Читать книгу The English Rogue: Continued in the Life of Meriton Latroon, and Other Extravagants: The Second Part - Richard Head - Страница 12

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He discovers his Aunts playing loose with a Shopkeeper, his Vncles invective against women.

My Aunts unkindness to me vexed me to the heart, so that I vowed to my self to be revenged on her; the print of the rod did not stick so fast on my buttocks as the remembrance of her words did stick in my minde; I was not so watched by Argus as I watched her, for I knew that women were subject to many faults, and my Aunt as subject as any of the rest; One Shopkeeper used constantly to haunt our house, not a day passed in which we had not his company; This man my uncle entertained with very much respect, for what reason I know not, unless it were that of the Poets.

Experience plainly doth unto us shew,

Cuckolds are kind to them that make them so.

One day my Uncle went forth to dress a patient, no sooner was he gone but the Shopkeeper was there; Now our whole family consisted only of four persons, my Uncle and Aunt, a maid and my self; in order therefore for their more privacy, the maid was sent to the market to buy eggs, and my self had liberty to go forth to play; I kindely thanked my Aunt for this courtesie, and taking my hatt, with a seeming forwardness pretended to go forth: but clapping to the door on the in side, I softly sneaked back and hid my self under the staires, where undiscerned I could plainly see all the passages between my Aunt and the Shopkeeper. He thinking us gone, took my Aunt by the hand, and clasping his arm about her neck, fell to kissing her with as much eagerness as a hungry dog snatcheth at a bone; no doubt but her lips were very sweet, for he was still hanging at them as if he had taken a lease of them for three lives; at last my Aunt began to struggle (I suppose for want of breath) and opening her mouth (which I wisht a hundred times had been closed eternally) she thus said to him: No pish, why do you thus trifle? now that the Coast is clear, let us take time by the for-lock lest we be prevented of our design: in sooth you are so long about the prologue, as may chance to marr the Comedy; make not such a long stop at the porch, but enter loves Cittadel, and ransack all her treasures, and so giving him a short kiss, hand in hand up stairs they went. No sooner were they gone, but I slipt out of my peeping hole, and coming to the door at the stairs foot, softly locked the same, and putting the key in my pocket, with as little noyse conveyed my self out of the house.

Thus whilest they were playing their game, I resolved to play mine, and hiring a Porter, sent him to my Uncle, to certifie him that my Aunt was swounded away, and laid upon the bed in such a condition as would grieve him to the heart to behold it, desiring him to make all the haste home that possibly he could; and having given him his message, I stept aside to a neighbors house to observe (when my uncle came home) how the project would take.

The Porter quickly dispatched his errand, and my Uncle suddenly posted home, where entering the house and finding not any one within, he began first to call for the maid, then for me, and last of all for my Aunt; but receiving no answer, he attempted to go up stairs, when the locksmiths daughter denyed him entrance. The two Lovers (who by this time had verified the saying to be true, that a man may be made a Cuckold in the short time of going to a neighbors house, as well as going a voyage to the West-Indies) hearing my Uncle below, were almost distracted with this surprize; my Aunt dreaded my Uncles anger, knowing him to be of a very chollerick disposition; and the poor Shopkeeper feared to be served as the Country Clown served the Curate whom he took in bed with his wife, and whom he thus menaced.

Make me a Cuckold, reading Rogue:

No pulpit serve but Susan’s,

Must Susan’s smock your pulpit be?

Ile take away that Nusance.

And though Priest wept, and wife did beg,

Churl slighted words and tears,

And at one gash from Curate took

Musquet and Bandaliers.

This feare of loosing his generals made him to shake worse than if he had had a Tertian ague, and therefore to prevent it he crept underneath the bed, whilest my Aunt went down stairs intending to smother up all with a dissembling kiss; but when she saw the door was fast, and my uncle asked her why she locked it? she could not tell what answer to make at present; but being well principled in the mysteries of Venus, she soon recollected her self, and with a sorrowfull voice (as if she had been sick of a feaver for a fortnight together) she pewled out these words: Ah dear Husband (said she) I was lately taken with such a great swimming in my head, as not able to sit up longer, I was forced to go up stairs and lie down upon the bed; in the mean time I suppose your unhappy kinsman (who minds nothing but mischief) hath in revenge of me for causing him to be beaten, locked the door, and thrown away the key. Whilest she was thus exclaiming on me, I came in puffing and blowing as seeming quite orewearied with play, and as if ignorant of what had hapned, asked very earnestly what was the matter? My Aunt though she were mue’d up like a hawk, yet hearing my tongue, could not forbear to vend her spleen against me in these words: You impudent young Rogue (said she) doe you act mischief and then plead ignorance? O that I were but well for thy sake, I would make every limb of thee feel the weight of my displeasure, concluding her invective with as horrid a yelling as an old woman grown hoars with crying of Sprats, or as a company of dogs when they bark at the Moon.

My Uncle who was of the same nature that other Cuckolds are commonly of, to believe whatsoever their Wife doe say unto them, hearing her so positively to affirm it was I that did it, he began presently to ransack my pockets for the key, protesting if he found the same about me, he would make me an example of his severity. But I who always dreaded what might ensue, to prevent such after claps, had before bestowed the same in a house of office. No sooner had my Uncle examined my pockets, (where was not any thing to be found that might do me a prejudice,) but I began to enveigh against my Aunts malice in blaming my innocency, and to perswade him it could be no other then some thief, who whilest my Aunt slept, having locked the door, had hid himself in one of the Chambers. This though it carried but little show of probability in it, yet the fear of loosing his Mammon made him believe any thing, and therefore presently sent me for a Smith to break open the door, which being done, we all three ascended the stairs to search for his hidden Thief, although my Aunt vehemently urged the contrary, alleadging it was impossible that any one should go up the stairs but she must needs hear them; how ever my uncle would not be so pacified, but searching about, he at last spyed the poor Shopkeeper as he lay shaking underneath the bed half dead with fear. But when he saw who it was, turning to my Aunt he said, You impudent whore, do you abuse me thus? you could feign sickness with a pox to you, when you were so rampant as to Cornute me in my absence: is this your pretended chastity and reservation? I shall take a time when to be even with you; In the mean time Master Shopkeeper (said he) I will have my pennyworths out of you, and thereupon falling on him with his fists, (anger giving him at once both strength and courage) he so buffeted the Shopkeeper, that had not the Smith interposed, I suppose he would go near to have killed him; but after an hundred or above of blows, the Smith stepped in betwixt them, giving the Shopkeeper liberty to run away, bearing along with him the marks of my Uncles anger, which he wore as badges in his face for a long time after.

My Aunt seeing how bad the Shopkeeper had sped, and knowing the business too apparent to be denied, fell down on her knees, desiring my Uncle to pardon her for what was past, and protesting amendment for the time to come; this her humiliation much mollified the edge of my Uncles anger, who in stead of beating her (which I heartily wished) fell a railing on the whole sex of women in general, in these or the like words.

O Nature! why didst thou create such a plague for men as women; how happy were men had they never been; oh why could not Nature infuse the gift of procreation in men alone without the help of women? then should we never be acquainted with the deceitful devices of those Devils, Harpies, Cockatrices, the very Curse of man, dissembling monsters, only patcht up to cozen and gull men; borrowing their Hair from one, Complexions from another, nothing of their own that’s pleasing, all dissembled, not so much as their very breath is sophisticated with Amber pellets and kissing causes, and all to train poor man unto his ruine. A woman shee’s an Angel at ten, a Saint at fifteen, a Devil at forty, and a Witch at fourscore, so stufft with vice as leaves no place for vertue to inhabit; of such crooked conditions, and corrupt actions, that if all the world were paper, the Sea inke, trees and plants, penns, and all men Clerks, Scribes, and Notaries, yet would all that paper be scribled over, the inke wasted, penns worn to the stumps, and all the Scriveners weary, before they could describe the hundredth part of a womans wickedness, so that I may very well conclude with the Poet.