All went on smoothly enough, until the scene where Richard rushes on the stage in the midst of alarums, crying out. “What ho! young Richmond ho!” Here, as ill luck would have it, Richmond could not find his _fighting sword_, and his confusion was so great, when Richard again roared out, “’Tis Richard calls!” Richmond rebellowed from behind the scenes, “Call and be d—d,” thinking the actor was taking an unwarrantable liberty in calling for him before so many people in such an authoritative style.
_Richard_. “I say come forth, and singly face me.”
_Richmond_, (behind) “What the devil’s the use of my coming, when I can’t find my sword?”
At length, the combatants met, Richmond having picked up a powerful weapon, instead of the short, blunt and harmless sword intended for the encounter. It was keen, long, and pointed, like a lancet—a terrible weapon in unpractised hands.
_Richard_. “Do you remember the cuts?” (in an undertone, with doubting fear).
_Richmond_. “Oh, d—n the cuts!” at the same time dealing a blow that laid open the shin of the crook backed tyrant, who, thinking it better to die at once in jest, than to be killed outright in earnest, fell down exclaiming, “Perdition catch thy arm! you’ve cut my leg open!”
_Richmond_. “Upon my soul, I could’nt help it!”
_Richard_. “But oh—! the vast renown thou hast acquired—”
This was too much for the audience to bear—“their visible muscles unmasterly grew,” and the champions were mutually discomposed.
_Richmond_. “What the devil are they laughing at?”
_Richard_. “At you to be sure, ‘in conquering Richard.’”
Here another burst of merriment broke from the spectators, and Triptolemus, turning his head, to check, with a high tragedy look, their ill timed mirth, beheld, to his horror and dismay, the inveterate gardener standing upon the front bench of the pit, waving his arms like the sails of a windmill, and who no sooner caught a full view of his countenance than he roared out, “I’m blest if it bea’nt he that I turned up wi’ my pitch fork out of the muck heap!”
“All’s over!” exclaimed Richard, and gave up the ghost, with his back turned to the audience, which created a fresh peal of laughter, groans and hisses. Richmond, shocked at the un-Cesarian position of the monarch, strove to obtain silence, while he spoke the tag, by turning him over with his face to the footlights—which he did with his foot, placing Richard’s nose within half an inch of the burning oil, who grinned his disapprobation of such usage, till the audience shrieked with mirth.