The Collected Works of Frances Burney (Illustrated Edition). Frances Burney
out to a Harlequin who stood near him, “Harlequin! do you fear to fight the devil?”
“Not I truly!” answered Harlequin, whose voice immediately betrayed young Morrice, and who, issuing from the crowd, whirled himself round before the black gentleman with yet more agility than he had himself done before Cecilia, giving him, from time to time, many smart blows on his shoulders, head, and back, with his wooden sword.
The rage of Don Devil at this attack seemed somewhat beyond what a masquerade character rendered necessary; he foamed at the mouth with resentment, and defended himself with so much vehemence, that he soon drove poor Harlequin into another room: but, when he would have returned to his prey, the genius of pantomime, curbed, but not subdued, at the instigation of the white domino, returned to the charge, and by a perpetual rotation of attack and retreat, kept him in constant employment, pursuing him from room to room, and teazing him without cessation or mercy.
Mean time Cecilia, delighted at being released, hurried into a corner, where she hoped to breathe and look on in quiet; and the white domino having exhorted Harlequin to torment the tormentor, and keep him at bay, followed her with congratulations upon her recovered freedom.
“It is you,” answered she, “I ought to thank for it, which indeed I do most heartily. I was so tired of confinement, that my mind seemed almost as little at liberty as my person.”
“Your persecutor, I presume,” said the domino, “is known to you.”
“I hope so,” answered she, “because there is one man I suspect, and I should be sorry to find there was another equally disagreeable.”
“O, depend upon it,” cried he, “there are many who would be happy to confine you in the same manner; neither have you much cause for complaint; you have, doubtless, been the aggressor, and played this game yourself without mercy, for I read in your face the captivity of thousands: have you, then, any right to be offended at the spirit of retaliation which one, out of such numbers has courage to exert in return?”
“I protest,” cried Cecilia, “I took you for my defender! whence is it you are become my accuser?”
“From seeing the danger to which my incautious knight-errantry has exposed me; I begin, indeed, to take you for a very mischievous sort of person, and I fear the poor devil from whom I rescued you will be amply revenged for his disgrace, by finding that the first use you make of your freedom is to doom your deliverer to bondage.”
Here they were disturbed by the extreme loquacity of two opposite parties: and listening attentively, they heard from one side, “My angel! fairest of creatures! goddess of my heart!” uttered in accents of rapture; while from the other, the vociferation was so violent they could distinctly hear nothing.
The white domino satisfied his curiosity by going to both parties; and then, returning to Cecilia, said, “Can you conjecture who was making those soft speeches? a Shylock! his knife all the while in his hand, and his design, doubtless, to cut as near the heart as possible! while the loud cackling from the other side is owing to the riotous merriment of a noisy Mentor! when next I hear a disturbance, I shall expect to see some simpering Pythagoras stunned by his talkative disciples.”
“To own the truth,” said Cecilia, “the almost universal neglect of the characters assumed by these masquers has been the chief source of my entertainment this evening: for at a place of this sort, the next best thing to a character well supported is a character ridiculously burlesqued.”
“You cannot, then, have wanted amusement,” returned the domino, “for among all the persons assembled in these apartments, I have seen only three who have seemed conscious that any change but that of dress was necessary to disguise them.”
“And pray who are those?”
“A Don Quixote, a schoolmaster, and your friend the devil.”
“O, call him not my friend,” exclaimed Cecilia, “for indeed in or out of that garb he is particularly my aversion.”
“My friend, then, I will call him,” said the domino, “for so, were he ten devils, I must think him, since I owe to him the honour of conversing with you. And, after all, to give him his due, to which, you know, he is even proverbially entitled, he has shewn such abilities in the performance of his part, so much skill in the display of malice, and so much perseverance in the art of tormenting, that I cannot but respect his ingenuity and capacity. And, indeed, if instead of an evil genius, he had represented a guardian angel, he could not have shewn a more refined taste in his choice of an object to hover about.”
Just then they were approached by a young haymaker, to whom the white domino called out, “You look as gay and as brisk as if fresh from the hay-field after only half a day’s work. Pray, how is it you pretty lasses find employment for the winter”
“How?” cried she, pertly, “why, the same as for the summer!” And pleased with her own readiness at repartee, without feeling the ignorance it betrayed, she tript lightly on.
Immediately after the schoolmaster mentioned by the white domino advanced to Cecilia. His dress was merely a long wrapping gown of green stuff, a pair of red slippers, and a woollen night-cap of the same colour; while, as the symbol of his profession, he held a rod in his hand.
“Ah, fair lady,” he cried, “how soothing were it to the austerity of my life, how softening to the rigidity of my manners, might I— without a breaking out of bounds, which I ought to be the first to discourage, and a “confusion to all order” for which the school-boy should himself chastise his master — be permitted to cast at your feet this emblem of my authority! and to forget, in the softness of your conversation, all the roughness of discipline!”
“No, no,” cried Cecilia, “I will not be answerable for such corruption of taste!”
“This repulse,” answered he, “is just what I feared; for alas! under what pretence could a poor miserable country pedagogue presume to approach you? Should I examine you in the dead languages, would not your living accents charm from me all power of reproof? Could I look at you, and hear a false concord? Should I doom you to water-gruel as a dunce, would not my subsequent remorse make me want it myself as a madman? Were your fair hand spread out to me for correction, should I help applying my lips to it, instead of my rat-tan? If I ordered you to be called up, should I ever remember to have you sent back? And if I commanded you to stand in a corner, how should I forbear following you thither myself?”
Cecilia, who had no difficulty in knowing this pretended schoolmaster for Mr Gosport, was readily beginning to propose conditions for according him her favour, when their ears were assailed by a forced phthisical cough, which they found proceeded from an apparent old woman, who was a young man in disguise, and whose hobbling gait, grunting voice, and most grievous asthmatic complaints, seemed greatly enjoyed and applauded by the company.
“How true is it, yet how inconsistent,” cried the white domino, “that while we all desire to live long, we have all a horror of being old! The figure now passing is not meant to ridicule any particular person, nor to stigmatize any particular absurdity; its sole view is to expose to contempt and derision the general and natural infirmities of age! and the design is not more disgusting than impolitic; for why, while so carefully we guard from all approaches of death, should we close the only avenues to happiness in long life, respect and tenderness?”
Cecilia, delighted both by the understanding and humanity of her new acquaintance, and pleased at being joined by Mr Gosport, was beginning to be perfectly satisfied with her situation, when, creeping softly towards her, she again perceived the black gentleman.
“Ah!” cried she, with some vexation, “here comes my old tormentor! screen me from him if possible, or he will again make me his prisoner.”
“Fear not,” cried the white domino, “he is an evil spirit, and we will surely lay him. If one spell fails, we must try another.”
Cecilia then perceiving Mr Arnott, begged he would also assist in barricading her from the fiend who so obstinately pursued her.
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