# Our American Cousin: every role by lines, words, and stage time

> Tom Taylor. 17 speaking roles, 15,860 words, about 113 minutes of speech.

- URL: https://www.offbook.com/plays/our-american-cousin
- Last updated: 2026-10-08

**Asa Trenchard** has the most to say in Our American Cousin: about 636 lines and 5,141 words, 32.4% of the play. Tom Taylor’s comedy follows Asa Trenchard, a plain-spoken American who visits his aristocratic English relatives. Asa Trenchard carries about a third of the words, more than twice any other role. Florence Trenchard and the comic Lord Dundreary are the next-largest parts, each with about 14% of the words.

- Speaking roles: 17
- Scenes: 12
- Words: 15,860
- Speech time: 113 min

## Every role, largest first

| Role | Lines | Words | Share | Minutes | Scenes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Asa Trenchard | 636 | 5,141 | 32.4% | 36.7 | 9 |
| Florence Trenchard | 311 | 2,330 | 14.7% | 16.6 | 7 |
| Lord Dundreary | 290 | 2,140 | 13.5% | 15.3 | 6 |
| Mr. Coyle | 137 | 1,067 | 6.7% | 7.6 | 5 |
| Abel Murcott | 119 | 992 | 6.3% | 7.1 | 5 |
| Mary | 115 | 905 | 5.7% | 6.5 | 4 |
| Sir Edward Trenchard | 120 | 878 | 5.5% | 6.3 | 4 |
| Mr. Binny | 98 | 695 | 4.4% | 5.0 | 6 |
| Mrs. Mountchessington | 78 | 594 | 3.7% | 4.2 | 4 |
| Georgina | 46 | 296 | 1.9% | 2.1 | 4 |
| Augusta | 44 | 272 | 1.7% | 1.9 | 4 |
| Mr. Buddicombe | 27 | 158 | 1% | 1.1 | 5 |
| John Wickens | 18 | 143 | 0.9% | 1.0 | 2 |
| Harry Vernon | 20 | 127 | 0.8% | 0.9 | 2 |
| Sharpe | 6 | 42 | 0.3% | 0.3 | 1 |
| Capt. De Boots | 6 | 38 | 0.2% | 0.3 | 2 |
| Skillet | 5 | 30 | 0.2% | 0.2 | 1 |

## Who speaks in which scene

Words each role speaks in each scene (scene: words). Scenes: 1.1 = Act 1, Scene 1; 1.2 = Act 1, Scene 2; 1.3 = Act 1, Scene 3; 2.1 = Act 2, Scene 1; 2.2 = Act 2, Scene 2; 3.1 = Act 3, Scene 1; 3.2 = Act 3, Scene 2; 3.3 = Act 3, Scene 3; 3.4 = Act 3, Scene 4; 3.5 = Act 3, Scene 5; 3.6 = Act 3, Scene 6; 3.7 = Act 3, Scene 7.

- **Asa Trenchard**: 1.1 (733), 1.3 (521), 2.1 (401), 2.2 (796), 3.1 (1,006), 3.2 (835), 3.3 (117), 3.6 (293), 3.7 (439)
- **Florence Trenchard**: 1.1 (1,225), 1.2 (38), 2.1 (255), 2.2 (410), 3.1 (162), 3.2 (83), 3.7 (157)
- **Lord Dundreary**: 1.1 (828), 2.1 (375), 2.2 (607), 3.4 (77), 3.5 (160), 3.7 (93)
- **Mr. Coyle**: 1.2 (813), 2.2 (3), 3.3 (86), 3.6 (63), 3.7 (102)
- **Abel Murcott**: 1.2 (313), 2.1 (538), 3.3 (38), 3.6 (91), 3.7 (12)
- **Mary**: 2.2 (356), 3.1 (447), 3.2 (98), 3.7 (4)
- **Sir Edward Trenchard**: 1.1 (203), 1.2 (418), 2.2 (34), 3.7 (223)
- **Mr. Binny**: 1.1 (245), 1.2 (42), 1.3 (125), 3.2 (141), 3.3 (95), 3.7 (47)
- **Mrs. Mountchessington**: 1.1 (97), 2.1 (203), 3.2 (240), 3.7 (54)

## The longest speeches

| Speech | Scene | Words | Lines |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Asa Trenchard: “You see, as nigh as we could reckon it up, she had gone and got married again his will, and that made him mad, and well, he was a queer kind of a rusty fusty old coon, and it appeared that he got older, and rustier, and fustier and coonier every fall, you see it always took him in the fall, it was too much for him. He got took down with the ague, he was so bad the doctors gave him up, and mother she went for a minister, and while she was gone the old man called me in his room, “come in, Asa Trenchard, boy,” says he, and his voice rang loud and clear as a bell, “come in,” says he. Well I comed in; “sit down,” says he; well I sot down. You see I was always a favorite with the old man. “Asa Trenchard, my boy,” says he, takin’ a great piece of paper, “when I die, this sheet of paper makes you heir to all my property in England.” Well, you can calculate I pricked up my ears about that time, bime-by the minister came, and I left the room, and I do believe he had a three day’s fight with the devil, for that old man’s soul, but he got the upper hand of satan at last, and when the minister had gone the old man called me into his room again. The old Squire was sitting up in his bed, his face as pale as the sheet that covered him, his silken hair flowing in silvery locks from under his red cap, and the tears rolling from his large blue eyes down his furrowed cheek, like two mill streams. Will you excuse my lighting a cigar? For the story is a long, awful moving, and I don’t think I could get on without a smoke. “Wal,” says he to me, and his voice was not as loud as it was afore—it was like the whisper of the wind in a pine forest, low and awful. “Asa Trenchard, boy,” said he, “I feel that I’ve sinned in hardening my heart against my own flesh and blood, but I will not wrong the last that is left of them; give me the light,” says he. Wal I gave him the candle that stood by his bedside, and he took the sheet of paper I was telling you of, just as I might take this. And he twisted it up as I might this, and he lights it just this way, and he watched it burn slowly and slowly away. Then, says he, “Asa Trenchard, boy that act disinherits you, but it leaves all my property to one who has a better right to it. My own daughter’s darling child, Mary Meredith,” and then he smiled, sank back upon his pillow, drew a long sigh as if he felt relieved, and that was the last of poor old Mark Trenchard.” | Act 3, Scene 1 | 496 | 50 |
| Lord Dundreary: “You may go. “My dear Frederick.” He calls me Frederick because my name is Robert. “I wrote you on my arrival.” Why, I never heard from him. “But I am afraid you didn’t get the letter, because I put no name on the envelope.” That’s the reason why I didn’t get it, but who did get it? It must have been some fellow without any name. “My dear brother, the other day a rap came to my door, and some fellows came in and proposed a quiet game of porker.” A quiet game of porker, why, they wanted to kill him with a poker. “I consented and got stuck—” Sam’s dead, I’ve got a dead lunatic for a brother—“for the drinks.” He got on the other side of the paper, why couldn’t he get stuck all on one side. “P.S.—If you don’t get this letter let me know, for I shall feel anxious.” He’s a mad lunatic.” | Act 3, Scene 5 | 160 | 16 |
| Mr. Binny: “Mr. H’Asa Trenchard, Mr. H’Asa Trenchard! Oh he’s gone; well, I suppose he’ll come back to keep his happointment. Mr. Coyle’s quite impatient. It isn’t hoften that han hamerican has the run of the wine cellars of Trenchard Manor, and in such company, too. There’s me and Mr. Coyle, which is a good judge of old port wine, and he knows it when he drinks; and his clerk, Mr. Murcott, which I don’t hexactly like sitting down with clerks. But Mr. H’Asa Trenchard wished it and Mr. Coyle hadn’t any objections, so in course I put my feelings in my pocket, besides, Murcott is a man of hedication, though unfortunately taken to drink. Well, what of that, it’s been many a man’s misfortune, though I say it, what shouldn’t say it, being a butler. But now to join my distinguished party.” | Act 3, Scene 2 | 141 | 15 |
| Mr. Coyle: “Shallow, selfish fool. She warned you of me did she? And you did not heed her; you shall both pay dearly. She, for her suspicions, and you that you did not share them. How lucky the seals were not cut from that mortgage, when the release was given. ’Tis like the silly security of the Trenchard’s. This mortgage makes Ravensdale mine, while the release that restores it to its owner lies in the recess of the bureau, whose secret my father revealed to me on his deathbed. Write to the mortgagee of the Fanhill and Ellenthrope estates, to foreclose before the week is out, and tell Walters and Brass to put in execution today. We’ll prick this windbag of a Baronet. Abel, we have both a bone to pick with him and his daughter. Why, what’s the matter?” | Act 1, Scene 2 | 138 | 14 |
| Abel Murcott: “No, no, it’s gone too far, it’s gone too far, thanks to the man who owns this house, you know all about it. How he found me a thriving, sober lad, flogging the village children through their spelling book. How he took a fancy to me as he called it, and employed me here to teach his son and Miss Florence. Then remember how I forgot who and what I was, and was cuffed out of the house like a dog. How I lost my school, my good name, but still hung about the place, they all looked askance at me, you don’t know how that kills the heart of a man, then I took to drink and sank down, down, till I came to this.” | Act 1, Scene 2 | 126 | 13 |
| Asa Trenchard: “All right, come along. Hold on, say, I may want to yawn presently and I shall want somebody to shut my mouth. Wal, now I am alone, I can look about me and indulge the enquiring spirit of an American citizen. What an everlasting lot of things and fixins there is to be sure. Here’s a place will hold my plunder beautifully. Hallo, what’s this? Something good to drink. It smells awful bad. Golden Fluid, one application turns the hair a beautiful brown, several applications will turn the hair a lustrous black. Well, if they keep on it may turn a pea green. I reckon this has been left here by some fellow who is ashamed of the natural color of his top knot. Come in.” | Act 1, Scene 3 | 126 | 13 |
| Asa Trenchard: “Say it again, last of hope and blessed promise. Mary, there’s something tells me that you’ll not repent it. I’m rough, Mary, awful rough, but you needn’t fear that I’ll ever be rough to you. I’ve camped out in the woods, Mary, often and often, and seen the bears at play with their cubs in the moonlight, the glistening teeth, that would tear the hunter, was harmless to them; the big strong claws that would peel a man’s head, as a knife would a pumpkin, was as soft for them as velvet cushions, and that’s what I’ll be with you, my own little wife; and if ever harm does come to you, it must come over the dead body of Asa Trenchard.” | Act 3, Scene 2 | 122 | 13 |
| Abel Murcott: “I need not tell you by what steps I came to this, you don’t know, maybe you never knew, what a maddening thing a passion is when it turns against itself. After being expelled from my tutorship in this house, I lost my employment, self-respect, hope. I sought to drown recollection and draw courage from drink. It only embittered remembrances, and destroyed the little courage I had left. That I have bread to eat, I owe to Mr. Coyle; he employed me as his clerk. You know he has been with your father this morning. I have come to tell you my errand; are you as brave as you used to be when I knew—” | Act 2, Scene 1 | 115 | 12 |
| Florence Trenchard: ““It appears that when he quarreled with his daughter on her marriage with poor Meredith, he came here in search of this stray shoot of the family tree, found them and died in their house, leaving Asa Trenchard, one of the sons, heir to his personal property in England, which ought to belong to poor Mary Meredith. Asa Trenchard is about to sail for the old country, to take possession. I gave him directions to find you out, and he should arrive almost as soon as this letter. Receive him kindly for the sake of the kindness he has shown to me, and let him see some of our shooting. Your affectionate brother, Ned.”” | Act 1, Scene 1 | 114 | 12 |
| Abel Murcott: “He marry Florence! Florence Trenchard! My Florence. Mine! Florence his wife. No, no, better a thousand times she had been mine, low as I am, when I dreampt that dream, but it shan’t be, it shan’t be. If I can help her, sot though I am. Yes, I can help her, if the shock don’t break me down. Oh! my poor muddled brain, surely there was a release with it when I found it. I must see Florence to warn her and expose Mr. Coyle’s villainy. Oh! how my poor head throbs when I try to. I shall die if I don’t have a drop of brandy, yes brandy.” | Act 1, Scene 2 | 109 | 11 |

## Questions actors ask

### Who has the most lines in Our American Cousin?

Asa Trenchard, with about 636 lines and 5,141 words, 32.4% of everything spoken in the play. Florence Trenchard is next, with about 311 lines (14.7%).

### How long is Our American Cousin?

The full text has 15,860 spoken words, about 113 minutes at 140 words a minute before pauses, scene changes, and cuts. Most productions cut the text, so running times vary.

### How many speaking roles are in Our American Cousin?

17 named roles speak in this edition, across 12 scenes. 8 of them have less than 2% of the words, which is why small parts are often doubled.

## How we count

Counts are computed from the full text of the [Standard Ebooks edition](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/tom-taylor/our-american-cousin) (public domain; retrieved 2026-10-08). Words are every spoken word, with stage directions removed. Lines are verse lines as printed, plus prose at 10 words a line, because prose has no fixed line breaks; editions differ, so other sources give slightly different line counts. Time is words at 140 words a minute, before pauses and stage business. A role is counted in a scene when it speaks there. To count a script that is not in the library, paste it into the [script line counter](https://www.offbook.com/tools/script-line-counter).