Cel. Alas, he is too young: yet he looks successfully. Duke F How now, daughter, and cousin! are you crept hither to see the wrestling?

Ros. Ay, my liege: so please you give us leave.

Duke F. You will take little delight in it, I can tell you, there is such odds in the men. In pity of the challenger's youth, I would fain dissuade him, but he will not be entreated. Speak to him, ladies; see if you can move him. Cel. Call him hither, good monsieur Le Beau.

Duke F

Do so; I'll not be by. [Duke goes apart.] Le Beau. Monsieur the challenger, the princesses call

for you.

Örla. I attend them, with all respect and duty.

Ros. Young man. you have challenged Charles the wrestler?

Orla. No, fair princess; he is the general challenger: I come but in, as others do, to try with him the strength of my youth.

Cel. Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your years. You have seen cruel proof of this man's strength. If you saw yourself with your eyes, or knew yourself with your judgment, the fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal enterprise. We pray you. for your own sake, to embrace your own safety, and give over this attempt.

Ros. Do, young sir, your reputation shall not, therefore, be misprized. We will make it our suit to the duke that the wrestling might not go forward.

Orla. I beseech you. punish me not with your hard thoughts; wherein I confess me much guilty, to deny so fair and excellent ladies anything. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes, go with me to my trial; wherein if I be foiled, there is but one shained that was never gracious; if killed, but one dead that is willing to be so. I shall do my friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me; the world no injury. for in it I have nothing; only in the world I fill up a place, which may be better supplied, when I have made it. empty.

Ros.

The little strength that I have, I would it were with you.

Cel

And mine, to eke out hers.

Ros. Fare you well. Pray heaven I be deceived in you! Cel. Your heart's desires be with you!

Cha. Come, where is this young gallant, that is so desirous to lie with his mother earth?

Orla. Ready, sir; but his will hath in it a more modest working.

Duke F You shall try but one fall.

Cha. No, I warrant your grace; you shall not entreat him to a second, that have so mightily persuaded him from a first.

Orla. You mean to mock me after; you should not have mocked me before: but come your ways.

Ros. Now, Hercules be thy speed, young man!

Cel. I would I were invisible, to catch the strong fellow by the leg. [Charles and Orlando wrestle.]

Ros. O, excellent young man !

Cel. If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who should down. [Charles is thrown.—Shout.]

Duke F No more, no more.

Orla. Yes, I beseech your grace. I am not yet well breathed.

Duke F How dost thou, Charles?

Le Beau. He cannot speak, my lord.

Duke F. Bear him away. [Charles is borne out.] What is thy name, young man?

Orla. Orlando, my liege; the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Bois.

Duke F. Thou art a brave, a gallant youth; farewell! [Exit.]

Cel. Sir, you have well deserved;

If you do keep your promises in love,

But justly, as you have exceeded promise,

Your mistress shall be happy.

Gentleman. [giving him a chain from her neck.]

Wear this for me-one out of suits with fortune.

Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown

More than your enemies. Farewell. [Exeunt Rosalind and Celia.

Orla. What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue?

O, poor Orlando! thou art overthrown;

Or Charles, or something weaker, masters thee. [Exit.]

XXXI-LOVE, DUTY, AND PARENTAL AUTHORITY.—

Anonymous.

MABEL GOODWIN-ARTHUR MONTRESOR.

Scene 1.-An old-fashioned garden, with terraces, fountains, yewhedges, &c.-A large mansion in the background.—Time, eight in the evening, A. D. 1657.

[Mabel Goodwin, alone.]

Mabel. So! Master Arthur Montresor ! He promised to meet me here by eight, and the great clock in the hall wanted but five minutes full half an hour agone. It must be half an hour. I have been pacing up and down this walk from the yew-hedge to the fountain, twenty times at least, besides going twice to the little door in the gardenwall, to be sure that it was unbolted. It can't be a minute less than half an hour. He had as well stay now in his hiding place at the village, for I'll never speak to him again. Never and yet, poor fellow.-No! I'll never speak to him again!

[Enter Arthur Montresor.]

So, Master Arthur.

Arthur. So, my pretty Mistress Mabel! Why turn away so angrily? What fault have I committed, I pray

thee?

Mub. Fault? None!

Arth. Nay. nay, my little Venus of the Puritans, my princess of all Precisions, if thou be offended, tell me so.

Mab. Offended, forsooth! People are never offended with people they don't care about Offended, quotha!

Arth. And is it because some people don't care for other people, that they bridle, and flounce, and toss, and put their pretty selves into such pretty tantrums-eh, Mistress Mabel? I am after time, sweet-but

Mab. After time! I have been here this half-hour !— and my father fast asleep in the hall! After time! If thou hadst cared for me.- -But men are all alike. There hath not been a true lover in the world since the days of Amadis and that was but a false legend. After time!Why, if thou hadst cared for me only as much as I care for this sprig of lavender, thou wouldst have been waiting for me before the chimes had rung seven. Just think of the

time thou hast lost.-Now thou may'st go thy ways—Leave ine. sir!

Arth. Nay, mine own sweet love, do not offer to snatch thy hand away. I cannot part with thee, Mabel, though thou shouldst flutter like a new caught dove. I must speak with thee. I have that to say which must be heard. Mab. Well!

Arth. I have been dogged all day by a canting Puritan. a follower, as I take it. of thy godly father.

Mab. Jeer not my father, Arthur, although he be a roundhead and thou a cavalier. He is a brave man and a good. Arth. He is thy father, and therefore sacred to me. Where didst thou say he is now?

Mab. I left him in the hall just settling quietly to an after-supper nap.-Why dost thou ask?

Arth. I have been watched all day by one whom I suspect to be a spy; and I fear me, that in spite of my disguise, my false name, and my humble lodging, I am discovered. Mab Discovered in thy visits here? Discovered as my

-friend?

Arth. No, no, I trust not so. Therefore I delayed to come to thee till I could shake off my unwelcome follower. Not discovered as thy lover, thy friend, if such name better please thee-but as the cavalier and malignant (for so their phrase runs) Arthur Montresor.

Mab. But granting that were true, what harm hast thou committed? What hast thou to fear?

Arth. Small harm, dear Mabel; and yet in these bad days small harm may cause great fear. I have borne arms for the king; I have never acknowledged the Protector! I am known as the friend of Ormond, perhaps suspected as his agent; and moreover, I am the rightful owner of this same estate and mansion of Montresor Hall, its parks, manors, and dependencies, bestowed by the sequestrators on thy father, Colonel Goodwin. Seest thou no fear there, fair Mabel?

Mab. Alas! alas!

Arth. Then my deceased father, stout old Sir Robert, has meddled in every plot and rising in the country, from the first year of the Rebellion to this, as I well trust the last of the usurpation, so that the very name sounds like a firebrand. 'Twould be held a fair service to the state, Mabel, to shoot thy poor friend; and yet I promise thee, albeit a loyal subject to king Charles, I am hardly fool enough to

wage war in my own single person against Oliver, whom a mightier conqueror than himself will speedily overthrow. Mab. A mightier conqueror!

Arth. Even the great tyrant Death-he who levels the mighty and the low-Arthur Montresor and Oliver Crom well!

Mab. Death! Art thou then in such peril? And dost thou loiter here? I beseech thee away! away this moment! what detains thee?

Arth. That which brought me thyself. Being in England I came hither, more weeks ago than I care to think of, to look on my old birth place my old home. I saw thee, Mabel, and ever since I have felt that these halls are a thousandfold more precious to me as thy home, as thy inheritance, than ever they could have been as mine. I love thee, Mabel. Mab. Oh go! go! go! To talk of love whilst thou art in such danger!

Arth. I love thee, mine own Mabel.

I am not rich-I have

Arth. Wilt thou go with me? no fair mansion to take thee to; but a soldier's arm, and a true heart, Mabel! Wilt thou go with me. sweet one? I'll bring horses to the little garden door. The moon will be up at twelve-Speak, dearest! And yet this trembling hand speaks for thee. Wilt thou go with me, and be my

wedded wife?

Mab. I will.

Scene 2.

ARTHUR MONTRESOR-MABEL GOODWIN-COLONEL GOODWIN-

JONATHAN.

The same garden. A high wall on one side, with a small strong door in it.

[Enter Arthur from the side-door.]

Arth. Mabel! Not yet arrived! Surely she cannot have changed her purpose? No, no! it were treason against true love but to suspect her of wavering-she lingers from maiden modesty, from maiden fear from natural affection, from all that man worships in woman. But if she knew the cause I have to dread every delay!

Mabel!

[Enter Mabel from the House] Sweetest-how breathless thou art! Thou canst

hardly stand! Rest thee on this seat a moment, my Mabel