Tom Taylor

“ Mrs M Do you think so, Lord Dundreary?
Dun Yeth. Miss Georgina likes me to tell her my jokes. Bye-the-bye, talking of that lonely sufferer, isn't she an interesting invalid? They do say that's what's the matter with me. I'm an interesting invalid.
Flo Oh, that accounts for what I have heard so many young ladies say—Florence, dear, don't you think Lord Dundreary's extremely interesting? I never knew what they meant before.
Dun Yeth, the doctor recommends me to drink donkey's milk.
Flo [Hiding laugh.] Oh, what a clever man he must be. He knows we generally thrive best on our native food. ”

“ One of these time-worn, but deeply-stamped pieces of old bardic coinage, now come down to exclusive circulation among hard peasant-hands, but still precious for the quality of its true poetic metal, and venerable for its ancient mint-mark, is the ballad of “The Plague of Elliant,” of which the following is as literal a version, I think, as can be made from the Breton into the English. I have preserved the metre of the original, so that my version may be sung to the Breton air of the “ Bosen Elliant.” The plague which the ballad commemorates ravaged Brittany in the sixth century. ”

“ In rice-fields, corn-fields, dykes by dusty ways,
⁠And cottage-crofts, where the gold gourd-flower blows,—
Swathes of Death’s scythe, wielded for two long days—
The dead lie thick and still: foes all at peace with foes. ”

“ I may not go, and I am sad.
The friends that are in my own countrie,
When you shall see them greet from me,—
Oh! greet the good mother that me bare,
And the sire that rear’d me with love and care,—
Oh! ”

“ Trenchard, you are not used to the manners of good society, and that, alone, will excuse the impertinence of which you have been guilty.
Asa Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal—you sockdologizing old man-trap. Wal, now, when I think what I've thrown away in hard cash to-day I'm apt to call myself some awful hard names, 400,000 dollars is a big pile for a man to light his cigar with. If that gal had only given me herself in exchange, it wouldn't have been a bad bargain. ”

“ And forth to the greenwood he hath gone.
By the skirts of the wood as he did go,
He was ’ware of a hind as white as snow ;
Oh, fast she ran, and fast he rode,
That the earth it shook where his horse-hoofs trode. ”

“ Flo Here, cousin, are the fixins.
Asa That's yer sort. Now then, I'll give you all a drink that'll make you squeal. [To Binny] Here, Puffy, just shake that up, faster. I'll give that sick gal a drink that'll make her squirm like an eel on a mud bank.
Dun [Screams.] What a horrible idea. [Runs about stage.]
Flo Oh, don't mind him! That's only an American joke.
Dun A joke! Do you call that a joke? To make a sick girl squirm like a mud bank on an eel's skin?
Asa Yes, I'll give you a drink that'll make your whiskers return under your chin, which is their natural location. ”

“ Counting faggots with her, than gold with thee.”
“Come down to the cellar, ladye mine,
To drink with me of the honey-sweet wine.”
“Sooner I’d stoop to the croft-pool brink,
Where my father’s horses go to drink.”
“Come with me from shop to shop, my fair,
To buy a mantle of state so rare.” ”

“ There lies four hundred thousand dollars, if there's a cent. Asa, boy, you're a hoss. [Starts off, R. 1 C.]
Mary To me, all to me. Oh Mr. Trenchard, how we have all wronged poor grandfather. What, gone? He felt after such tidings, he felt I should be left alone—who would suspect there was such delicacy under that rough husk, but I can hardly believe the startling news—his heiress—I, the penniless orphan of an hour ago, no longer penniless, but, alas, an orphan still, [Enter Florence.] with none to share my wealth, none to love me. ”

“ In this account special mention is made of the ravages of the plague in the parish of Elliant, though the country immediately round about it is said to have been preserved from the scourge by the prayers of a saintly hermit named Rasian. He is mentioned in the ballad, which, like all other ballads in M. de Villemarqué’s “Barsaz Breiz” (from which my translation was made) , was taken down from oral recitation of the Breton peasantry. ”

“ He's positively idiotic, he is— Ah! here comes Miss Georgina, that gorgeous creature—that lovely sufferer. [Exit, L. 1 E.]
Asa [Looking out.] What's the price of hair dye? Hallo! he's coming again with that sick girl.
Re-enter Dundreary and Georgina, L. 1 E.
Dun Will you try and strengthen your limbs with a gentle walk in the garden?
Georgina No, thank you, my lord. I'm so delicate. Oh, my lord, it is so painful to walk languidly through life, to be unable, at times, to bear the perfumes of one's favorite flowers. ”