Page:CromwellHugo.djvu/256

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244
CROMWELL

Davenant [laughing.] …fortune I'd have liked to see
The chaplain and duenna joined in wedlock
By a moss-trooper!
Rochester [in an undertone.] So the thing is done
Among us saints.
Davenant. Among us saints. Such marriages, I swear,
Are well adapted to unite the knots
Of a dramatic plot. A corporal
The lady and her lover doth unite.
Dame Guggligoy [sourly.
Of what are you two talking 'neath your breath?
He shuns me! Needs must I have fall'n so low,
I who am not ill-favoured, and possess
Two hundred old jacobuses, all new,
In honest gold!
Davenant [to Rochester.
In honest gold! Egad! this spouse of yours
Is better worth than many heiresses!
Two hundred old jacobuses and three
Almost whole teeth!
Dame Guggligoy [to Rochester.] You who so lavish were
Of loving words—
Rochester [to Davenant.
Of loving words. She dreamed it, my good friend.
[To Guggligoy.
Leave us in peace I say. Be damned to you!
[He pushes her away.
Dame Guggligoy.They're all alike, the wretches! Loving to
Their mistresses and harsh to their own wives!
Cats before marriage, tigers afterward!
[To Rochester.
What! cruel one! our myrtles thou wouldst change
To cypresses! abandon thy young wife!