornberry has no reason now to wish himself worth a groat:--the old ironmonger and brazier has nobody to board his money for now! I was only saving for my daughter; and she has run away from her doating, foolish father,--and struck down my heart--flat--flat.--
[Enter PEREGRINE.]
Well, who are you?
PEREG. A friend.
JOB.
Then, I'm sorry to see you. I have just been ruin'd by a friend;
and never wish to have another friend again, as long as I live.
--No, nor any ungrateful, undutiful--Poh!--I don't recollect your face.
PEREG.
Climate, and years, have been at work on it. While Europeans
are scorching under an Indian sun, Time is doubly busy in
fanning their features with his wings. But, do you remember
no trace of me?
JOB.
No, I tell you. If you have any thing to say, say it. I have something to settle below with my daughter--I mean, with the people in the shop;--they are impatient; and the morning has half run away, before she knew I should be up--I mean, before I have had time to get on my coat and waistcoat, she gave me--I mean--I mean, if you have any business, tell it, at once.
PEREG.
I will tell it at once. You seem agitated.
The harpies, whom I pass'd in your shop, inform'd me
of your sudden misfortune, but do not despair yet.
JOB.
Aye, I'm going to be a bankrupt--but that don't signify.
Go on: it isn't that;--they'll find all fair;--but, go on.
PEREG.
I will. 'Tis just thirty years ago, since I left England.
JOB.
That's a little after the time I set up in the hardware business.
PEREG.
About that time, a lad of fifteen years entered your shop:
he had the appearance of a gentleman's son; and told you
he had heard, by accident, as he was wandering through the
streets of Penzance, some of your neighbours speak of Job
Thornberry's goodness to persons in distress.
JOB.
I believe he told a lie there.
PEREG.
Not in that instance, though he did in another.
JOB.
I remember him. He was a fine, bluff, boy!
PEREG.
He had lost his parents, he said; and, destitute of friends,
money, and food, was making his way to the next port, to
offer himself to any vessel that would take him on board,
that he might work his way abroad, and seek a livelihood.
JOB.
Yes, yes; he did. I remember it.
PEREG.
You may remember, too, when the boy had finished his tale of distress, you put ten guineas in his hand. They were the first earnings of your trade, you told him, and could not be laid out to better advantage than in relieving a helpless orphan;--and, giving him a letter of recommendation to a sea captain at Falmouth, you wished him good spirits, and prosperity. He left you with a promise, that, if fortune ever smil'd upon him, you should, one day, hear news of Peregrine.
JOB.
Ah, poor fellow! poor Peregrine! he was a pretty boy.
I should like to hear news of him, I own.
PEREG.
I am that Peregrine.
JOB.
Eh? what--you are--? No: let me look at you again.
Are you the pretty boy, that------bless us, how you are alter'd!
PEREG.
I have endur'd many hardships since I saw you; many turns of
fortune;--but I deceived you (it was the cunning of a truant
lad) when I told you I had lost my parents. From a romantic folly,
the growth of boyish brains, I had fix'd my fancy on being
a sailor, and had run away from my father.
JOB.
[With great Emotion.]
Run away from your father! If I had known that,
I'd have horse-whipp'd you, within an inch of your life!
PEREG.
Had you known it, you had done right, perhaps.
JOB.
Right? Ah! you don't know what it is for a child to run away
from a father! Rot me, if I wou'dn't have sent you back to him,
tied, neck and heels, in the basket of the stage coach.
PEREG.
I have had my compunctions;--have express'd them by letter
to my father: but I fear my penitence had no effect.
JOB.
Served you right.
PEREG.
Having no answers from him, he died, I fear, without forgiving me.
[Sighing.]
JOB.
[Starting.]
What! died! without forgiving his child!--Come, that's too much.
I cou'dn't have done that, neither.--But, go on: I hope you've
been prosperous. But you shou'dn't--you shou'dn't have quitted
your father.
PEREG.
I acknowledge it;--yet, I have seen prosperity; though I traversed many countries, on my outset, in pain and poverty. Chance, at length, raised me a friend in India; by whose interest, and my own industry, I amass'd considerable wealth, in the Factory at Calcutta.
JOB.
And have just landed it, I suppose, in England.
PEREG.
I landed one hundred pounds, last night, in my purse, as I swam from the Indiaman, which was splitting on a rock, half a league from the neighbouring shore. As for the rest of my property--bills, bonds, cash, jewels--the whole amount of my toil and application, are, by this time, I doubt not, gone to the bottom; and Peregrine is returned, after thirty years, to pay his debt to you, almost as poor as he left you.
JOB.
I won't touch a penny of your hundred pounds--not a penny.
PEREG.
I do not desire you: I only desire you to take your own.
JOB.
My own?
PEREG.
Yes; I plunged with this box, last night, into the waves.
You see, it has your name on it.
JOB.
"Job Thornberry," sure enough. And what's in it?
PEREG.
The harvest of a kind man's charity!--the produce of your bounty to one, whom you thought an orphan. I have traded, these twenty years, on ten guineas (which, from the first, I had set apart as yours), till they have become ten thousand: take it; it could not, I find, come more opportunely. Your honest heart gratified itself in administering to my need; and I experience that burst of pleasure, a grateful man enjoys, in relieving my reliever.
[Giving him the Box.]
JOB.
[Squeezes PEREGRINE'S Hand, returns the Box,
and seems almost unable to utter.]
Take it again.
PEREG.
Why do you reject it?
JOB.
I'll tell you, as soon as I'm able. T'other day,
I lent a friend----Pshaw, rot it! I'm an old fool!
[Wiping his Eyes.]
--I lent a friend,
t'other day, the whole profits of my trade, to save him from sinking.
He walk'd off with them, and made me a bankrupt. Don't you think he is a rascal?
PEREG.
Decidedly so.
JOB.
And what should I be, if I took all you have saved in
the world, and left you to shift for yourself?
PEREG.
But the case is different. This money is, in fact, your own.
I am inur'd to hardships; better able to bear them, and am
younger than you. Perhaps, too, I still have prospects of----
JOB.
I won't take it. I'm as thankful to you, as if
I left you to starve: but I won't take it.
PEREG.
Remember, too, you have claims upon you, which I have not. My guide, as I came hither, said, you had married in my absence: 'tis true, he told me you were now a widower; but, it seems, you have a daughter to provide for.
JOB.
I have no daughter to provide for now!
PEREG.
Then he misinform'd me.
JOB. No, he didn't. I had one last night; but she's gone.
PEREG. Gone!
JOB.
Yes; gone to sea, for what I know, as you did. Run away from
a good father, as you did.--This is a morning to remember;
--my daughter has run out, and the bailiffs have run in;
--I shan't soon forget the day of the month.
PEREG.
This morning, did you say?
JOB.
Aye, before day-break;--a hard-hearted, base----
PEREG.
And could she leave you, during the derangement of your affairs?
JOB.
She did'nt know what was going to happen, poor soul!
I wish she had now. I don't think my Mary would have
left her old father in the midst of his misfortunes.
PEREG.
[Aside.]
Mary! it must be she! What is the amount of the demands upon you?
JOB.
Six thousand. But I don't mind that: the goods can nearly
cover it--let 'em take 'em--damn the gridirons and warming-pans!
--I could begin again--but, now, my Mary's gone, I hav'n't
the heart; but I shall hit upon something.
PEREG.
Let me make a proposal to you, my old friend. Permit me to
settle with the officers, and to clear all demands upon you.
Make it a debt, if you please. I will have a hold, if it must
be so, on your future profits in trade; but do this, and
I promise to restore your daughter to you.
JOB.
What? bring back my child!
Do you know where she is? Is she safe? Is she far off? Is----
PEREG.
Will you receive the money?
JOB.
Yes, yes; on those terms
--on those conditions. But where is Mary?
PEREG.
Patience. I must not tell you yet; but, in four-and-twenty hours,
I pledge myself to bring her back to you.
JOB.
What, here? to her father's house? and safe? Oh, 'sbud!
when I see her safe, what a thundering passion I'll be
in with her! But you are not deceiving me? You know, the
first time you came into my shop, what a bouncer you told me,
when you were a boy.
PEREG.
Believe me, I would not trifle with you now.
Come, come down to your shop, that we may rid
it of its present visitants.
JOB.
I believe you dropt from the clouds, all on a sudden,
to comfort an old, broken-hearted brazier.
PEREG.
I rejoice, my honest friend, that I arrived at so critical
a juncture; and, if the hand of Providence be in it,
'tis because Heaven ordains, that benevolent actions,
like yours, sooner or later, must ever meet their recompense.
[Exeunt.] _
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