The Stranger | Page 7

not yet: but make way there, make way,
my good friends, tenants, and villagers.--John! George! Frederick!
Good friends, make way.
Sol. It is not the Count: it's only Baron Steinfort. Stand back, I say; and
stop the music!
Enter BARON STEINFORT, ushered in by PETER and FOOTMEN.
PETER mimicks and apes his father.
Sol. I have the honour to introduce to your lordship myself, Mr.

Solomon, who blesses the hour in which fortune allows him to become
acquainted with the Honourable Baron Steinfort, brother-in-law of his
Right Honourable Excellency Count Wintersen, my noble master.
Pet. Bless our noble master!
Bar. Old and young, I see they'll allow me no peace. [Aside.] Enough,
enough, good Mr. Solomon. I am a soldier. I pay but few compliments,
and require as few from others.
Sol. I beg, my lord--We do live in the country to be sure, but we are
acquainted with the reverence due to exalted personages.
Pet. Yes--We are acquainted with exalted personages.
Bar. What is to become of me?--Well, well, I hope we shall be better
acquainted. You must know, Mr. Solomon, I intend to assist, for a
couple of months at least, in attacking the well stocked cellars of
Wintersen.
Sol. Why not whole years, my lord?--Inexpressible would be the
satisfaction of your humble servant. And, though I say it, well stocked
indeed are our cellars. I have, in every respect, here managed matters in
so frugal and provident a way, that his Right Honourable Excellency
the Count, will be astonished. [BARON yawns.] Extremely sorry it is
not in my power to entertain your lordship.
Pet. Extremely sorry.
Sol. Where can Mrs. Haller have hid herself?
Bar. Mrs. Haller! who is she?
Sol. Why, who she is, I can't exactly tell your lordship.
Pet. No, nor I.
Sol. None of my correspondents give any account of her. She is here in
the capacity of a kind of a superior housekeeper. Methinks, I hear her

silver voice upon the stairs. I will have the honour of sending her to
your lordship in an instant.
Bar. Oh! don't trouble yourself.
Sol. No trouble whatever! I remain, at all times, your honourable
lordship's most obedient, humble, and devoted servant. [Exit, bowing.
Pet. Devoted servant. [Exit, bowing.
Bar. Now for a fresh plague. Now am I to be tormented by some
chattering old ugly hag, till I am stunned with her noise and officious
hospitality. Oh, patience! what a virtue art thou!
Enter MRS. HALLER, with a becoming curtsey. BARON rises, and
returns a bow, in confusion.
[Aside.] No, old she is not. [Casts another glance at her.] No, by Jove,
nor ugly.
Mrs. H. I rejoice, my lord, in thus becoming acquainted with the
brother of my benefactress.
Bar. Madam, that title shall be doubly valuable to me, since it gives me
an introduction equally to be rejoiced at.
Mrs. H. [Without attending to the compliment.] This lovely weather,
then, has enticed the Count from the city?
Bar. Not exactly that. You know him. Sunshine or clouds are to him
alike, as long as eternal summer reigns in his own heart and family.
Mrs. H. The Count possesses a most cheerful and amiable philosophy.
Ever in the same happy humour; ever enjoying each minute of his life.
But you must confess, my lord, that he is a favourite child of fortune,
and has much to be grateful to her for. Not merely because she has
given him birth and riches, but for a native sweetness of temper, never
to be acquired; and a graceful suavity of manners, whose school must
be the mind. And, need I enumerate among fortune's favours, the hand

and affections of your accomplished sister?
Bar. [More and more struck as her understanding opens upon him.]
True, madam. My good easy brother, too, seems fully sensible of his
happiness, and is resolved to retain it. He has quitted the service to live
here. I am yet afraid he may soon grow weary of Wintersen and
retirement.
Mrs. H. I should trust not. They, who bear a cheerful and
unreproaching conscience into solitude, surely must increase the
measure of their own enjoyments. They quit the poor, precarious, the
dependent pleasures, which they borrowed from the world, to draw a
real bliss from that exhaustless source of true delight, the fountain of a
pure unsullied heart.
Bar. Has retirement long possessed so lovely an advocate?
Mrs. H. I have lived here three years.
Bar. And never felt a secret wish for the society you left, and must have
adorned?
Mrs. H. Never.
Bar. To feel thus belongs either to a very rough or a very polished soul.
The first sight convinced me in which class I am to place you.
Mrs. H. [With a sigh.] There may, perhaps, be a third class.
Bar. Indeed,