The Admirable Bashville Part 5

LYDIA. These are not things of choice.

CASHEL. And did I choose My quick divining eye, my lightning hand, My springing muscle and untiring heart?

Did I implant the instinct in the race That found a use for these, and said to me, Fight for us, and be fame and fortune thine?

LYDIA. But there are other callings in the world.

CASHEL. Go tell thy painters to turn stockbrokers, Thy poet friends to stoop o'er merchants' desks And pen prose records of the gains of greed.

Tell bishops that religion is outworn, And that the Pampa to the horsebreaker Opes new careers. Bid the professor quit His fraudulent pedantries, and do i' the world The thing he would teach others. Then return To me and say: Cashel: they have obeyed; And on that pyre of sacrifice I, too, Will throw my champions.h.i.+p.

LYDIA. But 'tis so cruel.

CASHEL. Is it so? I have hardly noticed that, So cruel are all callings. Yet this hand, That many a two days' bruise hath ruthless given, Hath kept no dungeon locked for twenty years, Hath slain no sentient creature for my sport.

I am too squeamish for your dainty world, That cowers behind the gallows and the lash, The world that robs the poor, and with their spoil Does what its tradesmen tell it. Oh, your ladies!

Sealskinned and egret-feathered; all defiance To Nature; cowering if one say to them "What will the servants think?" Your gentlemen!

Your tailor-tyrannized visitors of whom Flutter of wing and singing in the wood Make chickenbutchers. And your medicine men!

Groping for cures in the tormented entrails Of friendly dogs. Pray have you asked all these To change their occupations? Find you mine So grimly crueller? I cannot breathe An air so petty and so poisonous.

LYDIA. But find you not their manners very nice?

CASHEL. To me, perfection. Oh, they condescend With a rare grace. Your duke, who condescends Almost to the whole world, might for a Man Pa.s.s in the eyes of those who never saw The duke capped with a prince. See then, ye G.o.ds, The duke turn footman, and his eager dame Sink the great lady in the obsequious housemaid!

Oh, at such moments I could wish the Court Had but one breadbasket, that with my fist I could make all its windy vanity Gasp itself out on the gravel. Fare you well.

I did not choose my calling; but at least I can refrain from being a gentleman.

LYDIA. You say farewell to me without a pang.

CASHEL. My calling hath apprenticed me to pangs.

This is a rib-bender; but I can bear it.

It is a lonely thing to be a champion.

LYDIA. It is a lonelier thing to be a woman.

CASHEL. Be lonely then. Shall it be said of thee That for his brawn thou misalliance mad'st Wi' the Prince of Ruffians? Never. Go thy ways; Or, if thou hast nostalgia of the mud, Wed some bedogged wretch that on the slot Of gilded sn.o.bbery, _ventre a terre_, Will hunt through life with eager nose on earth And hang thee thick with diamonds. I am rich; But all my gold was fought for with my hands.

LYDIA. What dost thou mean by rich?

CASHEL. There is a man, Hight Paradise, vaunted unconquerable, Hath dared to say he will be glad to hear from me.

I have replied that none can hear from _me_ Until a thousand solid pounds be staked.

His friends have confidently found the money.

Ere fall of leaf that money shall be mine; And then I shall possess ten thousand pounds.

I had hoped to tempt thee with that monstrous sum.

LYDIA. Thou silly Cashel, 'tis but a week's income.

I did propose to give thee three times that For pocket money when we two were wed.

CASHEL. Give me my hat. I have been fooling here.

Now, by the Hebrew lawgiver, I thought That only in America such revenues Were decent deemed. Enough. My dream is dreamed.

Your gold weighs like a mountain on my chest.

Farewell.

LYDIA. The golden mountain shall be thine The day thou quit'st thy horrible profession.

CASHEL. Tempt me not, woman. It is honor calls.

Slave to the Ring I rest until the face Of Paradise be changed.

_Enter_ BASHVILLE

BASHVILLE. Madam, your carriage, Ordered by you at two. 'Tis now half-past.

CASHEL. Sdeath! is it half-past two? The king! the king!

LYDIA. The king! What mean you?

CASHEL. I must meet a monarch This very afternoon at Islington.

LYDIA. At Islington! You must be mad.

CASHEL. A cab!

Go call a cab; and let a cab be called; And let the man that calls it be thy footman.

LYDIA. You are not well. You shall not go alone.

My carriage waits. I must accompany you.

I go to find my hat. [_Exit._

CASHEL. Like Paracelsus, Who went to find his soul. [_To_ BASHVILLE.] And now, young man, How comes it that a fellow of your inches, So deft a wrestler and so bold a spirit, Can stoop to be a flunkey? Call on me On your next evening out. I'll make a man of you.

Surely you are ambitious and aspire----

BASHVILLE. To be a butler and draw corks; wherefore, By Heaven, I will draw yours.

[_He hits_ CASHEL _on the nose, and runs out_.

CASHEL [_thoughtfully putting the side of his forefinger to his nose_, _and studying the blood on it_].

Too quick for _me_!

There's money in this youth.

_Re-enter_ LYDIA, _hatted and gloved_.

LYDIA. O Heaven! you bleed.

CASHEL. Lend me a key or other frigid object, That I may put it down my back, and staunch The welling life stream.

LYDIA. [_giving him her keys_]. Oh, what _have_ you done?

CASHEL. Flush on the boko napped your footman's left.

LYDIA. I do not understand.

CASHEL. True. Pardon me.

I have received a blow upon the nose In sport from Bashville. Next, ablution; else I shall be total gules. [_He hurries out._