Plays / Being: An unhistorical pastoral: A romantic farce: Bruce, a chronicle play: Smith, a tragic farce: and Scaramouch in Naxos, a pantomime.

by Unknown

PERSONS

Earl Edmund.
Sir James Montgomery.
Antinous.
Clown.
Captain Mercer.
Ringan Deane, a boy.
Lady Montgomery.
May Montgomery.
Mary-Jane.
Bellona.
Herminia.
Annie Smith, a girl.

Scene: A Country Town in Scotland.

ACT I

SCENE.—A Room, opening off a Ballroom.

Enter a lady dressed as an Amazon, and a gentleman dressed as a Clown; both masked.

Clown. Fair warrior, how speed you in a fight,
If all fordone after the second waltz?
Amazon. My soul is tired of folly, not my limbs.
Good clown, of your light wit enlighten me
Concerning somewhat cloudy.
Clown. Certainly.
My light wit if it may dispel your night,
Will flaunt as proudly as the sun. Behold!
[Unmasks.
Amazon. You are too hot. I would not, sir, be scorched:
Becloud your beams again. Your eyes burn bright—
Oh!—like the round holes carved in turnip-lamps,
Lit up by boys on witching hallow-e'ens
To fright their sisters and the serving-maids:
I am afraid: clap to the shutters, pray.
[Clown masks.
Now, like the hollowed orbs of the baboon
Your eyes gleam furtively—like rush-lights dim
That steal into the night through secret chinks
Of steep-thatched huts in lonely highland glens.
Clown. I might enlarge upon the periods
On either side your nose, that put an end
By saucy looks to any parleying
Save that of sharp-edged words: but haste me now
To know the darkness which I must illume.
Amazon. What wight is he, as gentle Sidney dressed,
Who casts his wit about like pearls—I mean
Like pearl-less oysters, which the crowd accept,
Unskilled or unconcerned, as worth mirth's price,
While you and I perceive them what they are,
Sad fish indeed, old, stale, unsavoury?
Clown. I've marked him well, but know not who he is:
He seems to be acquaint with comic writers.
Know you the nymph that danced with him but now—
She, with the rosy garland—only hue
About her white robe save her golden hair—
With frank blue eyes that always seem to ring
With peals of fairy laughter, summer's queen?

Enter a gentleman dressed as a Corsair, and a lady dressed as a Contadina; both masked.

Amazon. Hush!
Clown. Ah! I noted these in the last waltz.
Amazon. She's my full cousin; he, a highland one.
I think they be in love.

Enter a gentleman dressed as an Elizabethan Courtier, and a lady dressed to symbolise Summer. After them runs in hurriedly a lady dressed as a Scotch Peasant-girl. They are masked. The Courtier shuts the door and puts his back against it.

Clown. Our cynosures!
Amazon. Indeed! Pray, let me out.
Courtier. Superb she-warrior, rest you here a space:
Nay, frown not, most redoubted amazon:
I have a thing to say: I'll say it now.
That which the world calls folly is my trade,
Unwitting that its trade is only folly.
I neither crave the statesman's rancid fame,
The sailor's vogue, the soldier's red renown,
Nor care I to discover: Africa
Agrees not well with my adventurous sprite;
The negress is not lovely—that's the die:
Nor is the Arctic climate amorous.
I wrote a book——Good lack, the solitude!
But first the woe by which I was confined!
O Luna, of thy tenderness I pray
Let me no more be fructified by woe!
The highway?—Fie on steam and liveried lightning!—
Whate'er I fancy if I may I do.
A happy notion fills me now; give ear,
Gentle and lovely ladies, gentlemen,
Sprightly and handsome. Will you hearken it?
[They assent.
It is my earnest hope to make you mad.—
These gala robes wherein we now are dressed
Why should we cast for good and all to-night,
To don the wintry worldling's dingy slough,
Returning sadly to the chrysalis?
Fashion, propriety, convention?—Tush!
Let us like noble heretics protest
Against all dogmas false and fashionable,
And, if need be, with righteous resignation
Attest our faith in glorious martyrdom,
Tied to opinion's stake, and burned by tongues
Of scandalous fire, blazing from faggot hearts.
Then, gentle friends, since such is our resolve,
We can do nothing nobler than attack
Fashion's mainstay, the discipline of dress.
I swear that you may well with less ado
Worship the sun, keep harems, or, like France
When liberty became beside herself,
Extend the week from seven days to ten—
Yea, set apart and consecrate each day
To traversing with all your might and main,
In order, Moses' ten "commandements,"
Than steadfast be in non-observance brave
Of the great ordinance of dressing all
In fashion's right religious uniform.
So, shall we dare the world? Who says with me,
To wear this fancy dress to-morrow too
In the sun's kindly, and the world's ill, eye?
Amazon. Suppose we do, what issue do you see?
Courtier. Whatever fantasies our minds may don
We shall expound with these our fancy clothes.
There is none here, I think, to whom I'm known,
Nor do I know a single one of you;
So I propose that each assume some name
To complement the dress worn, to be used
While we are in this mood.
Clown [to Amazon]. If that were fixed
You should be called war's bride, Bellona bold.
Bellona. Bellona would be bold to call you clown.
Corsair [to Contadina]. I'll call you—what? Some lingering name: Herminia!
Herminia. Herminia!
Corsair. What name for me, Herminia?
What word, however harsh, would by your lips
Be sweetened to a note of Syren strength,
That, whispered, should have force to summon me
From Iceland to Ceylon. Tell me, Herminia.
Herminia. I think Antinous should be your name.
Courtier [to Summer]. And you, sweet summer—Flora?
Summer. I'd be called,
And for no other reason than I would,
Not Flora, no, nor Maud, but Mary-Jane.
Courtier [to Peasant-girl]. Sweet lowland lass—alas, without a lad!—
Will you be of us and yourself re-christen.
Peasant-girl. I harboured here to shun a horrid man
Whom I saw, like a pirate, bearing down
To rob me of a dance. I'll sport with you.
Courtier. What name, then, lassie?—Effie, Jeanie, Katie?
Peasant-girl. No; call me May Montgomery, if you please.
Courtier. What? May Montgomery! Why choose that name?
None of the rest have been extravagant
To take a surname's luxury.
May. Let me—
Nay, for I will: I'll not be in the fashion:
And it will be a pleasing penance, too.
Courtier. A pleasing penance! Can you tell us how?
May. I scarcely like. But, sir, I like your play,
Because I would be called Montgomery.
Courtier. Then, May Montgomery, tell us your romance.
May. Alas, the speed I have to tell my tale
Is slow as melancholy thoughts can be,
That strike as often as a passing-bell:
A bitter-sweet confession I must make.
O ladies, do not fit your faces, pray,
For some iniquity! Sadly, 'tis this.
In Paris, where I lived a year ago,
A youth fell sick in love for worthless me:
I marvel now, though then I thought it due:
Yet love creates, being a divinity,
What it affects; and his most holy love
Inspired poor me with beauty not my own,
Though still I wonder that what grace I have
Could be enriched with such induement sweet
As he cast over it; for at that time
He lacked his passion's courage, so he wrote
A tender tale whose heroine was me,
But metamorphosed to a deity.
The book is throbbing like his fiery heart;
This I have learned with memorising it:
And now it is my only orison,
My only literature, my only joy.
I lull myself to sleep low-murmuring it,
And in my dreams its sweetest scenes enact;
I waken smiling in his tender arms,
And sob to find mine clasped about myself.
After his book he came to hear his doom:
Trembling he stood: I, wanton, doomed us both—
Him to his grave, for then I loved him not;
Myself, to love him now most hopelessly.
And May Montgomery in his book I am:
Pray, call me so; it is a lovely name.
Courtier. And is your lover dead?
May. I fear it, sir.
Courtier. Now, are we named anew, all except me.
How will you call me? Come, give me a name.
What in his story is your lover hight?
May. Earl Edmund; and the whisper went that he
By right was lord of many lands and towers
In Scotland here: but that I do not know.
Courtier. I pray you, bid me take that name.
May. O no!
Earl Edmund! That were blasphemy!—But yes!
I will be glad to speak it out aloud.
Edmund. Speak it, I pray, as often as you choose.—
Well, I am tired of barring up this door.
So, on the morrow, by the stroke of noon
Be all together, dressed as now we are,
Assembled at the distant, dusky end
Of that most pleasant pathway of the glen,
Where lovers, shaded by a green arcade,
Wander toward eventide, slow, silently.
May. The Alley of Sighs.
Edmund. So is it called, I think.
Bellona. What there to do, I pray you?
Edmund. I know not:
Plan nothing, and you'll see a wondrous plot.
Meantime, unmask, and let us see ourselves.
[They unmask.
Now, call our names.

They go out, repeating their new names. Mary-Jane and May Montgomery re-enter immediately.

May. Sweet mother, do you know how well you look?
They all think you at least as young as I.
Mary-Jane. My darling, it is you who keep me young:
The world is young while you are fresh and fair.
I was eighteen when you were born, my dear:
I'm more than twice your age, for you're sixteen.
May. Which no one will believe.—To think that I
At fifteen should be loved with such a love
As poor Earl Edmund's was!—Now, Mary-Jane,
Do you intend to play in this new game?
Mary-Jane. I think they merely mean a passing joke.
May. O no! it is to be an earnest joke.
Do let them call me May Montgomery!
Besides, he whom I am to call Earl Edmund
Has got his eyes and voice—indeed he has.
Mary-Jane. Well, we will go to-morrow to the glen:
I like the company of sprightly men:
And you will have this earl to clarify
The sorrow-shaded cheek and tear-dimmed eye.
May. O Mary-Jane, I am a widow too!
I'll never wed another; nor will you.
[They go out.

Re-enter Earl Edmund.

Edmund. She looks at me perplexed and wistfully;
But I am certain that she knows me not.
How should she! When her memory might have caught
A faithful copy of me, love, unrisen,
Shrank from the dawn: and so it is that now
When love has flooded all her life, the shape
Conceived of me within her inmost heart
Must be the picture of a false ideal:
I dread to think how fine a thing she loves.
I'm glad she cannot pierce my sanguine mood,
And find the haggard child of pain and care,
Who, pain being dead, and in pale care's despite,
Has laughed himself to pleasant looks and strength.
Of my identity the sudden news
Would to my suit hardly be suitable:
Wherefore I'll fall upon some easy course,
And gently glide unfelt into her heart.
[Goes out.

ACT II

SCENE.—The Alley of Sighs.

Enter Ringan Deane and Annie Smith.

Ringan. What is the meaning of your face to-day?
Will you not speak? Then sit down here awhile.
[They sit. She gives him a daisy.
But Annie, speak. This flower is very well:
Now let me have some blossoms from your tongue.
What are these roses struggling in your cheeks,
And withering with your waxing, waning smile,
Which something means and yet is that thing's veil?
Is it love's sun that rises? Is it love
Beginning to embalm your heart's sweet flood,
And dyeing deep the roses that now die,
Now flourish in your cheeks?—If you'll not speak,
Then here's a thing to do. Read this aloud.
[Gives her a paper.
And read it in your softest, dreamiest tones;
Clothe with your voice my verses' skeletons.
Annie [reading].
Where have you been to-day, Annie Smith,
Where have you been to-day?
By the shore where the river becomes a frith?
Or up on the hills, away,
By purple heather and saffron broom
Like clouds at the sunset hour,
And all the well-kent flowers that bloom
In each breezy hillside bower?

Were you there, Annie Smith, that your face is so gay
And your eyes so laughing and blue?
Was it there that you spent the whole of the day?
Or, tell me, darling, were you
In the leafy wood where the grass grows thick
With the fairies at their play?
Did you flirt with Oberon, dance with Puck,
That your face, Annie Smith, is so gay?

Where have you been to-day, Annie Smith,
That you smile so gaily on me?
By the shore where the river becomes a frith?
Or were you upon the sea?
Did you sail in a pearly shell, Annie Smith,
With your hair flying free?
Do your laughing blue eyes tell, Annie Smith,
Such a happy tale of the sea?
Or were you down in the caves, Annie Smith,
With the mermaids under the sea?
Did the mermen beneath the waves, Annie Smith,
Try to catch and keep you from me?
Or did you fly through the air all the day?
Did you frolic with the wind?
Did you dine with the man in the moon, I pray,
That your face and your eyes are so laughing and gay?
Come, Annie, Annie, be quick and say
Where you have been the whole of the day,
In your body or in your mind?

ii.
Where have you been, Annie Smith, to-day,
That your face and your eyes are so calm?
Did you hear in the church the minister pray?
Did you join in the holy psalm?
Did he tell of the solemn joys of the blest,
That your face is so calm and serene,
That you seem to have ended each earthly quest?
In the church, Annie Smith, have you been?

Or did you stand on the shore, Annie Smith,
And gaze away to the west?
Did you stand where the river becomes a frith,
With your hands folded over your breast,
And gaze at the golden skyey gate
As the sun passed through sublime?
Did you get this shadowy light of fate
On your face at the sunset time?

Or are you an angel, Annie Smith,
For a time from your blessedness riven,
To guide me over the cold, wan, frith
Of death to your happy heaven?

Ringan. O, you might precept Mercury's elocution,
And teach the Muses and the Sirens singing.
Annie. And do you love me, then?
Ringan. You know I do.
Annie. I love you—and I love you, Ringan Deane.

Enter Clown.

O, what a curious-looking gentleman!
Clown. A pretty pair, indeed!—And who are you?
Annie. He is a poet, and I am his sweetheart.
Clown. A poet is he, sweetheart! Lack-a-day!
Bid him go hang or drown without ado;
And in Elysium while you live, he'll pray
For showers of blessing to descend on you,
Whose high behest despatched him to that clime
Of peaceful pleasure and warm purple dusk,
Ere rained calamity and mouldering time
Could rot his spirit in its carnal husk.
Or if you needs must keep him, be prepared
For daily infidelity, my dear,
For you will find your part in him is shared
By every beauty he may see or hear;
Whether it be of seas, of flowers, of skies,
A wind, a woman, or a music note,
His hungry passion hugs it till it dies,
Leaving him happy with a new-born thought.
Annie. He being a poet, must it be so with him?
Clown. It is the poet's health and his disease,
His joy, his sorrow, his belief and whim,
His bane and blessing, and his itch and ease,
His night and day, his pestilence and breath,
His summer, winter, heaven, hell, life, and death,
This passion, shackled to its own desire,
Unchained, unchainable within that range,
Sateless, bateless, changing without change,
Consuming beauty after beauty, higher
To toss its blood-stained, heaven-scaling fire.

Enter Edmund.

Good-morrow, noble earl. What, you look pale!
By every gentle oath that is not stale
You are a votary of Cupid's throng,
And have been keeping vigil all night long
At some high window, or in some lone grove;
For it is still the doom of those in love—
O cruelty, most condign and refined!—
To watch with Dian and her nymphs unkind,
And, like chameleons, take the stars' wan hue,
The while their purple hearts love's fire burns through.
Last night you seemed unharmed of Venus' son.
What! has your cheeks' red radiance trickling gone
Out by a broach of last night's archery,
When Cupid volleyed shafts from many an eye?
Edmund. Late hours, good clown, late hours: I swear that's all.
Clown. No; you are in love: I am sure of it. Now, take a little
advice from me. Do not addle your brain by imagining that you love a
particular lady. You are in love: that's all, and that's enough. O these
romancists! It is womankind you love: and these wonderful ladies, if it
were not for novels and poetry and tradition—and heredity perhaps—would
never dream of bestowing their affections on an individual. The world's a
mere expansion of Adam and Eve: I look upon it as one man and one
woman—as manhood and womanhood: and I believe, if you sounded the
thought of the world, you would find that is how it regards itself.
Edmund. I know a lady who will never regard the world in that light.
Clown. O, unsophisticated youth!
Edmund. A maid whose bosom is a nunnery chaste
Where spotless thoughts like votaresses dwell.
Clown. There is not a maid, wife, or widow, whose fancy any man, if
he set himself to it, could not conquer; nor any man whom any woman could
not subdue if she chose.
Edmund. One single fancy like an upright king
Sways her most constant loyalty: my love
Conceives not that there is in all the world
Another man save me; and I, no maid.
Clown. I would undertake to make your saintly lady love me, and
forget you altogether.
Edmund. O, rather would I have my lady hear
The hiss of serpents and the howl of hell,
Than have the rose-bud beauty of her ear
Sullied by such a tale as you would tell!
For though a pure portcullis' instant fall
Would cut your foul breath from her cloistered brain,
On the pink portal like a sooty pall,
I fear its filthiness might long remain.
If you dared ope your lips and let them hold
Most distant parley with a noisome theme,
Her eyes would lighten out their glance of gold,
And strike you dumb for ever. O, you dream!
Clown. You talk, you talk. Honestly I admire your youthful
enthusiasm. But these clear-starched opinions, which young men collar
themselves with in the first moon of manhood, will soon soil, and be
washed and wrung to a rag. But truly, I am in love myself.
Edmund. With whom?
Clown. She wears the habit of an amazon,
And flings her limbs as though they ne'er had moved
In Chinese steps within a frock's confine;
Whistles, lays hand on hip, laughs at her ease,
And seems to signify of two things, one—
Come, kiss me if you choose, or, if you dare.

Enter Antinous, Herminia, May Montgomery, Mary-Jane, and Bellona.

Edmund. Good morning, and good morning, gentle friends.
Bellona. And who are these?
Clown. A sweetheart and her poet.
May [to Annie]. Tell me your name, and I will tell you mine.
[May and Annie talk apart.
Ringan [to Mary-Jane]. O lady, summer's essence, centuries
Of sunlight from your eyes my being flood.
The sweetest damask of a season's bloom
Of roses dyes your cheeks, your tender breath
Is sweeter than their scent, and in your hair
There shines more gold than ever July spent
In gilding leagues of wheat.
Mary-Jane. Ha, ha! good boy.
You'd better deem me dressed as winter, though.
Ringan. O, were you in a snow-drift clad, and hung
With icicles about, a glance would tell
That you were summer masquerading. Lo!
You are the summer, and you could not hide,
No more than Venus with her girdle on
Could pass for Hecate. And I love you, lady.
Mary-Jane. Now, you are foolish, sir.
[Crosses to Edmund.
Ringan. I fear I am.
[Lies down under a tree.
Bellona. Have you ever been in love?
Clown. I am not such a fool.
Bellona. Not such a man, you mean. You are all fools till you be in
love—great, lubberly, ill-bred, selfish clowns. And when the selfish
passion seizes you, then—then—O then!
Clown. Why, what then?
Bellona. Then you become ten times great, lubberly, ill-bred, selfish
clowns. Men are all and always fools.—Earl Edmund, we are here. What then?
Edmund. Impatient amazon, thus then it is:
This hour you must complete as best you can;
When it is sped, here gather all again,
And on the grass partake a sylvan feast:
There shall not want for music; if for song,
The blame be with yourselves. Be happy, all.—
Sweet May Montgomery, will you walk with me?
[Edmund and May go out.
Bellona. I'll walk alone.
[Ringan rushes forward.
Well, boy, you look distraught.
Ringan. O incarnation of what nymph soe'er,
I knew not what it is to love till now;
For never have I seen in any maid
So much to love as in this heaven appears.
Some maidens are like night, and some like day,
But hear me swear, since day and night began
There has not overhung a thrilled, hushed world
A night so bossed with points of admiration,
As o'er my soul is imminent in you,
Studded with stars of love-enforcing power;
Nor has there shone a day so bounteous
Of every largesse to a thankful world,
But that the joyous motion you instil
Throughout my life transcends its benefice:
Wherefore, vouchsafe to hear me cry, I love you;
And frown not, for the night should never frown
Upon the humble flower that yields its scent,
Its sole ability of offering;
The day should never lower upon the lake
Exhaling tears, which is its grateful life.
O, be not angry that the life of love
Which you infuse in me, here at your feet,
For further inspiration or for blight,
Lies lowly, and the ground you tread on kisses.
[Falls on the ground.
Bellona. But what of that fair girl, your sweetheart there?
Ringan. Talk not of her. I never loved her. No!
I thought I did, for she was prettiest:
But having seen you I have seen the sun,
And never more will languish for a star.
Bellona. You are a foolish boy.
Ringan. What shall I do?
[Goes out.
Annie. O, he has left me! O, my heart will break!
Herminia. His haste forgot his love. You should not weep.
Annie. It was not haste. These ladies! O, my heart!
Clown. I told you what to look for.
Bellona. Out on you!—
Come, we'll devise a way to bring him back.
[Mary-Jane, Bellona, and Annie go out. Clown follows.
Antinous [singing].
The bee sucks honey from the flower
Because the sweets are there:
I love a maiden in her bower,
Because the maiden's fair.

The morning flower turns round his head
To greet the rising sun;
My love turns all to you, sweet maid,
And so my song is done.
[Antinous and Herminia go out.

ACT III

SCENE.—A Garden.

Enter Lady Montgomery and Captain Mercer.

Mercer. I'm glad we've met. How long ago was that?
Lady M. Since she was stolen it is fourteen years;
Yet in that time no tears have wet my eyes:
For when we knew the darling child was lost,
My husband all his other hopes gave up—
His office, and advancement, whose sure strides
Pursued him constantly, dogged as time;
His friends and schemes political; his fame,
Which years and dignity bore shoulder-high:
He gave them all to buy this little pearl
Whose price exceeds the value of the world.
O, in our heart her dainty shape is shrined,
And keeps it pulsing; and she goes not out
Till wintry death expel her summer reign,
And freeze that ruddy home to be his house.
Mercer. Why, fourteen years ago I lost a wife,
The sweetest girl that ever blessed a man.
Some happy months, and then I crossed the seas:
I sailed from Naples, and she went to Rome.
When I returned my friends in Rome were gone,
Whither I found not. Then my wife had died,
I thought, in child-bed, and looked up the news.
I did not there discover what I feared,
But found in place a most conflicting tale
Of brigandage; and murders had been done.
Some ransomed, some let go, some corpses found,
Left unaccounted for a child and woman.
I searched until my purse and I were lank,
In hope to find these two; then, back to sea.
Having made many voyages and much wealth
I still pursued my calling, for in it
I found from sorrow, refuge; though, alone,
In midnight watches I have often wept
To hear the waves with melancholy tongues
Lapping my ship, to see the crowded stars
Rejoicing like a family in heaven.
And so I marvel that you, being a woman,
From weeping should refrain since love so great
Beats in your heart for such a priceless loss.
Lady M. The war of hope and fear made desolate
The wine-press of our tears immediately;
And since the imminence of our great loss,
Our constant, wearisome world-wandering
Has all unqualified our eyes for tears:
I tell you we have gone through all the world.
First every city, town, Italian croft,
All hermitages, and all robbers' dens,
From wintry Blanc to fiery Aetna's base,
We searched, or sharpened others' eyes with gold
To ransack for our treasure: if two beings,
Having between them for their inspiration
One soul alone, might lose it, and yet move
To seek their riven life, with wanner looks,
With ghostlier, more eagle-sighted eyes,
Than those with which we glanced through Italy,
They could not pierce the region that they haunt:
Obscurity was all revealed to us.
Thereafter every morn a measured space
Of weary world our gaunt eyes oversee:
Round with the day from east to west we go.
Twelve years, now past, from Rome we westward hied;
And here, grown old, foot-sore, heart-sore, and poor
In earthly gold, but rich in hope's bright coin
We wander west again.
Mercer. Most noble souls!
You shall not lack for gold while I have wealth.
O, you administer a chastisement
To my unwinged proceedings in my search
For wife and child, which should have distanced yours
Who travel only for a daughter.
Lady M. No;
She is our niece, but loved more than a daughter.
Mercer. I never heard, nor read, of such a love.
Lady M. O, but you never saw, nor shall behold,
So lovable a creature! I would more
Lose her and pine for her than be the dame,
The happy dame, of seven lusty boys
Like any I have seen—the loveliest.
Mercer. What kin is she?—your husband's or your own?
Lady M. Her father was my husband's elder brother;
His wife died when our little one was born.
I reared her, loved her, and her infancy
Laid hold upon my husband. Six years passed;
And then her father wished her back again.
Upon that news a sickness of my husband's
Became a malady that claimed my care,
Dividing so my grief. A worthy priest,
Once chaplain to her father, leaving us—
We spent the summer in the Apennines—
We trusted our one jewel to his care.
But on the way a brigand regiment
Killed him and others who would not submit.
The captives being ransomed, she was missed,
She and her nurse; and fourteen years reveal
But little further light. Her father's dead;
She is our ward; and we, her only friends.
Mercer. What news is this! A woman and a child
In both our stories unaccounted for!
You spoke of further light.
Lady M. Hope not too much.
We met one, Julio, twice among the hills,
Where he confessed he led the robber-band
That wrought our woe; but of the nurse and child
Professed whole innocence and ignorance.
When he was captured and condemned to die
He asked to see my husband. Penitent,
He told him all he knew, a dreadful tale.
While others plundered, he had marked a maid
Who carried in her arms a lisping child:
Seizing his fancy, her he laid hold upon;
She struggled hard; he in his greedy haste—
For though the leader, if he took her not
And any other were possessed of her,
He might not claim her—the loud-screaming babe
Tore from her, bent to kill; but on its breast,
Its clothing being rent, there gleamed a cross
Of gold, whereon in diamonds quaintly set
Christ hung on ruby nails with ruby blood:
It turned aside his purpose. Nigh them knelt
Another woman, wringing of her hands,
And weeping o'er another infant dead.
Afraid to desecrate the symbol blest,
He pressed the child, from early earthly death
Saved by the cross, into this Rachel's arms,
And swung the maid, discumbered harshly so,
Upon his horse, and kept her for his own.
The other woman with the cross-saved child
Escaped, and took with her a store of gold.
Mercer. This woman who escaped must be my wife:
It is my wife! Resource was still her forte;
By countless proofs her sleight of head she showed,
Nor were her hands less cunning in their kind.
I have not known in any clime of earth,
Where trade constrained, or pleasure led me on,
One of her sex likelier for such a deed
As this checkmating of the brigand band:
And with it all a girl most feminine;
The deepest scrutiny would never dream
What strength lay sleeping with an open eye
Beneath her melting gaze and rosy mouth,
Like fire that underburns a flowery mead.
Pardon me, pray, I have not talked of her
To any one alive for many years.
Why she should travel in that company,
Not leaving word, nor sending any news,
I can but marvel.
Lady M. Here my husband comes.

Enter Sir James Montgomery.

Sir James. News, news!
Lady M. O heaven!
Sir James. I'll tell you as we go.
[They go out.

ACT IV

SCENE.—A Wood.

Enter Edmund and May.

May. Where is your bubbling mirth that overflowed
In fresh, fantastic volume yester-eve?
If doleful thoughts should shadow any face,
My past might countenance such mirroring,
And see, I laugh; yea, by all merry things
Light-hearted am I! 'Tis the sun, I think.
Why are you sad? If you still raise your brows,
And stare so, like a spaniel, and unslack
The pressure of your lips, I'll think, indeed,
You mean to mimic my lost love, and steal
With stolen looks my heart.
Edmund. Am I like him?
May. When you look sad you are, and when you laugh,
I think he would have laughed so if he could.
Edmund. You think him dead.
May. Sometimes, and sometimes not.
Edmund. Say you were certain of his death, what then?
May. In weeds that widows wear I'd hide myself
In some far lonely land, and mourn for him
Among the hills and streams; and read his book;
And, feeding seld and spare, woo fickle death,
Who flirts with weaklings and bears off the strong,
For one cold kiss to take my soul to him.
Edmund. There is no man that's worthy of such love.
May. I think not of his worth or want of worth;
I love him. But if gentle manliness,
Beauty, and honour, and unsounded passion
Deserve a maid's devotion, my poor love
Is but a scanty tribute to his worth;
And—woe, alas!—its date of payment past,
And the robbed creditor far hence or dead,
Its garnered hoard weighs heavy on my heart.
Edmund. Fear not, fear not. There's something whispers me
Your love will be rewarded, in so far
As to possess your sweetheart can amend
The lengthy woe you suffer for his sake.—
Now, here's a thing to do to make you glad.
Suppose that I'm the true and true-loved earl:
I'll go into that grove, and suddenly
Emerging, light on you; and you will know me,
Or I will know you, or we'll know each other,
Or let our unthought act the instant mould.
May. O, in his story there's a scene like that!
I'm sitting reading in my sweetheart's book
A passage where he finds me reading it.
Edmund. A curious notion!
May. Shall we act that scene?
Edmund. Yes, if you please. But have you got the book?
May. Yes; here it is. Now hide; and I will change
To suit the place the passage.
Edmund. Very well.
[Goes out.
May [reading]. "Now it chanced that May Montgomery was resident in
this town at the very time of Edmund's arrival. One afternoon the
love-sick girl took her book to the glen, and sitting down in the shadow
of a tree endeavoured to alleviate her passion by reading aloud the scene
wherein her lover had represented her in just such a situation, and so
engaged. She had read over the description of herself lying on her mossy
couch, and her cheek was flushed with the anticipation of the interview
about to ensue in the narrative between her lover and herself, when the
branches rustled behind her and a voice——"
Edmund [within]. May Montgomery!
May. O Heaven! Deceitful ears! "—and a voice whispered 'May
Montgomery.' She accused her fancy of cheating her, and proceeded with her
reading——"
Edmund [within]. May Montgomery!
May. O me! this voice is agonising! Fancy, you will make me mad!
"—when the voice again whispered her name. She exclaimed on fancy for
torturing her so, and laying the book upon the ground, was about to
stretch herself, leaning on her elbows with her fingers in her ears,
when a shadow came——"
Good my eyes have you leagued with my ears, then?
There is a shadow! Oh!

Re-enter Edmund.

Edmund. Turn not away.
Your hands late held my book. Take now the hand
That wrote the book.
May. Are you a ghost, a ghoul,
A vampire, come to plague me for my sin
In killing him with scorn whose form you bear?
I beg no mercy, for the doom is just.
But no; you are an angel; it must be:
No spirit foul could harbour in your shade:
And you have come to tell me I'm forgiven.
Edmund. I'm neither ghost, nor ghoul, nor angel, May:
I am your lover in carnation true,
A bodiment much better than of yore,
Edmund, with health restored and joy complete,
Since it is crowned with what he never hoped,
The freely-given diadem of your love.
May. I think you surely are the devil, sir.
This acting is too good: you're like him too.
Edmund. Him!—whom?—the devil?
May. O, no! Earl Edmund.—Love, I know you now.
[He offers to embrace her.
No, sir; I will go to the grave unkissed by any man, if I do not find the
true Earl Edmund. I think I must begin and search for him. I wait and
wait, and time is all that comes and goes. When I think that on every hour
I bestow a treasure of hope, and that some day I may have entertained so
many hours as to have spent all my fortune in that kind; and when I
remember that all this expense may be waste, for my love may be in heaven;
and when I think that if he be alive every hour removes my memory further
from him; that he may love another, that he may be married, then I cling
to the skirts of every parting hour, and sigh at the knell that tolls its
departure and the advent of the next.—But let us act again.—
O yes, I know you, Edmund, and I love you.
But can you then forgive me for my scorn?
Edmund. Forgive—forgive? There's nothing to forgive.
May. O, I was very foolish, very young!
I did not know how great a thing love is:
That woman's love is like the spacious sea,
And man's love like the mirroring of the sky.
O, I knew nothing! Yet, I should have known.
Now, I know all; your book has been my school,
My manual, my cyclopaedia:
It tells me of the all in all of love,
And teaches that its soul cannot be told,
That action is its highest eloquence.
Edmund. The silence of your lips, my gentle love,
Is richer, rosier, than the ruddiest gold;
The diamonds and the rubies of your speech
Become them well.
May. You act too warmly, sir.
Edmund. I do not act at all; I am myself.
May. Nay, then, I think you are beside yourself.
Be moderate, sir.—You uttered only words;
And words are breath; and then, a lover's breath!
Hot, gasping, poisonous air!
Edmund. O no, my May!
Love's breath is hot and healthy as the breeze
That floats the summer from the sunny south,
With merry crews of nightingales and swallows,
As sweet and swift as are the words of love.
May. O words and songs and sounds are merely stones,
When love is as an empty hungry gulf.
Edmund. Ay, but when love is certain of a feast,
Then words and songs and sounds are spicy whets.
May. Yes, yes; dear love, dear love. Speak on, speak on.
Edmund. Say after me what I will say to you,
The words that are the sweetest in the world,
And are an act when all a soul is in them.
You are the cause that makes me whisper them,
And, being said, from you claim like effect.
If what I say be of such worth to you,
As, said by you, 'twill hold in my esteem,
Then this will be a changing gold for gold:
I love you.
May. I love you.
Edmund. The only words
Worth learning, speaking, writing, singing, graving.
The middle word, the linking word, the 'love'
Is like eternal space; and 'I' and 'you'
Mark out a sky and earth, and gather in
Time, heaven, and hell.
May. O, happiness alone!
We hedge about an Eden, I and you.
Edmund. Eden, indeed! Adam I envy not
His grand originality; for when
I say to you, 'Sweet May Montgomery,
I love you,' I speak words I seem to make.
As sweet and strange they are as when first said
By Adam when he first beheld his Eve.
I feel within, about me, and above
The freshness of creation. Everything
Is new, and every word a white-hot poem:
I am a poet, too, as great as Adam;
To speak, as in his time, is to invent.
'I,' 'you'—O, these are words new-forged and bright!
And herein am I happier than he—
I love, not Eve, but May Montgomery.
May. O me! I would that I could find my love!
You are in love, too, for your speech betrays you.
Pray, tell me of your love; I told you mine.
Edmund. Not now; the hour is past. Come; we must run.
How they will mock us!
May. We've been happy, though.
[They go out, running.

ACT V

SCENE. The Alley of Sighs. A table set out.

Enter Clown and Bellona.

Clown. O Amazon, victorious and proud,
More dread than is your bow your eyebrows are,
Upbending to discharge darts keener far
Than fill your quiver or the thunder-cloud.
You jest at me, you mock my heartfelt love;
You put me off and on even as a glove.
O gentle, noble, bitter amazon,
I would that you could see into my heart!
Bellona. I've seen; it is an empty nut, good clown.
Clown. Thenceforward I will play a silent part.

Enter Mary-Jane.

Bellona. What is to be done?
Mary-Jane. Herminia is dressing Annie Smith like a bride in satin and
lace; and she and Antinous will lead her into the presence of the mad boy,
whom we are to have here. As it was our dresses as much as our maturity
that caught his fancy, I have no doubt that, mistaking Annie for a new
goddess, he will fall at her feet with some hyperbolical apostrophe, as he
did at yours.
Bellona. A very likely thing. I hope he may not recognise
her.—Clown.
Clown. Your will?
Bellona. Fetch hither Ringan Deane.
Clown. Where is he?
Bellona. Find him.
[Clown goes out.
Mary-Jane. Have you two quarrelled?
Bellona. O no! He's a patient, strong man, that clown.
Mary-Jane. He's a handsome fellow.
Bellona. I have eyes.

Enter Edmund and May Montgomery.

May [aside]. We're not the last: we're safe from mockery.
Edmund. Why, where are all the rest, good amazon?
Bellona. Why, where's your wondrous plot, good earl?
Edmund. Fate knows.
Bellona. Fate!—how you startle me! I brooded once
On destiny, and thus said with myself:
I will not do as other women do,
Marry a man, and be one couple more;
I will not be as other women are,
Whom the world praises, and who deem themselves
Happy as earth can make them: I will be
Unwomanly, and scorn what women love.
Edmund. A new Diana.
Bellona. No, a thousand times!
Why will you think what may be must have been?
My thought——But I'll not tell you; for to tell
Would kill it; then I could not give it shape.
Always I read of fate and talked of it,
Of birth-stars, and our own polarity,
And of the orient, iron dooms-day book,
Of former lives that we have led, whose deeds
Determine this, of unrelenting life—
The ecstasy that with the flowers we share,
The crisis that for ever shakes the world;
And I would ebb and flow with hope and fear,
But mostly breast the adamant with waves
Of seething blood, I curbed, I quelled——How's this?
You spoke of fate, and struck a resonant string.
Edmund. Then, you're a fatalist.
Bellona. I fear I am.
Edmund. You speak more truly than you think. Your fear
Is just; for brooding souls that talk of fate,
And of their helpless, brute plasticity
In mighty, thoughtless hands, bring down the woes
They dread and should defy: the timid blood
Is first to be diseased; and winged death
Falls on the shrinking quarry. Amazon,
Face fate and stare it down. Why, this is fate,
This only: other slave we cannot have
Than these same hands and feet of circumstance.
Master it, master it; or fire and flood
Are drowned and scorched like moths and drops of dew!
The Arab fisher's jinn; unsealed, diffused,
He fills and suffocates the universe;
Inurned, a plaything, or a marshalled host.
You see, I know the western prophet, too.
May. O, let us lie and talk of love and fate
Here on the daisies till the night comes down!

Enter Sir James and Lady Montgomery, and Captain Mercer.

Mary-Jane [aside]. My husband! O, what shall I do?
Lady M. Alas,
She is not here!
Mercer. My wife is; that is she.
Edmund. You watch us keenly.
Sir James. We have reason, sir.
Mary-Jane [kneeling before Mercer].
Forgive me. Kneel beside me, May; kneel down.
[May kneels.
Give me your hand, and—kiss me.
May. Mother, mother!
What is it?
Bellona. Now, I think, the play begins.
Mary-Jane. They killed my baby; and they gave me her.
Look at her, feel her!—could I give her up?
Sir—madam!
May. Mother, mother!
Mary-Jane. Husband!
May. Hush,
Or you will die.
Mercer. Dear love, dear soul, dread nothing.
[Raises Mary-Jane.
Bellona [aside]. Herminia comes.—Good people, who are caught In this
same net of circumstance, go hence:
Pass through these birches, and you'll find a bower
Whose shade will blend more sweetly with your mood,
And make serener your enraptured souls.
Besides, I am the prompter, or the fate
Of one scene more fantastic than you play,
Which falls now to be acted here.
Sir James. Lady,
Your garb does not bespeak your wisdom.
Bellona. Sir,
Since when had decency sole grant of sense?
Edmund. Well said!
Sir James. I'll set my wits to yours anon.
Is this the way?
Bellona. Under the lowest boughs.
[Sir James and Lady Montgomery, Mercer,
Edmund, Mary-Jane and May go out.

Enter Antinous and Herminia with Annie Smith dressed like a bride.

Bellona. Ah, keep that look, sweet child! The mystery
Of sense and soul! Her eyes are infinite.
Herminia, what would not you and I,
Maids as we are, and infants yet in law,
Surrender thankfully to own again
The dream of innocence?
Herminia. My beauty—ay,
Half of my beauty for the dewy dawn,
The fragrance, and the shadow of heaven, the blood
That knows not what it would, bathing the thought
With odorous tides, the rapture of life, the swoon
Of innocence, the infinite longing,
The sweet pain, and a pure, brave boy to love me!
Antinous, we shall please ourselves with this,
And play at being a boy and girl again.
Antinous. My love, you are happier in this fantasy
Than when you were the thing and knew it not.
Herminia. And I believe you.
Bellona. Here they come. Sit, child.

Annie Smith sits on a knoll. Herminia and Bellona lie on either side of her. Antinous stands behind.

Enter Clown with Ringan Deane.

Ringan. What deity is this? whose bride? whose queen?
Look, how she sits among these earthly maids,
A star between two lamps. She looks at me
With eyes like beckoning flames. A kind of night
Hovers about her, she so dazzles day.
She bends toward me; she stretches out her arms;
A tear, a molten tear wells in each eye,
And overhangs the lid and slowly falls,
Loth to descend these tender wistful heavens.
Her lips are open, but her struggling voice,
A helpless, still-born sigh, dies in her mouth.
I hope I may have strength to speak to her.
[He kneels before Annie Smith.
Annie. O Ringan—Ringan Deane!
Ringan. You know me, then!
Annie [embracing him]. O, Ringan, I am Annie—Annie Smith!
Bellona. Clown, this is very well. I am so moved;
I feel a kindliness to all the world.
Clown. And I am of the world.
Bellona. Ay, so you are.

Re-enter Sir James, Lady Montgomery, and the others.

Bellona. Well, noble earl? What!—wonders?
Edmund. Yes, indeed,
Most wonderful.
Bellona. Sit, then, and tell us. See,
The feast is spread.
Edmund. We'll tell you when we sit;
But there's a thing to do before we sit.—
Ladies and gentlemen, a little way
We've stepped beyond convention. I propose
A further deviation from the path
Beaten by ages, dusty with the trade
Of thronging use and wont. The Scottish law
Permits us here to marry as we are:
Let us be married—are we not all paired?
And this same feast shall be our wedding-feast.
Do you object, Sir James?
Sir James. Why should I, sir?
Edmund. Then, May Montgomery, will you know me yet?
May. I am in a dream. One mystery at a time.
However came you by my proper name?
Edmund. That is the strangest accident of all:
I was a prophet when I wrote my book.—
Sweet May Montgomery, I take you for my wife
In sight of heaven and you, astonished friends.
May. I take you for my husband.
Antinous. I take you,
Herminia, for my wife.
Herminia. And I take you,
Antinous, for my husband. [Aside to Ant.] Dear old Jack.
Bellona. My name is Mary Jones.
Clown. So? Ha! Then I,
James Jocelyn, take you to be my wife.
Bellona. I love you, and I take you for my husband.
Mercer. My dearest wife, you'll be my bride again?
Mary-Jane. Surely, my husband.
Sir James. This is bravely done!
My wife and I bid heaven's blessing on you.
Mary-Jane. But where are Annie Smith and Ringan Deane?
May. I saw them, like a vision, steal away.

Curtain.

BRUCE: A CHRONICLE PLAY
(Glasgow, 1884)

DRAMATIS PERSONS
Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrich, afterwards King of Scotland.
Edward Bruce.
Nigel Bruce.
Lamberton, Archbishop of St. Andrews.
Walter, the Steward of Scotland.
Sir William Wallace.
Sir James Douglas.
Sir Thomas Randolf.
Sir Christopher Seton.
Sir John Seton.
James Crombe.
Kirkpatrick.
Comyn, Earl of Badenoch.
Comyn, Earl of Buchan.
Macduff, Earl of Fife.
Sir Robert Comyn.
Edward I., King of England.
Edward II., King of England.
The Earl of Pembroke.
Lord Henry Percy.
Lord Robert Clifford.
Sir Ingram de Umfraville.
Sir Giles de Argentine.
Sir Peter Mallorie, Justiciary of England.
Hugh Beaumont.
Isabella, Countess of Carrick, afterwards Queen of Scotland. Isobel,
Countess of Buchan.
Countess of Badenoch.
Lady Douglas.

An Old Man, a Young Friar, a Messenger, a Forester, a Spy.
Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen, Monks, Soldiers, &c.

Scene: London and Scotland.

BRUCE

ACT I

SCENE I.—London. A Room in the Palace.

King Edward I., Earl of Pembroke, Lord Henry Percy,
and Lord Robert Clifford.
Edward I. Once more, my lords, the rude north claims our care.
A faction there is still opposed to peace,
Strongly ill-willed to England and to me,
Obdurate, set, incorrigibly wroth—
A band whose blood is of the liquid flame
That often madly jets in savage veins,
When wisdom would bestow some blessed gift,
Some pearl which ignorance rejects with scorn,
And chafes and frets and sets the world on fire.
The Bruce, my lords, has fled the English Court:
He goes to Scotland, and his guiding star
Is that same beacon of rebellious light
Built up by every burning Scottish heart.
Astonishment and curiosity
Shoulder each other in your crowded eyes
Like townsmen gazing from a window's height
At some strange pageantry afoot below;
There let them crowd, for wonders are to pass.
Were I to ask you, now, if Bruce or Comyn
Has played the fairer game, you might say this:
They cannot be compared—Bruce always with,
And Comyn always opposite to me;
Yet have they both held by the cause they chose:
So there's a parity of constancy.
Such answer might be yours. Then I would say,
They both are faithless: here I hold the proof.
[Exhibits a scroll.
This is a deed transferring Bruce's lands
To Comyn, who exchanges for the same
His claim—it's written so—to Scotland's crown.
He promises besides to aid the Bruce
To gain the state and name of King of Scots.
There are their signatures.
Pembroke. By miracle—
Or how did this indenture reach your hands?
Edward I. John Comyn sent it me. You see—base rogues!—Bruce false
to me, and Comyn false to Bruce.
Pembroke. My liege, Bruce hitherto has borne a name
As bright and glorious as his golden shield,
Untarnished by dishonour's rusty breath.
This paper may be forged.
Edward I. That was my thought;
And so I had a copy of it made,
And sent to Bruce last night. My messenger
Asked, being charged so far, some word from him.
He half denied; but compromised, and craved
Three days to answer. So much grace I gave.
This is the first day, and last night he fled.
Pembroke. A sign of guilt. What will your Highness do?
Edward I. With your good counsel, lords, doubtless the best!
Percy. To horse, and take the knave alive or dead!
Edward I. A speedy finish; but consider this:
Comyn and Bruce divide the land of Scots;
They now are mortal foes; why need we stir
To fight two cocks who will each other slay
Between the high walls of their Scottish pit?
Yet Pembroke, Clifford, and bold Harry Percy
Be ready at a word to lead your knights
Across the border.
Percy. Nor can that summons come
Too soon for us.
Edward I. I would your willing haste
Were from the proof removed a farther cast:
And so were Wallace wise as he is wight
It would be. Twice I offered grace and love,
If he would govern Scotland in my name.
He thanked me for my grace and for my love,
But at my terms he laughed as at a jest.
Had he accepted them, I say again,
As there is none so fit to rule the Scots,
Your willing service had been hardly asked.
Percy. Let me say this: had such a league been struck
Between your Highness and the valiant Scot,
You might have borne your banners through the world.
Pembroke. What specious arguments could Wallace urge?
Edward I. O, ask me not! My patience served me ill
To hear him out. How can I then rehearse
His saucy reasons, wasting breath and wrath!
Within short space you all shall hear himself;
A fortnight hence, I think, he will be tried.
And now, Lord Clifford, James of Douglas comes
To claim his father's lands, which you possess.
Tell me, who knows, what kind of man he is,
That we may judge how he will bear himself?
Clifford. A man of men, although my mortal foe.
I knew him well in Paris ere these broils.
Unarmed, a gentle blitheness graced his style:
A dainty lisp engaged his auditors
With tickling pleasure; such a piquant touch
Was in the Scottish Hector, as they called him,
Tripping with helpless tongue, like rose-lipped girls.
But when he armed his body, then his soul
Was harnessed in a dress of adamant.
In council-halls, o'er ladies' lutes, in war,
Brave, courteous, wise, loyal to truth, he was:
So is he: Douglas changes but for good.
Edward I. You praise him highly. You shall answer him.
He comes. Make room.

Enter Sir James Douglas.

We know your errand, sir.
Speak, and Clifford here will answer you.
Douglas. Lord Clifford will, and must: be sure of that.
I also crave King Edward's open ear.
Clifford will reckon with me for my land:
You, sire, must render an account of blood.
Clifford. Clifford has yet to learn why Douglas dare
Speak such a swift defiance.
Edward I. [turning his back to Douglas]. Answer him
On this wise, my good lord:—Your father, sir,
A faithless felon, died a prisoner
In Edward's dungeon; and his forfeit lands
Reverted to the crown. It pleased the king
To make me lord of Douglasdale. Go, then,
Buy land where'er you may, I keep my own.
He has his answer, follow me, my lords.
[Edward I., Pembroke, Clifford, and Percy go out.
Douglas. There's justice in the heavens if not in kings!
He might have listened. It is very plain
King Edward means to play the tyrant now.
Yet tyrants can be courteous. Insolent!
To toss an answer o'er his shoulder at me,
Whetting with crude affront, the pointed "No,"
As one would check a cringeing beggar's plea.
One way is left, a flinty, narrow way,
The rebel's way, the way I still have shunned:
And yet it seems a broad, green, garden-walk,
Since I elect to be a traveller there.
Now though it be as hopeless as to stem
The Solway's tide, or toss the deep-based Bass
From Forth to France, with all my strength I'll fight
Against this tyrannous usurping king.
How strange that I should find rebellion's storm
The happy haven where my troubles end!
But so it is: my cares are blown away;
Light-hearted vigour is my lot once more;
And trampled conscience, like the heath released,
Springs up, and breathes sweet scent of approbation.
[Goes out.

SCENE II.—Dumfries. The Greyfriars Church.

Enter Bruce and Comyn of Badenoch.

Comyn. I thought you were in London, cousin mine.
Bruce. And still would have me there, or anywhere,
But by your side.
Comyn. Why is your tongue so harsh,
Your eye so big, your face so dimmed with ire?
Bruce. Why falter you? Why has your colour fled?
Why, but because my tongue still speaks its thought;
Because my face wears not the darker show
Of death's grimace upon a spear's long neck,
Grotesquely ornamenting London Bridge;
Because my limbs are not the bait of crows,
The gazing-stock of crowds in Scotland's towns;
Because I live and am at liberty:
These are the reasons why you tremble now.
Comyn. Not so; it is because I think you mad:
These monstrous breathings are insanity:
You shake with passion, hissing out your words.
I fear you; and I will have witnesses
Or no more conference.
[Going.
Bruce [seizing his arm]. With honest men
God is sufficient witness. Are you true?
You know my ground of wrath as well as I.
Comyn. Your words are like your brow, darker than night.
Bruce. Be this the sun that shall illumine them.
[Exhibits a scroll.
Sun, said I! rather inky light of hell,
Whereby you may behold your treachery.
I see it's true what I have heard of men,
Who, knowing right, pursue a wrongful course:
Custom uprears athwart the source of shame
A fragile dam; but when another marks
The waves that beat behind, they swell and burst
The sandy sea-wall of hypocrisy,
Like a packed gulf delivered by the moon.
That flood is in your face: you blush like fire.
Comyn. I blush to be accused of this great wrong.
Bruce. Comyn, you lie. Look, see, the very words
Of that compact, which we with aching hearts
Drew up and signed and swore in Stirling town.
Have you forgotten how we wept hot tears
Condoling over Scotland's misery?
Its fertile plains, that richer were than gold,
Burnt up with fire, salted with tears and blood;
Its cots and palaces confounded low
In stony litters that the soil reclaims;
Its wealthy towns and pleasant places sacked;
Its people?—Ah! we could not sound our grief
For wives made widows; husbands, left alone;
And children, blighted by too early bareness
Of parents' comfortable snowy wisdom:
Death and destruction feasting everywhere.
We found ourselves to blame; therefore we wept,
Repenting of our jealousy and strife.
This pact united us in sacred bonds
For ever to oppose the English rule.
We prayed that our conjunction, like two stars
Meeting auspiciously for Scotland's weal,
Might yield its war-worn people prosperous peace;
And o'er the border cast calamities
Of such deserved and overwhelming woe,
That England never more should be inclined,
Nor have the power to wage a conquering war.
We then embraced, and you with trembling breath
Thanked God that Bruce and Comyn now were friends.
Two copies of our compact we endorsed.
Here is a third that's neither yours nor mine:
King Edward sent it me; whence had he it?
Comyn. Unless King Edward sent it back to you,
You having given it him, I cannot tell.
Bruce. God keep my hands from blood! O soulless wretch!
Obtuse, unthinking liar! Could I note
The shape of good that dances in your brain
To be matured for service by denial,
Perhaps that might extenuate your lie.
But knowing nothing save your treachery,
And hardened daring of a damning fact,
Relentless hate expels all dreams of love
That harboured once toward you within my heart.
Comyn. If, then, your rage is for the present spent,
A few plain words may hope for audience.
What proof have you that Edward had this writ
Through me or mine? Impartial sense would blame,
Not me, who ever have been Scotland's friend,
And foremost in opposing Edward's power,
But you, the truckling lord, inheriting
And practising your father's policy,
Which was to follow at the Longshanks' heel,
And fawn for smiles, and wait his Highness' whim
To pay the lacqueying with a dirty crown.
Bruce. This idle mockery becomes you well.
Did any doubt remain of your dark sin,
The hunting out a mote within my eye
To poise the beam that does disfigure yours,
Would make me sure.
Comyn. What legal proof, I say?
Bruce. The laws of God, honour and loyalty
Condemn you traitor to their interests.
I judge you guilty, for I know right well
King Edward never had this scroll from me,
And no one else could give it him but you.
Your heart condemns you, though you brave it thus.
Comyn. And yet I say again, I swear by Heaven,
I never saw that paper till to-day.
Bruce. Talk not of seeing!—Come to the altar here.
[They advance to the altar.
Now lay your hand upon the traitorous sheet,
Call God to witness that you speak the truth,
And swear once more you have not broken faith.
Beneath your feet the dust of true men rests,
Your ancestors and mine; this lofty roof,
These consecrated walls and columns high
Are wont to hear the sounds of sacred song,
The gospel of the holy Christ of God;
This is God's house; this altar is God's throne.
Now, can you swear? You will not do it, sure.
Comyn. And what shall hinder me while I have breath?
Without my instigation or connivance
Our compact reached the King. If God's in heaven,
And I speak false, may I this moment die.
Bruce [stabbing Comyn, who falls].
God is in heaven, and my hand wields his wrath! . . . .
What have I done? A madman's dreadful deed!
I was engulfed, and now I'm cast ashore.
O, in our passionless, reflective hours
We lock emotion in a glass-walled jail
Of crisp philosophy; or give it scope
As far as prudence may enlarge its steps!
But to some sense a small distraction comes—
Across the sight a butterfly, a flower—
The fetters snap, the prison crumbles—off!—
To clasp the air where shone our will-o-wisp!
For no gewgaw have I burst reason's bonds,
But to avenge a gross iniquity
That clamoured brazenly to heaven and earth.
O, it was human!—It was devilish!
Here on the altar—O, the sacrilege!
That man of my own blood, whom I adjured,
By every holy thing, to speak no wrong,
I do wrong, slaying. O, heinous sacrilege!—
Perhaps he is not dead. Comyn, look up;
Speak; make some sign. Alas! that fatal blow
Was aimed too surely at my cousin's heart!
I used God's name too when I struck him dead!
O horrid blasphemy! The sacrilege!
[Going.

Enter Kirkpatrick.

Kirkpatrick. My Lord!
Bruce. I fear I have slain Comyn.
[Goes out.
Kirkpatrick. Ha!
You fear!—Then I'll make sure. He opes his eyes.
Comyn. False—foolish—dying—guilty—perjured—lost!
[Dies.
Kirkpatrick [stabbing Comyn].
Something to staunch your muttering. No fear, now.

Enter Sir Robert Comyn with his sword drawn.

Robert Comyn. Stop villain! Hold your hand, rash murderer!
Kirkpatrick. I only gave a grace-thrust to your nephew
To end his agony. Put up your sword.
He died a good death on the altar-steps.
Robert Comyn. Kirkpatrick, you have aided in a deed,
Unseconded, even in these fearful times.
Kirkpatrick. Strong words and stiffly spoken. Does your sword
Keep pace with your sharp tongue?
Robert Comyn. We'll try.
Kirkpatrick. Come on!
[They fight, and Robert Comyn falls.
Robert Comyn. Is this the day of judgment for our house?
Kinsman, I was your follower on earth,
And now I am your henchman through death's vale.
[Dies.

Enter Edward Bruce, Sir Christopher and Sir John Seton, and other gentlemen.

Sir Christopher Seton.
Two Comyns dead! Bruce only spoke of one.
Kirkpatrick. I slew the other. He would have me fight.
Sir John Seton. Alas! and could it be no other way?
There was enough dissension in the realm
Without a feud between these families,
Highest in state and strongest in the field.
1st Gentleman. Comyn is dead, and Bruce has laid him low.
The dead may slay the living. What say you?
2nd Gentleman. I say so too. The stroke that Comyn killed
May yet recoil upon his murderer.
Edward Bruce. Judge not, my friends. A murder has been done
With outward signs of most unrighteous wrath.
But think who did the deed—the noblest Scot,
The knightliest chevalier, the kindliest friend,
The prince of brothers. I, who know, say this.
The very horror and the sacrilege
That frame the crime with dreader circumstance,
Cry out the doer was insane the while,
And recommend him to your lenience.
Therefore, take warning; and before you judge
Let your bloods cool, lest you be guilty too
Of foolish rashness in your condemnation.
My brother left a message for you all:
He asks you who are friends to visit him
to-morrow at Lochmaben; where he means
To lay the matter of his crime before you,
And take your counsel on the consequence.
1st Gentleman. It's fair we should withhold our judgment, sirs,
Until we be possessed of this event,
The cause and manner of its happening.
[Shouting within.

Enter Nigel Bruce.

Nigel Bruce. The people buzz and clamour to be led.
The news of Comyn's death has made them mad;
If blood were wine, and they had drunk of it
To fulness, they could not be more mature
For any mischief that the time suggests.
Edward Bruce. Good mischief, if the English suffer it.
I'll be their captain. Caesar pricked his horse
Across the Rubicon, defying Rome.
Bruce pricked John Comyn over death's dark stream,
Defying England. Caesar triumphed: Bruce
Shall triumph too. And now begins the fight.
[All go out.

SCENE III.—The same. Monks enter and lay the bodies side by side. A bell tolls, and the monks kneel round the altar. Then enter the Countess of Badenoch, and Comyn, Earl of Buchan, and the Countess of Buchan.

Buchan. You holy men, give place a little while.
A Monk. To whom?
Buchan. The wife and friends of slaughtered
Comyn.
[The monks retire.
Countess of Badenoch. Would any mortal think to look at me
This dead man was my husband? Should I weep,
And rend with sighs my breast, and wring my hands;
Peal out my sorrow, like a vesper bell
Calling the cloistered echo's shadowy choir
To take the burden of a woeful dirge;
Enrobe myself in that dishevelment
Which tyrannous grief compels his subjects pale
To show their vassalage by putting on,
I might persuade myself and you, my friends,
That I am sorry for my husband's death:
Even as an actor, lacking any cue,
Visible, tangible, as I have here,
Steps lightly at a word upon the stage,
Leaving his brothers and their merry chat,
And takes upon him any passion's show
With such devotion and abandonment,
That what was first a cloak becomes a soul,
And audience and actor both are held
Dissolved in ecstasy; which, breaking, back
From high heroics to sad homeliness
Their spirits are precipitated straight.
But I'll not play the broken heart, for you,
My friends, my audience, know the cause I have
Rather to laugh than weep. O wretched corpse!
What habitation holds the spirit now
Which Bruce ejected rashly, warrantless,
Pulling the house about the tenant's ears?
Buchan. He loved me little, and he loved you less;
And by his death he leaves a legacy,
The taking up of which, if spirits watch
From where eternally they rest or pine,
Our tragic, many-scened mortality,
Will reconcile him to his sudden death.
Countess of Buchan. Husband, what legacy?
Buchan. A mortal feud.
Countess of Buchan. Will you avenge on Bruce the death of him
Whom his best friends lament not?
Buchan. Yes, I must.
And good Sir Robert, too—his blood cries out.
It is a duty that the world will look
To see performed directly and with speed,
Admitting no perfunct, half-passive dance
On patient Providence. Dissuade me not,
For it becomes you not. There is a thing
That vaguely circulates in certain spheres
Concerning you, my dearest. Sad am I
That from my lips it first should taint your ears;
But you must know it now. Give me your hand.
This white and fragrant palm from guilty deeds,
That harden more than penitential toil,
Or from the touch of slime, is not more free,
Than your unshriven soul from infant thoughts
Swaddled in shame. But foul-tongued calumny,
Tutored by hatred, like a jabbering bird
With implication lewd repeats your name
And Bruce's in a breath.
Countess of Buchan. Alas, I know!
The lying scandal that benights my life
Will be a foil to make my memory shine.—
If it confronts you graven on the sky
To visit retribution on his head
Whose hand laid low your cousin's, be it so:
I'll not invade your secrets; but I mean
To do what woman can for Bruce's cause,
Which whispers tell me will be Scotland's soon.
Buchan. Well, we'll not quarrel. We'll talk of this again.
Countess of Badenoch.
Come take me home. I'm in a gentler mood.
Let those good cowls return and pray their best.
[The Countess of Badenoch and the Earl and
Countess of Buchan go out. The monks
advance and kneel, and the scene closes.

ACT II

SCENE I.—Lochmaben. A Room in the Castle.

Enter Lamberton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, Edward and Nigel Bruce, the two Setons, Sir Thomas Randolf, and other Lords and Gentlemen.

Lamberton. My lords and gentlemen, this is no time
For ceremony, which, when lazy peace
Has rusted o'er the world's slack businesses,
Oils easily the motion of affairs;
For now events impel each other on,
And higher powers than beadles usher them.
I am commissioned by the noble Bruce
To greet you heartily and wish you well
While you remain within Lochmaben's walls.
By my advice he begs you to excuse
His absence, while I speak. When you have heard
I doubt not that you will. He has confessed
The sacrilegious crime of yesterday,
Contritely and with simple truthfulness.
No exculpation, no defence at all,
Such as we know there is, he offered me.
Some of us here may hold that Bruce's act
Should rather be extolled than stigmatised.
We know for certain now what was the wrong
That Comyn, having wrought, denied on oath,
And all our sympathy goes out to Bruce.
But such the old deceitfulness of sin
That feelings of the sweetest comfort oft
Mislead us to embrace iniquity.
Man's worst of deeds God turns to good account:
A penance, which I hope will work God's will,
I have enjoined on the humiliate earl.
I mean to crown him, Robert, King of Scots:
His task will be to make that title good.
Now I have said a word that stirs your blood,
Begetting hope and courage, valiant twins.
And yet it is not I that speak, but God:
Surely God speaks. The sequence of events,
Of which this conference is the latest bud,
Appears to me a heavenly oracle,
As evident as Aaron's sprouting rod,
Commanding Robert Bruce to be the king.
He would have placed the crown on Comyn's head
Had Comyn wished, that Scotland might be one;
But Comyn thought to get the crown by guile,
And like an impious fool betrayed his friend,
Setting between him and the English king
A gulf of enmity impassable.
Edward will judge him out of church and law;
But in our Scotch communion he is safe:
And being out of law, there is no way,
Except to be our king, above the law.
Needs must, my lords; and is not need God's will?
Edward Bruce. It is the will of God.
All. Bruce shall be king.

Enter Bruce.

Long live the King! Long live King Robert Bruce!
Bruce. You hail me by a name that may be mine
In more than word, but not without your aid.
There are not many Scots besides yourselves
Who will acknowledge me their King. Think well
Before you pledge your faith to one outlawed;
For so I am, if law depend on power.
Scotland, the Isles, and England are my foes:
My friends are individual; on my hands
They may be counted. Lennox, Athole, Cairns,
Fleming, the Hayes, the Frasers, Sommerville,
Glasgow, and Moray, sum the list with you:
These only are the Scots whom I may rule.
Sir Christopher Seton. Then only these deserve the name of Scot.
Lamberton. Right, Seton!
Randolf. We are Scots, the rest are slaves!
Freeman and Scot have ever meant the same.
Lamberton. Carrick or King?
Bruce. King, by God's will and yours.
Lamberton. Sometimes we please ourselves with images
Of deeds heroic. The unstabled thought,
Enfranchised by rough-riding passion, winds
A haughty course and laughs at depth and height:
But the blood tires; and lo! our thought, a steed,
That from his rider ever takes the mood,
Pants, droops, turns tail, and hobbles home to stall.
Look in yourselves, and see if vain conceit
Or lofty daring, lord it o'er your minds.
This thing is sure: reason must be constrained:
You must be hot, believing, fanatic;
You must be wrathful, patriotic, rash;
Forethought abandon o'er to providence;
Let prudence lag behind you, like a snail,
Bearing its house with care upon its back;
Take counsel only of the circumstance
That shapes itself in doing of the deed;
Be happy, scornful, death-defiant: strong
You will be then matchless, invincible.
What! shall we go to Scone, and crown Bruce king?
Randolf. At once, Lord Archbishop.
Sir John Seton. To Glasgow, first,
To take our friends there with us.
Lamberton. That is best.
Is it your will to be crowned king at Scone?
Bruce. Most reverend father, and my noble friends,
If language were to me in place of thought,
I could pour grateful speeches in your ears;
But words are wanting. I am helpless, dumb;
I would be lonely; I would think awhile.
Lamberton. Think worthy thoughts, that only second are
To worthy deeds; yet their begetters too.
We'll leave you till our little troop's arrayed.
Bruce. You are very kind, my lords.
[All go out except Bruce.
I'm not a man
Much given to meditate. When pending thoughts
Hurtle each other in the intellect,
Darkening that firmament like thunder-clouds,
To let them lighten forth in utterance
Clears up the sky, confused with swaying rack.
My life begins a new departure here;
And like one dying all my time appears
Even on the instant, in eternal light.
Ambition struck the hours that measured it.
My pact with Comyn was half-hearted. What!
The passion that laid hold upon my soul
When he was killed—When he was killed? I think
I'm to myself too merciful; but yet
I seemed to do some bidding:—were there not
Alloys of gladness that the bond was loosed,
Of jealousy that Comyn barred my way,
Mixed in the blow that paid the traitor's wage?
There are two voices whispering in my ear:
This is the bane of self-communion. Now,
Right in thy teeth, or in thy toothless chaps,
I swear, antiquity, first thoughts are best:
Their treble notes I still shall hearken to,
And let no second, murmuring soft, seduce
Their clear and forthright meaning. It is gone,
The flash of revelation: dallying does
With intuition as with other chance.
I would to God that I might ever hear
The trump of doom pealing along the sky,
And know that every common neighbour day
Is the last day, and so live on and fight
In presence of the judgment. Wishing this
Have I not broached the very heart of truth?
Each unmarked moment is an end of time,
And this begins the future.

Enter Isabella.

Isabella!
Isabella. What in this time of doleful accidents
Could move the joyful shouts I heard just now?
Bruce. My dearest, what would make you shout for joy?
Isabella. I have not shouted since I was a girl;
But now, I think, if any happy thing
Should spring into my life, I would cry out,
I have been so unhappy, and so long.
Tell me you'll never leave me any more;
Then will I cry, and weep, for very joy.
Bruce. Heaven grant it may be so!
Isabella. If there is hope!—
Did I not shout now?—I will nurse it warm,
And pet it like a darling, till it come
To be what I imagine in the fact,
Or in the fancy; for I will go mad:
I'll bend myself to lose all faculty,
All thought, remembrance, all intelligence,
So to be capable of company
With your phantasm, more real then than life;
And be a wild mad woman, if those fears,
Those weary absences, those partings pale,
And fevered expectations, which have filled
The summer of our life with storm and cold,
Determine not in peace and halcyon days.
You do not love me as I love you; no;
Else you would never leave me. Love of power
And love of me hold tourney in your breast.
Let Will throw down the baton, and declare
The love of me the winner, and I'll be
Your queen of love; and beautiful as love
For man can make a woman. I am proud:
When love transfigures me I can conceive
How beautiful I am. Stay with me, then,
That holy, sweet, and confident desire
May light me up a pleasant bower for you:
I am, when you are gone, a house forlorn,
Cold, desolate, and hasting to decay:
Stay, tenant me, preserve me in repair;
Only sweet uses keep sweet beauty fair.
Bruce. I love you, Isabella, by high heaven,
More than the highest power that can be mine.
Isabella. Why then pursue this power so ardently?
Bruce. I stayed pursuit; but it would follow me.
My countrymen have asked me to be king.
Isabella. King!—But you murdered Comyn. All his friends—
Forgive me, love. I would not for the world
Reproach you; but——
Bruce. I know your gentle heart.
My thought of you is not the morning bride;
Nor even the rose that oped its balmy breast
And gave its nectar sweetly. In my mind
This memory of you crowds out the rest:
The woman who with tender arms embraced
The bloody murderer. I know your heart.
Isabella. Hush!
Bruce. Friends are few; but if my title's good?
Hopeless the cause; but if the cause be just?
I'm glad my hand that did my passion's hest
Has made my mind up for me.
Isabella. You'll be king?
Bruce. Will I be hunted like a common knave
Who stabs his comrade in a drunken brawl
For some rude jest or ruder courtesan,
And, being an outlaw, dies by any hand?
I'd rather be the king; and though I die
The meanest death, be held in memory
As one who, having entered on a course
Of righteous warfare by a gate of shame,
Pursued it with his might, and made amends
For starting false—so far as lay in him;
For out of him his sin is, 'stablished, past,
And by a life's atonement unredeemed.
I do not brood on this. Before you came
I had better thoughts.
Isabella. O, I am sad at that!
Bruce. I love you: not from you those worse thoughts sprang.
Isabella. Perhaps they did: for I have sometimes found,
When I have spent an hour in decking me,
But thinking more to please you in my life
Than in my dress, that, coming then to you,
Brimming with tenderness, some thoughtless word,
Or even a look from you, has changed my mood,
And made me deem the world a wilderness;
While this cross glance, or inauspicious tone,
Was but a feint of yours, whose strength of love
Withheld itself, afraid it should undo
Its purpose by endeavouring too much:
And we have parted, discontented both.
But we'll not part now. Say, we shall not part.
Bruce. Not now. We will be crowned together, queen.
Isabella. 'But then' succeeds 'not now'; I hope, far off.
Bruce. We must prepare to go.
Isabella. So soon!
Bruce. Our friends
Await us, chafing doubtless at delay.
Isabella. Then I will make a proverb lie for once,
And be on horseback sooner than my lord.
[They go out.

SCENE II.—A Road in Dumfriesshire.

Enter Bruce, Isabella, and a Squire.

Bruce. Look to our horses while we rest.
[Squire goes out.
Isabella. How far
Are we before our friends?
Bruce. See, they appear.
Isabella. That little puff of dust?
Bruce. Our company,
Three miles away I think. The road is straight,
And slopes to us. I hear a hoof—this side.
Isabella. It is a solitary knight, but one
Who need not fear to ride afar, alone,
If I may trust a woman's hasty eye.
He is dismounting; he unhelms, he bows;
He seems to know you, and salute you king!

Enter Sir James Douglas.

Bruce. Douglas! I thought that Paris would retain
For years to come the service of your youth.
Douglas. You speak as one whom some transcending hap
Has shown the high and secret worth of life;
And such am I, or else discourtesy
Alone had greeted me in what you said.
Not with shrunk purse, drained veins, and heart dried-up;
Will—broken-winded; pith-brains; sinews—straw,
From Paris, which unstiffens many a one,
Come I to Scotland, where is need of strength.
A love of noble things—a kind of faith—
A hope, a wish, a thought above the world,
Has swayed me from the mire; and yet I know
It is a miracle I'm not more soiled.
Bruce. I spoke unworthily of this reply,
And gladly now unsay my hinted charge,
Which, with less thought than commonplace, I made;
Though I should utter nothing now but thought,
For as you judged I see a soul in life.
And what in Scotland do you think to do?
Douglas. Retrieve my lands, avenge my father's death,
And drive the English from its borders. Here
I offer Scotland's king my lance, and here
I vow to be his lady's loyal knight.
You are amazed. They say, ill news spreads fast:
He whom the tidings then will halcyon
Knows of his weal as soon as he his woe.
Is the news good to you that Bruce is king?
Bruce. The news is good: best, that he's king of you.
I wonder most at that. I stood in arms
Against your father, and but yesterday
I seemed the friend of England.
Douglas. Yesterday
Was once the date of every lasting change.
While you are faithful to the land that's yours,
I swear to serve you faithfully till death.
Bruce. Another trusty friend when friends are few—
And such a friend! Welcome, a thousand times!
Isabella. A happy handselling of our enterprise!
What is the news from England? Have you heard
If Wallace has been judged?
Douglas. Not yet; but soon
In Westminster he will be doomed to death;
For victory, which oft ennobles kings,
Debases Edward. Since he has not grace,
The gracious-hearted world with one outcry
Should claim the life of Wallace for its own,
As the most noble life lived in this age,
And not to be cut off by one man's hate.
Bruce. The thought of Wallace troubles me. The truth
That great men seldom in their times are known;
And this that little men are eminent
In midst of their thin lives and loud affairs,
Assert how perilous election is
By peers all bound and circumstanced alike.
If he were solely moved by noble thoughts,
And is the signal hero you give out—
Nothing I say, and nothing I deny—
Then were the nobles who deserted him
Unworthy cowards, beggars, churls, knaves, hounds.
Shall I condemn my order so? or think
That Wallace hoped to aggrandise himself,
And lost those friends who had no need to fight
For mere existence when the restive hoof
Of personal ambition kicked aside
The patriot's caparison? You wince:
But with the time I drift, and cannot find
A mooring for my judgment. Pardon me.
This I believe: there is no warrior
Before the world, who could, even with those means
Of formal power that Wallace mostly lacked,
Have wrought the tithe of his accomplishment:
His name will be an ensign; and his acts
The inspiration of his countrymen.
Douglas. You yet will know his magnanimity
Which girdled round the ample continent
Of his performance like the boundless sea.
Bruce. I'm glad to think—to know the best of him.
Shall we turn back and meet our friends?
Isabella. Yes; come.
And, Douglas, tell us more of Wallace, pray.
[They go out.

SCENE III.—A room in the Earl op Buchan's Castle.

Enter the Earl and the Countess of Buchan, and the Earl of Fife.

Countess of Buchan. Once more, I beg you, brother, on my knees, To
undertake the duty of your race.
Now, while I plead, they may be crowning him,
And no Macduff to gird his curling hair.
Eleven kings from Malcolm Canmore's time
Our ancestors have perfected with gold,
Laying the ruddy chaplet on their brows
Like magic dawn that tops the day with light.
It is a custom that has come to mean
The thing it garnished; and he cannot be
The King of Scots, however just his claim,
However consecrated, sceptred, throned,
Who is not crowned by you.
Fife. I am the friend
Of England, of your husband; finally
Be answered I beseech you. If you plead
Again with such hot vehemence, I'll think
Your husband is a fool to slight the word
That birds have carried of the Bruce and you.
Countess of Buchan. If I were richer than to need your help,
I'd let you know that brother's quality
Who dares to doubt his mother's daughter. Shame!
But I am passionate, and so are you:
You meant no wrong. You'll do this, will you not?
Fife. Why! here's a woman!—What a woman! Well!
I tell you I am England's friend, which means
The foe of any upstart such as Bruce;
And I am Buchan's friend, which means the foe
Of Buchan's mortal foe, the outlaw Bruce.
I tell you this, and yet you beg of me
To do for Bruce the service needed most
To make him mighty in his enmity.
Countess of Buchan. If you were armed to fight a champion,
And he had lost his helm before you met,
You would not do despite to chivalry,
And take advantage of his naked head,
But find him in a morion, or unclasp
Your own, and equally defended, charge.
Be chivalrous to Bruce; make him a king
That Edward may be vantageless in that.
Then fight for Edward—with your puissance, fight.
Fife. I think you're mad. This pertinacity,
Which you intend shall urge me to comply—
Which you conceive no doubt a sign of strength,
But which I judge a sign of vanity—
Is one of women's weapons, well-approved,
With which she jags to death a stronger will.
But my resolve is harnessed, and your dart
Turns off it blunt—and spent I hope.
Buchan. You hear;
I said you could not move him.—Come away—
I'm sorry you have set your mind on this.
[Fife and Buchan go out.
Countess of Buchan. To toss my hair, to weep, to rate my maid,
Are small reliefs I ne'er resorted to;
And now I must do something notable.
What if I went and crowned the Bruce myself?
Ah! here's a thought that's like a draught of wine!
My brother whose the office is, resiles:
Mine—mine it is!—But how?—but if I did?
Their tongues, their tongues! their foul imaginings!
Is the world wicked as its thought is? Love?
There's no one would believe me if I vowed
Upon my deathbed, between heaven and earth,
I understand no meaning in the word.
Maidens have lovers, and they sigh and wake;
Wives love their husbands, and they wake and weep:
But never, never have I loved a man
As I see women love—with bursting hearts,
With fire and snow at variance in their cheeks,
With arching smiles, the heraldry of joy,
Whose rainbow shadows shine on hot, hard tears;
With cruel passion, dying ecstasy,
With rapture of the resurrection morn.
I have not loved. It may be to my shame,
But justly to the world's, condemning me
For deeds no cause could work me to commit.
If I take horse to Scone, farewell my fame,
Which halts yet at the threshold. Who's this?

Enter James Crombe.

Crombe,
Do you remember in my father's house
Your life once stood in danger for a crime—
Which I'll not name—when mercy at my plea
Was meted you in place of punishment?
Crombe. Well I remember.
Countess of Buchan. You were thankful then,
And held your life at my command. The time——
Crombe. My lady, if some service you require
Perilling my life, I'll do it willingly;
But had you urged my love, my duteous love,
And not my debt, I had been happier.
Countess of Buchan. I beg your pardon, sir. Indeed, I think
The service I require may cost your life,
But surely something dearer. I am whirled
From thought to thought: my mind lacks breath. Good Crombe,
You owe me nothing. Will you, if I bid,
Procure me black dishonour, and yourself
A name of loathing?
Crombe. No, my lady.
Countess of Buchan. How?
Crombe. If I beheld you hurrying to your shame,
I'd keep your honour holy with my sword,
And send it hot to heaven.
Countess of Buchan. Well.—You're a Scot?
I mean, you long for Scotland's freedom.
Crombe. Yes.
Countess of Buchan. Are you acquainted with the news?
Crombe. Of Bruce?
I've heard they mean to crown him king to-day;
But since my lord of Fife is England's friend——
Countess of Buchan. Yes, yes! But are you glad?
Crombe. Most heartily.
I think of joining Bruce.
Countess of Buchan. My timorous heart,
Fie, fie!—I knew you were a noble man.
You will put no construction but the right
On what I mean to do. Both you and I
Must be dishonoured in the world's regard:
I, an unfaithful wife; you, go-between.
Saddle two horses; lead them secretly
A mile beyond the castle. There I'll mount
And ride with you to Scone. Go, instantly.
I, Isobel Macduff, will crown Bruce king.
Crombe. But, noble lady—not for fear, but safety—
What of pursuit?
Countess of Buchan. Pursuit? I am a mint,
And coin ideas. Come—come out! It's gold!
My husband's horses must be aired to-day.
You'll see it done. Some of the grooms we'll bribe,
And some will come unbought, and some we'll force
Either to follow us, or quit their steeds:
Leave nothing in the stables that can run.
My lords—ha! ha!—are nowhere in the chase.
Crombe. Captain, and countess, mistress, service-worthy,
Be confident in me, as I in you,
And the deed's done.
[Goes out.
Countess of Buchan. Now, world, wag, wag your tongues!
I sacrifice my fame to make a king:
And he will raise this nation's head again
That lies so low; and they will honour him;
And afterwards, perhaps, they'll honour me.
Or if they slight me and my modest work,
I shall be dead: I have enough to bear
Of disrespect and slander here to-day,
Without forecasting railing epitaphs.
But some—nay, many of the worthiest,
And many simple judgments too, will see
The sunlight on my deed. This, I make sure:
No Scot's allegiance can be held from Bruce
Because he was not crowned by a Macduff.—
And if I love him, what is that to him?
That's a good saying. So is this, I make:
If I do love him, what is that to me!
[Goes out.

ACT III

SCENE I.—Westminster. The Hall of the Palace. King Edward I. on a throne of state. In attendance, Lords Pembroke, Percy, Clifford, and other Lords, Gentlemen, and Officers.

Enter Sir Peter Mallorie with Sir William Wallace, bound and guarded.

Edward I. Proceed with the impeachment, Mallorie.
Mallorie. Sir William Wallace, knight of Elderslie,
Some time usurping Guardian of Scotland,
You are a traitor to the English crown——
Wallace. I am no traitor to the English crown,
For I was never subject to King Edward.
Mallorie. Therein your treason rests. But speak not now:
You may speak afterwards in your defence.
Wallace. I will speak now, not to excuse my deeds,
But to arraign the falsest traitor here.
Edward of England, if one pure pulse beats
In that debauched and enervated core
Which was your conscience, I will make it ache.
Edward I. What do you mean? To have us think you mad,
And to your frailty that compassion show
Which crimes and sins forbid us to extend?
Or are you posing as a prodigy
Of heroism? In their minstrelsy
They sing of captive knights whose bold address
In presence of their victors won them grace:
But know that justice sees no worth in words—
Deeds only: therefore hear your deeds rehearsed.
Mallorie. Sir William Wallace, treasons manifold——
Wallace. I crave the pardon of all manhood here.
Having small use for any faculty
Since I became a captive, I have slacked
The rigour of my will, and thus it is
I spoke with petulance before my time.
Proceed to read my accusation, sir.
Mallorie. You are accused of many treasonous acts
Done on the persons, castles, cities, lands,
Of our most noble sovereign, Edward First,
In England and in Scotland——
Wallace. But, explain——
Edward I. Silence, guilty felon!
Wallace. Guilty? Condemned
And hanged already, doubtless, in your heart.
I will confess my guilt, for I am guilty—
Guilty of failure in a righteous cause.
I will confess that when ill-fortune came
My friends forsook me; that I lost the day
At Falkirk, and have since been little worth.
I stayed your accusation, sir, to ask
What treason I could work against a king
Whom I acknowledge not, and in a land
Not governed by that king?
Edward I. Silence!—Proceed.
Wallace. What! English Edward! Would you roar me down?
My deeds have spoken: shall I fear your tongue?
The charge against me is irrelevant;
No jurisdiction have you over me
To pardon or to doom: prisoner of war,
No traitor, I; and here I make demand
For knightly treatment at the hands of knights.
Edward I. You shall have justice.
Wallace. In the end I shall:
And so shall you. Death you have often faced;
Justice you shall see once.
Edward I. Stay, Mallorie.
We'll tutor this heroic insolence.
The observant world has notched the life of man,
And three main periods indicate three powers
Whose dreadful might directs our very stars.
These powers take reason's throne, the intellect.
First, love usurps, like Saturn come again—
Whose orb is yet man's most malignant foe—
Turning the sad, outlandish time of youth
Into a golden age. Ambition rules
With godly sway the second period,
And marshals man's capacity to war
Against the evils that beset him most,
And win what things of worship he desires.
Prudence, which none but old men understand
To be the strongest tyrant of the three,
Reigns lastly, making peace with God and man:
Securing acquisitions; peering forth
Into the future, like a mariner,
Whose freight is landed in a foreign port,
With wistful homeward gaze, but eager yet
To see his merchandise disposed of well:
And reason, which should rule, most cheerfully
Accepts the ministry beneath these kings:
That is the chronicle of noble men.
The sun gleams lurid through a rotting fog,
And those pure powers that shine in lucent souls,
Clear, as if lanterned only by the air,
In natures base, burn with a murky flame,
As lust, concupiscence, and avarice:
And reason, mad with degradation, toils
Unwillingly in slavish offices.
Now comes my application. Cruel, vain,
Intolerant, unjust, false, murderous,
You, Wallace—rebel, outlaw, hangman, fool,
Incendiary, reiver, ravisher—
You are the serf of vile concupiscence—
Yea, of the vilest famine—hungry greed
Of notoriety!—the commonest,
The meanest, lewdest, gauntest appetite,
That drives the ignoble to extremity!
No sooner had we quarried painfully
Forth of that chaos left by your King John,
A corner-stone for righteous government,
Than you and other itching malcontents
With gothic hands o'erturned the fane of peace
And on your groaning land brought heathen war,
That you might win the name of patriot.
Again I built up order; and again
You overthrew my government, and caused
Your fatherland—heroic patriot!—
From Tweed to Moray Firth to swim in blood,
Before divine authority could rule.
Still you rebelled; for you must stand alone—
And think not, lords, I over-rate the strength
Of this delirious thirst for some repute—
Though nobles, knights, burgesses, yeomen, priests,
Yea, every Scot, well-pleased, acknowledged us,
You—cast-off guardian—dog that had his day—
Alone, unfriended, starving in the wilds,
Held there aloof, and signalised your night
By howling for that moon you almost clutched,
A tyrant's power, calling it liberty:
For that was still behind your lust of fame.
Mallorie. You're silent now.
A Lord. Silence becomes him well.
This just exposure stills his shameful voice.
Wallace. Seeing how your rage leapt from your lips in lies,
King, I bethink me ere I make reply,
Lest I, too, throw the truth.
Edward I. Now tell us, lords,
Are we on our defence or Wallace? Which?
Villain, regard law's form if not its soul.
Be better mannered; touch your memory;
You stand before the majesty of England.
Wallace. I stand there truly; but behind me pants
The king of terrors; and his quiver holds
One dart I hope to parry, which I fear—
But not the venomed shaft that nothing fends.
It is—not now; I'll tell you afterwards.—
Noble?—ignoble?—who shall judge us, king?
This deed and that we may with help of heaven
Christen or damn, and not be far astray;
But who shall take upon him to declare
The mind of God on what is unrevealed,
The guiding thought, deep, secret, which is known,
Even to the thinker, but in passing wafts.
Because my life was spent in thwarting you,
I am not therefore an incarnate fiend,
Although the justice of the end I stayed
Possessed your soul to sickening. Mad for fame!—
My wife's, my father's, and my brother's deaths.—
Edward I. No more of this. Call in the witnesses.
Wallace. I'll speak now, and be heard.
All. Silence! Be still.
Wallace. I can outroar you all. Sound trumpets, drums,
And fill your hall with clamour, I shall speak,
And you shall hear. Above the voice of war
I have been heard, and——
All. Silence, traitor, silence!
[The shouting continues for a little, but gradually
ceases as Wallace speaks on.
Wallace. I fought for liberty and not for fame.
Monarchs know not the inestimable worth
Of that imperial, rich diadem
Which only crowns both kings and carls, men.
Say, slavery unfelt were possible,
Then freedom is a name for sounding wind.
But call me slave in any mincing term;
And let the tyrant's frowns be smiles of love;
The chains, less galling than a lady's arms;
The labour, just my pleasure's ministry:
If I surrender to the conqueror,
As captive is my soul, as though thick irons
Wore through my flesh, and rusting in my blood,
Rasped on my bones, the while with lash and oath
Some vicious tasker held me to hard toil.
I stand here free, though bound and doomed to die.
And know, King Edward, every Scot who bent,
Gnawing his heart, a recreant knee to you,
Perjured himself, being free; and even now—
I know my countrymen—contrite they rise;
And when they have another leader—one
Abler than I—pray heaven, more fortunate!—
They will anew throw off your galling yoke,
And be once more lieges of liberty.
I am the heart of Scotland; when I die
It shall take heart again——
Edward I. No, no! by heaven!
The Scots repudiate you!
Wallace. The Scots do not:
The people, pulse for pulse, beat warm with me.
Edward I. You lie! You lie!—But I forgot myself.
Freebooters, prodigals, scroyles—outcasts all—
Your sole supporters, may lament your end;
But true men everywhere are jubilant.
Not England only, and the better part
Of your divided country were your foes;
But from the world's beginning you were doomed
To fail in your unholy enterprise.
For destiny, whose servant Nature is,
Ordained by the creation of this land—
So long sore vexed by chance, fate's enemy,
With heptarchies, divisions, kings and clans—
That one king and one people here should dwell,
Clasped in the sea's embrace, happy and safe
As heaven is, anchored in eternity.
In fighting me you fought fate's champion,
Anointed with the fitness of the time,
And with the strength of his desire inspired,
To finish Nature's work in Albion.
You, paltry minion of a band of knaves,
In name of patriotism—which in this case
Was in the devil's name—fought against God;
The coming of His kingdom hindered here.
Now His sure vengeance has o'ertaken you,
And over both our lands His sweet peace reigns.
Wallace. Eternal God, record this blasphemy!
Who doubts our lands are destined to be one?
Who does not pray for that accomplishment!
Why! Know you not that is the period,
The ultimate effect I battled for,
That you, free English, and that we, free Scots,
May one day be free Britons. And we shall;
For Scotland never will be tributary:
We are your equals, not to be enslaved;
We are your kin, your brothers, to be loved.
Time is not ripe: fate's crescent purposes,
Like aloe-trees, bloom not by forcing them;
But seasonable changes, mellowing years,
Elaborative ages, must mature
The destined blossoms. Listen, king and lords;
Here is a thing worthy remembering,
And which perhaps you never rightly knew:
Duty is always to the owner done;
And the immediate debtor wisely pays:
The heritage of duty unperformed
Increases out of sight of usury.
Restore to Scotland freedom. Do that, king,
Or it will be required from you or yours
With woeful interest.—I have done. I feared
I might not find a way to speak these truths,
Having no nimble tongue, and die oppressed
With warning unpronounced. I truly thought
I could command a hearing had I words.
Death now, the due of all, my triumph, waits.
Edward I. The witnesses, Sir Peter Mallorie;
Your accusation now is needless.
Mallorie. Sire,
Hugh Beaumont is the first. He'll testify
Of early deeds in the arch-traitor's life.
He is an old man now and garrulous:
A gentleman withal, whose gentle blood
Stood him in little stead, when windy youth
Had sown itself, and whirling poverty
Down to the barren common dashed his head.
So with his sword he battened as he might,
And valour was his star. Let him have scope,
For he has much to say.
[Hugh Beaumont is led in.
Inform the king
As strictly as to God of all that passed
Between you and the prisoner.
Edward I. Speak the truth.
Beaumont. Your gracious majesty, what I can tell
Is liker fable; but the noble knight,
The prisoner, will acknowledge all I say:
Much of it honours him.—To Ayr he came
One day, disguised, with hat down, cloak pulled up.
There as he paced the street, Lord Percy's man
Seized on some fish a burgher just had bought;
Whereat, Sir William, like a smouldering fire,
Flared up to burn the foot whose thoughtless kick
Had tortured it to flame. In speechless rage
He grasped the caitiff's throat and smote him dead.
About two score well-harnessed Englishmen,
With whom I was, did straight environ him.
Against a wall he bore which seemed to be
Rather upheld by him than him upholding,
And reaped us down like corn. He did, my lords.
He multiplied his strokes so that he seemed
To multiply himself; there did appear
Opposed to every soldier there a Wallace.
Without or helm or mail, in summer-weed,
Grass-green, flowered red with blood, he fought us all,
Till one that bit the dust writhed near enough
To pierce him in the leg, and then he fell.
Yet even so he might have won away;
But as he rose he fetched a blow at me,
Which I eluding, down his breaking brand
Upon the causeway struck; and in his eyes
A light went out, when his uplifted hand
Showed but the hilt. In faith I pitied him,
I pitied him, and bore him to the tower.
There in a filthy dungeon he expired
Of festering wounds and food that swine refused,
Ere they had settled what death was his due.
Edward I. But he is here alive?
Beaumont. Pardon, dread lord;
He seemed at that time dead: the West mourned for him:
His aged nurse bought his corrupting corpse
To bury it decently in hallowed ground.
Well, after that a while, in Lanark town,
I waited in the High Street on the judge,
Lord Ormesby, then on circuit in the West.
Four men were with me. One, on fire with wine,
A braggart at the best, vaunted his deeds.
And when two men came down the street, he cried,
"See yonder stalks a canny muffled Scot,
A strapper, by this light! attended, too!
He's like to have that may be taxable.
Something I'll mulct him of; or something give,
That shall be worse than nothing—namely, blows!"
"Belike," said I, "that boon will not go quit.
His side is guarded by a lengthy purse,
Whose bright contents, I think, he will not hoard."
"I'll have his sword," quoth he, "if he refuse,
Take it, and beat him with it till he shake
His dastard body out of his habergeon;
Which, leaving here, he'll give me hearty thanks,
That I leave him his skin, the lousy Scot!"
And so he staggered out to meet the two.
The muffled stranger whispered to his man,
And he sped on before in anxious haste,
Dodging the drunk man's outstretched arm, who said,
"Well, you may go; your master is behind."
And when the master came he stopped him, saying,
"Knave Scot, unveil! Come, show your sonsy face.
Vile thief, where did you steal this tabard green?
And where the devil got you this fair knife?
What! jewelled in the hilt! Unbuckle, quick,
Mantle and whittle; and to make amends
For having ever worn them, clasp them both
About me, and you shall have leave to go."
"St. Andrew! There's my whittle, English dog!"
And with a thrust the Scot let out his life.
We others rushed upon him instantly,
Shouting, "Down with him! Vengeance on the
Scot!" He gave us back, "St. Andrew, and the right!"
Wrapping his arm in what had wrapped his face,
And looking like the lion that he was.
Beholding him, I trembled, and stood still;
But one more rash ran on, to shriek and fall,
His raised right arm lopped at the shoulder off.
With that a voice cried, "In the king's name, peace!"
The Scot looked up and saw a troop approach.
"Too great a pack for one," he said, and ran.
Now this was Ormesby, the justiciary,
Arrived in Lanark to dispense the law,
With Hazelrig, the ruler of the shire.
Mallorie [aside to Beaumont].
Quick, man! be quick! Look how his Highness chafes!
Beaumont. The valiant Scot was Wallace. It appeared
His foster-mother, who had paid away
The earnings of her lifetime for his corpse,
Kissing and weeping o'er it, saw a spark
Struggle with night of death; or else her hope
Inspired new breath, much aided by her prayers.
The little glow she nursed into a flame,
So feeble, that, lest meat should smother it,
Her daughter gave one of her bosom's springs,
Then at high-tide to feed her new-born babe,
For the replenishing his body's lamp.
Being recovered, he had come to see
His wife, who dwelt in Lanark.
Wallace [aside]. God! O God!
Beaumont. Hazelrig led the chase: I followed close.
We reached the house: I searched the garden. There,
Scarcely concealed, I saw the prisoner.
Sire, I'm not a coward, and I was not then;
But from the instant that I recognised
The dead man come alive, enchantment caught
My spirit in a toil, and made me watch,
Powerless and voiceless, all he did. I felt
No movement, even while I followed him.
There was some witchery I do believe.
In by the window, when the search was o'er,
He entered, saying gaily to his wife,
"I almost think an English lourdane saw me.
How thin a thicket hides a dread discovery!"
Then seeing on the floor his lady lie,
"O God! what varied truth was in that word!
Not dead, my love!" She spoke that I could hear.
"Dying, dying. Hazelrig has killed me.
My spirit clings still to my lips to kiss you.
I would my soul might melt into a kiss
To lie on your lips till your soul's release,
And then to heaven together we would fly.
Avenge my death and Scotland's wrongs." "My love!"
He cried; and all his strength was water.
And long he held her: and he shook and sobbed.
Wallace [straining his bonds].
Nay, hang me!—burn me!—I am sawn asunder!
Beaumont. At length he put her softly on a seat,
And took her hand and knelt: and she was dead:
Her face was like an angel's fallen asleep.
Upon her bloody breast his eyes he fixed,
Seeming unruffled as a still white flame,
And words, more dread than silence, spake aloud:
"I will avenge thy death and Scotland's wrongs.
For every tear that now my eyes have dropped
From English veins shall seas of blood be shed.
Each sigh of mine shall have ten thousand echoes:
Yea, for her death I'll England sepulchre.
O glutton grave, a surfeit shall be thine!
Death's self shall sleep before my vengeance flags."
Slowly retiring, with his face to her,
He went. I have not seen him since till now.
He was a young man then.
[Voices within.
Edward I. What noise is that?
Clifford. A messenger, my lord, would force the door.
Edward I. Whence comes he?
Clifford. From the North, your majesty.
Edward I. Admit him.

Enter Messenger.

Welcome, sir. Your news at once,
Plainly and nakedly.
Messenger. Comyn is dead:
Slain in Dumfries by Bruce; whose party then,
Led by the fiery Edward, mad as he,
Attacked and seized the castle. On the day
I left the North, in Scone, the Lady Buchan,
The Bruce's paramour, Fife's sister, crowned
Her murderous lover king. Some lords and knights
Have gathered round him, and he lies at Perth.
Edward I. Besotted fool! But it is well. Herein
I see God's hand hardening the heart of Bruce
Against me, who am but God's minister,
That I may cut him off. I give God thanks.
Wallace—What! has he swooned?
Mallorie. He's in a trance.
Wallace!—Well, this is strange!—Wallace!
Wallace [starting]. My lords!
Edward I. We'll countenance this mockery no more.
All England and all Scotland—all the world
Prejudge your fate. Wherefore we will not then
Waste time in tedious processes of law
To find you, as we know you, dyed in guilt,
And leave another to pursue unchecked
A course of similar iniquity.
You for your treason are condemned to die
The death that traitors merit. Lead him hence.
Come after me, my lords, immediately,
And take your charges for the North.
[Edward I. goes out. Wallace is led away.
Clifford. I think
The king but whiled the time with Wallace here
Till news should come from Scotland.
Pembroke. With what haste
He sentenced him!
Percy. Yes; as a gamesome cat
Diverted with a mouse, scenting another,
Gobbles the captive quick.
[All go out.

ACT IV

SCENE I.—A Room in the Earl of Buchan's Castle.

Enter the Earl of Buchan.

Buchan. This is not jealousy. I only ache
With sorrow that my trust has been reposed
In falseness; and I feel—I fear I feel
The whole world's finger, quivering with scorn,
Stream venom at me. If I cannot sleep,
It is no wonder, for the laugh I hear,
Like icy water rippling—cold and true
As tested steel—so wise, so absolute—
Is learned from those that know me by the fiend
Who watches with me nightly. Jealousy?
If it possessed me, mortal sickness, bonds,
Nothing in heaven or hell, would hold me back
From sating it with blood—with hers and his.
But I will not be jealous, like poor souls,
Whose vanity engrosses every thought,
And calls itself nobility; not I.
I will devise some vengeance, some just means,
Some condign punishment, the world will praise,
Thinking of me more highly than before
This miserable time.

Enter Fife.

Fife. Brooding again!
Pluck up some sprightliness, for I have news.
Pembroke has routed Bruce in Methven wood,
And captured many leading rebels. Bruce,
Who showed himself a gallant warrior,
Proved in retreat wise as a veteran,
Escaping to the North.
Buchan. My wife?
Fife. They say
That she and other ladies northward too
In Nigel Bruce's charge escaped with speed.
Buchan. And is this sure?
Fife. I well believe it. Come,
Question the man who told me.
Buchan. If it's true
We'll join our powers and hunt the rebels down
Like noxious vermin, as they are.
Fife. Be cool.
What means this bitter passion?
Buchan. Am I hot?
But you'll combine with me?
Fife. Assuredly:
It is a noble chase; the quarry, game
To wind us over Scotland. Tally-ho!
Buchan. Now you are thoughtless. Come, the messenger.
[They go out.

SCENE II.—The Wood of Drome. Scotch soldiers about a watch-fire.

1st Soldier. What clouted loons we are! Royal beadsmen! Eh? 2nd Soldier. The king's as ragged as the rest. 1st Soldier. That's true. to-day I hunted with him, and I thought, Seeing his doublet loop-holed, frayed, and fringed; His swaddled legs and home-made shoes of pelt; His barbarous beard and hair, and freckled face, That manhood's surely more than royalty; For through this weedy, nettle-grown decay, A majesty appeared that distanced us, Even as a ruined palace overbears A hamlet's desolation.

Enter Bruce, unperceived.

3rd Soldier. He's a king
By nature, though descent were lost in churls.
2nd Soldier. Ay, ay; but mark: I'll reason of our state.
Here many days we've wasted in the wild,
Chased by the English like the deer we chase,
Exposed like them, without their native wont,
Beneath this fickle, rigorous northern clime,
Ill-fed, ill-clad, and excommunicate;
While decent burghers—Scots as true as we—
Live warm, and prosper with their families.
I think we're fools.
1st Soldier. Fools for ourselves, maybe,
But wise I hope for Scotland: and the folk
In every town and village think us wise,
And bless and pray for us.
Bruce [aside]. A brave heart that.
[Advancing.] Good evening, comrades. Can you guess the time?
1st Soldier. An hour past sunset. Look, your Majesty;
Barred by these trunks the cloudy embers burn
Where day is going out.
Bruce. Faintly I see.
Your fire's so bright it dims the distant glow.
Sit down again, good friends.
1st Soldier. A story, sir?
2nd Soldier. O, pray you tell us one!
Bruce. I think I will.
I've told you many tales of chivalry,
Of faerie, and of Greeks and Romans too;
But now I'll tell you of a Scotchman—one
Who lived when Rome was most puissant here.
The Roman governor, a valiant man,
Agricola, in whom ambition paused
Whenever prudence thought the utmost done,
Reconquered all the southern British tribes,
And drove his enemy beyond the Forth.
The noble Galgacus then swayed the realm
That stretches northward of that winding stream;
And while the Roman, building forts and walls,
As was his wont, secured the bird in hand,
He mustered from his glens a skin-clad host
To fight for freedom. Ardoch they call it,
Where the armies met. Ere the battle joined,
Firm on his chariot-floor with voice aflame,
The Scottish chief harangued his thirty thousand.
"Brothers," he cried, "behold your enemies!
Gauls, Germans, Britons—mercenaries, slaves!
In conquest, one and strong; but in defeat,
So many weaklings, heartless, hopeless, lost.
One signal victory to us were more
Than all the battles that our foes have won:
Their confidence is in their leader; ours,
In our cause. Hearken!—had I a voice,
Like heaven's thunder, I would shout across
This battle-field to be, to yon mixed throng,
And tell them they are Britons, Germans, Gauls:
Bid them remember how in haughty Rome
Their free-born countrymen are taught to serve
The wanton fancies of luxurious vice
In perfumed chambers or in bloody shows;
Think of their wives and daughters, all abused;
Think of themselves, leagued with their conquerors
Armed and opposed against consanguine folk,
Placed in the van to bear the battle's brunt,
That Rome may triumph, and her blood not shed:
Then would they turn and rend with us the foe.
What need has Rome of Britain? we, of Rome?
We, the last lonely people of the North,
A morsel merely, perilous and far,
Incite the eagle appetite of Rome,
Uncloyed until she gorges all the world.
No other need has Rome. Poor, desolate,
Shrouded with mists, with cold empanoplied,
At war among ourselves, fighting with beasts,
We yet are freemen; and we need not Rome:
We are the only freemen in the world.
Here, in the very bosom of our land—
The last land in the world—we meet the power
That rules all other lands but ours. Even here
Let Rome be stricken. Brothers, countrymen,
Freedom has taken refuge in our hills.
She has a home upon the streaming seas,
But loves the land where men are hers. Let not
The word go forth on woeful-sounding winds
That Rome has driven freedom from the earth:
Sprite you with lions' hearts; like baleful stars
Inflame your eyes that their disastrous glance
May palsy foes afar; pour your whole strength
In every blow, nor fear a drought: the power
Of each is great as all when all are one.
Rush like a torrent; crash like rocks that fall
When thunder rends the Grampians. Liberty!
Cry 'Liberty!' and shatter Rome."
The Scots were worthy of their gallant chief,
And fought as if they loved death, courting her
By daring her to opportunities;
Which she—a maid o'er-wooed—resented oft,
And strained their cooler rivals to her breast;
But discipline—that rock that bears the world,
Compactly built—a city on a cliff
Breaking disorder back like unknit waves—
Founded the Roman power; and on its front
The Scots beat, shivered by their own onset;
And evening saw them ebb, calmed, vanquished, spent.
Yet that lost battle was a gain: our hills,
That battle, and the ruin of her fleet,
Held Rome behind Grahame's dyke, and kept us Scots.
All south of us the Romans, Saxons, Danes,
And Normans, conquering in turn, o'erthrew
From change to change; but we are what we were
Before Aeneas came to Italy,
Free Scots; and though this great Plantagenet
Seems now triumphant, we will break his power.
Shall we not, comrades?
1st Soldier. Yes, your Majesty.
2nd Soldier. But might it not have been a benefit
If Rome had conquered Scotland too, and made
Between the Orkneys and the Channel Isles
One nation?
Bruce. A subtle question, soldier;
But profitless, requiring fate unwound.
It might be well were all the world at peace,
One commonwealth, or governed by one king;
It might be paradise; but on the earth
You will not find a race so provident
As to be slaves to benefit their heirs.
1st Soldier. At least we will not.
Bruce. By St. Andrew, no!

Enter Nigel Bruce.

My brother Nigel! Happy and amazed
I see you here. Why left you Aberdeen?
Nigel. For several ends. And firstly, I have news.
Bruce. Come to our cave.
Nigel. No; for a reason, no.
Bruce. Mysteries, secrets!—Well; retire good friends.
[Soldiers go out.
Nigel. Perhaps my news is stale.
Bruce. Little I know
Since in the flight from Methven, panic-struck,
We parted company.
Nigel. Learn then that Haye—
Hugh de la Haye; John is with you, I know—
Inchmartin, Fraser, Berclay, Somerville,
Young Randolf, Wishart, trusty Lamberton
Are captives.
Bruce. Half my world! But is it true?
Nigel. So much is certainty. Rumour declares
Young Randolf has deserted us; that those
I named will ransom; but that some, unknown,
Have died the death of traitors.
Bruce. Noble souls!
Randolf—poor boy! What more?
Nigel. A price
Is on your head.
Bruce. That matters not.
Nigel. I know.
Still, have great heed of whom and how you trust.
That's all the evil tidings. Hear the good.
The queen—Ah, this is she! I'll leave you now.
[Goes out.

Enter Isabella.

Bruce. My dearest!
Isabella. I couldn't wait, my husband.
The Lady Douglas and the Lady Buchan
Are in your cave. We rode from Aberdeen
This evening, learning you were cantoned here.
Douglas was sleeping when we came. His wife
Bent o'er him, and she slipped into his dream;
For when he waked he wondered not at all
To see his lady there, till memory
Aroused him quite to find the vision true.
Nigel was seeking you; but when I saw
The joy these two partook, incontinent
I hurried out myself to find like cheer.
My dear wayfaring hero, I have come
To share your crust, and rags, and greenwood couch:
I'm deep in love with skied pavilions:
I'll be your shepherdess, Arcadian king.
This evening's journey lay throughout a wood:
The honeysuckle incensed all the air,
And cushats cooed in every fragrant fir;
Tall foxgloves nodded round the portly trees,
Like ruffling pages in the trains of knights;
Above the wood sometimes a green hill peered,
As if dame Nature on her pillow turned
And showed a naked shoulder; all the way,
Whispering along, rose-bushes blushed like girls
That pass blood-stirring secrets fearfully,
Attending on a princess in her walk;
I think with rarely scented breath they said
A loving wife was speeding to her lord.
Why are you silent?
Bruce. I am thinking, dear,
That I'm the richest monarch in the world.
Possessing such a universe of love,
The treasure most desired by kings and clowns.
Isabella. What universe, dear lord?
Bruce. Simplicity!
You are my universe of love, you know.
Isabella. Then keep your universe, and do not waste
In empty space the time. I'll stay with you;
Surely I can? Come, tell me all your plans.
Bruce. I've none. What I desire I know; and think
Firmly and honestly my wish is right.
Plans are for gods and rich men: I am poor.
Isabella. In spirit? So you may be blamelessly;
But are you, sir?
Bruce. I hardly know. Just now
I tried to cheer a whining fellow here,
But stood myself in greater need of hope.
Isabella. I know—I understand. You need to think
Of other things, my dear. I've heard of men,
Great men, exhausted even to lunacy
By just those labours that were beating smooth
A thoroughfare for ever to success,
Repair themselves with youth's prerogative
That stops time and the world deposes, all
In favour of a dream; or spend a while
With children or the simplest souls they knew.
Come, you must be amused. But, tell me, sir,
Am I to stay?
Bruce. Yes, dearest pilgrim, yes.
Isabella. Oh, I am happy! We will live like birds.
Bruce. And in the winter?
Isabella. Winter? What is it?
This is the summer.
Bruce. Winter is——
Isabella. Hush!—hark!
What birds so late fly screaming overhead?
Bruce. Stout capercailzies, hurrying to their hills,
Sated with fir-tops.
Isabella. Ah! But, dearest lord,
Are you quite well? I haven't asked you yet.
Bruce. I am very well. And you?
Isabella. See—look at me:
You used to know by gazing in my eyes.
Bruce. My wife, my lover, you are well indeed.
Isabella. The fire is nearly out. Come to the cave,
And there we will devise amusements, dear.
[They go out.

SCENE III.—Another part of the Wood of Drome. The Earl of Buchan alone.

Buchan. God help me and all jealous fools, I pray!
The plagues of Hades leagued in one raw scourge
Might minister diversion to my soul,
Assailing through my flesh. No thought at all
Of starry space or void eternity;
Nor love, nor hate, nor vengeance, nor remorse—
My cousin's murder!—I've forgotten it!—
No sound of horns crackling with riotous breath
The crisp, rathe air; no hounds; no beckoning tunes
With notes of fiery down; nor singing girls
Whose voices brood and bound; nor chanting larks,
Nor hymning nightingales can touch my soul.
Nothing but torture unendurable
Wrought in the flesh has power on jealousy.
Slay him with agonies? A passing swoon!
I'll kill my wife!
Her blood is Lethe if oblivion be
Save in more high-strung anguish of my own.

Enter Fife.

Fife. What is it? You have news.
Buchan. They are together—
The outlaw and your sister. They're at hand—
Three miles away—no more. A trusty spy
Told me just now.
Fife. Is there a band?
Buchan. Some score.
Fife. Then we will take them.
Buchan. Yes.
Fife. About it straight.
[Goes.
Buchan. I'll follow—Ho!

Enter Spy.

I thought you still were near.
I haven't thanked you yet. [Gives money.] How did she look?
Was there about her not a thievish air,
A truant aspect, frightened and yet free,
Shame-faced, but bold, and like an angel lost.
Spy. Who, my good lord?

Re-enter Fife.

Buchan. The queen—the outlaw's wife.
Spy. O no, my lord! She laughed, as she rode past
Where I lay hid, at something gaily said
By my good lady, your good lordship's wife.
They both looked happy, riding in the sun.
Buchan. Aye; that will do.
[Exit Spy.
I'm coming, Fife.
Fife. Stay yet.
Why did you try to lead him off the scent?
You meant my sister when you questioned him.
Tell me, what makes your jealousy so strong?
You never were in love with her I think.
Buchan. Nor am not now. I think—I know—I feel
What I have heard: true love is never jealous.
I am like other men; I love myself.
I cannot speak. I mean to act. Come on.
[They go out.

SCENE IV.—A Cave in the Wood of Drome, with a fire at the back. Bruce, Edward, Nigel Bruce, Douglas, Crombe, Isabella, Countess of Buchan, Lady Douglas, and others.

Bruce. Who would build palaces when homes like these
Our kingdom yields us bosomed in her hills!
What tapestry, where the gloss and colour fade
From some love-story, overtold and stale,
Or where a famed old battle stagnates dim,
Befits a room before these unhewn walls
Whose shifting pictures lower and shine and live,
Ruddy and dark in leaping of the fire.
No homely mice in cupboards cheep; the night
Is here not soothed by any mellow chirp
Of crickets, happily, devoutly busy;
But in the ivy and the hollow oak
The owl has heard and learnt through day-long dreams
The wind's high note when pines in ranks are blown,
Bent, rent, and scattered with their roots in air,
And sounds his echo loud and dwindling long,
Fearfully as he flutters past our door;
The wild-cat screams far off in the pheasant's nest;
The wehrwolf, ravening in the warren, growls.
Night is no gossip here, watching the world
Sick-tired, heart-sore, sleep weariness away;
But free and noble, full of fantasy,
Queen of the earth, earth-bound, ethereal.
Isabella [aside]. His spirit rises. We must hold it up.—
My lord, shall Lady Douglas sing?
Bruce. She shall.
Lady, I beg you sing us something sweet.
No trumpet notes, no war——
[1st Soldier appears at the entrance of the Cave.
Douglas whispers with him.
What does he want?
Douglas. He comes as spokesman for his fellows.
Bruce. Well?
1st Soldier [advancing].
I hope your Highness will be patient with me.
My mates have bade me ask a favour, strange
And difficult to ask; but not so strange
If it be thought of well, nor difficult
If I can keep my head.
Bruce. Go on.
1st Soldier. My lord,
For this great while we have seen no woman's face,
My mates and I: your Highness knows that well.
When we beheld these ladies enter here,
A longing seized us all to look on them;
To see their faces and their gentle shapes;
And even to have them turn their eyes on us;
Perhaps to hear them speak. We are true men,
And honest in our thought.
Bruce. Bring them all in.
[Exit 1st Soldier.
Countess of Buchan.
I know the mood that holds these men: brave lads!
If they were wed to women worth their love,
They would be nobler heroes than they are.
Isabella. We'll speak to them.
Countess of Buchan. I'll kiss that knave who spoke.
Lady Douglas. Will you?
Countess of Buchan. Yes; and I'll do it openly.

Enter Soldiers.

Bruce. Welcome all, heartily, most heartily.
Countess of Buchan [to 1st Soldier].
Have you a wife?
1st Soldier. I have.
Countess of Buchan. You love her?
1st Soldier. Yes.
Countess of Buchan. Is not the truest love the most capricious?
1st Soldier. I cannot tell. True love is fanciful.
Countess of Buchan. You long to kiss your wife?
1st Soldier. And if I do,
What matters to your ladyship?
Countess of Buchan [whispering] This, sir:
I also long to kiss one whom I love;
Perhaps I never shall; but I think now
In kissing you that I am kissing him.
[Kisses him.
1st Soldier. Thanks, noble lady. If you were my wife
I'd kiss you thus.
[He embraces and kisses her.
Bruce. Well said and bravely done!
Countess of Buchan. And can you fight
As deftly as you kiss?
Bruce. I warrant him!
Your song, my Lady Douglas; sing it now;
A love-song, something homely if you can.
Douglas. Sing "If she love me," sweetheart.
Lady Douglas. Shall I? Well.
But you should sing it rather.
Douglas. No; sing you.

SONG.
Love, though tempests be unruly,
Blooms as when the weather's fair:
If she love me truly, truly,
She will love me in despair.

Is there aught endures here longer?
Can true love end ever wrongly?
Death will make her love grow stronger,
If she love me strongly, strongly.

Can scorn conquer love? Can shame?
Though the meanest tower above me,
She will share my evil fame,
If she love me, if she love me.

Enter a Forester.

Forester. A thousand men are on you, fly!
[Going.
Bruce. Stand, there!
Hold him! What thousand men? who lead them? speak.—
Put out the fire—stamp on it, some of you.
[The fire is trampled out and the Forester seized.
Forester. I know not; but I saw them in the wood
Stealthily marching.
Bruce. Are they near?
Forester. An hour
By time, for they are stumbling out a way.
There's half a mile or so of wood between.
If I had been their guide they had been here.
Bruce. You know the paths so thoroughly?
Forester. Blindfold.
Bruce. Could you lead safely to Kildrummie Castle
A band of twenty?
Forester. When? to-night?
Bruce. Just now.
Forester. I think I could. But tell me, sir: they say
That you're the king. Now are you?
Bruce. I am he.
Forester [awkwardly]. What must I do?
Bruce. Wait patiently.—Good friends,
We'll yet postpone farewell. A little way
Together in the wood——
Edward Bruce. But must we fly?
Ten are a thousand in a coward's sight;
And they may be our friends. Defence even here
Were not too rash against a hundred. What!
Is not despair achievement's mother? Why!
The high, black night, a shout, a sudden charge,
And we dispel this sheep-heart's fearful dream.
Bruce. Upon us march the Earls of Fife and Buchan,
With many hundred men. They have hunted us
For days, and I have known. My spies are caught
I fear, or they had not arrived so close
Without our knowledge. [To Forester.] We must thank you, friend,
For timely information of our plight.
The plan I formed still holds, and this is it.
Kildrummie will give shelter to our wives;
Nigel will take them there: Douglas, one way,
And I, another, as we may decide,
Splits up the scent,—and we shall all escape.
Edward Bruce. Brother and king——
Bruce. No more. In straits like these
Counsel's a Siren: if the leader list,
Wreck follows. Errant paths, straightly pursued,
Soon reach the goal; while wiser, well-thought ways
Wander about for fear of miry shoes.
And shall I hear one rasher than myself,
When wisdom would be folly!—Isabella,
A little way together, then farewell.—
[To Forester.
Friend, go before us.—Follow close. No word
Above a whisper.
Isabella. Must I leave you then?
Why are we made so that we trust our hopes!
[All go out.

ACT V

SCENE I.—A passage in Berwick Castle. Enter Crombe as jailor, carrying food. He opens a door, and the Countess of Buchan is discovered in a cage.

Countess of Buchan [aside]. O me! Another! I can court no more. This
one I'll take by storm.—Fellow, good friend,
I think you are my thousandth jailor.
Soon I'll have a fresh one doubtless every day.
I've here had trial of my power on men,
On common vulgar men like you—for you
Are like your predecessors, I suppose—
And find myself most potent. Listen, now!
Yes, but you shall, you must; and look as well:
For I have looks like golden lightning, swift,
Gentle and perilous, that fascinate
The worshipful beholder. I have words,
Sweet words, soft words, and words like two-edged swords,
Like singing winds that rock the sense asleep,
Like waves full-breasted, filling deepest souls;
And I will kill you in a thousand ways
With words and looks unless you yield you now.
The others all were conquered just too late;
The women tell me nothing—English all;
But you will tell me what I want to know,
In brave submission to my witchery;
Now, like a man: I hope you are a man.
Crombe. What must I tell you?
Countess of Buchan. You must tell me first
How the king is—King Robert Bruce, I mean.
Crombe. They say he's well.
Countess of Buchan. Where is he then? But, sir,
I see you better now; you have an eye,
A brow, a mouth. Without more question, say
How Scotland fares since I was prisoned here.
Crombe. Because of this same eye, and brow, and mouth
They made me jailor.
Countess of Buchan. O, I understand!
And being nobler than those stolid pikes—
Pike-handles, I should say—forerunning you,
You'll not do wrong in duty's name. Escape
You cannot help me to; but tell me, sir,
Some news.
Crombe. Ah! Pardon me. If, as you say,
I have a brain to know that wrong is wrong
Though soldierly obedience be its badge,
Shall I not have the strength to overcome
Rebellious righteousness? Think you——
Countess of Buchan. James Crombe!
Crombe. Your servant ever, lady.
Countess of Buchan. Pardon, friend;
I did not know you. I've no memory
Except for horrors. I am half a beast—
Starved, frozen, scorched, in rags. Sometimes at night
I'm mad. The rotten air, the subtle dark,
The clammy cold, crawl through my blood like worms:
They knot themselves in aches, they gnaw my flesh,
And I believe me dead. Ghosts visit me:
They come in undistinguishable throngs,
Sighing and moaning like a windy wood.
Demons invade my grave with flaming eyes,
With lolling tongues; and ugly horrors steam
And whirl about me. Mountains topple down,
Grazing my head; and threatening worlds approach,
But never whelm me. O my friend! O me!
Tell me for mercy's sake of living men!
How came you here?
Crombe. To be beside you, lady.
Countess of Buchan. What! You are weeping! Dear friend, speak to me.
What food is this? White bread, and wine, and meat! [Clapping her hands.]
Thanks, thanks! O thanks! I'll eat, while you recount
All, all, about my friends!
Crombe. My time is brief.
And first I'll tell you of an enemy.
Edward the First is dead.
Countess of Buchan. Say you! Aha!
That was a mighty villain.
Crombe. Nigel is dead:
They killed him when they took Kildrummie tower.
Countess of Buchan. Ah, what a wanton waste of noble blood!
Remorseless tigers! Ah, the wolves, the rats!—
The queen, and Lady Douglas?
Crombe. Prisoners both.
Countess of Buchan. The man, my husband?
Crombe. Beaten, decayed, forgot.
When we were scattered in the wood of Drome,
The king sought refuge in an Irish isle,
Which in the spring he left, and dared his fate.
So after perils, and trials, and mighty acts,
And deeds of marvellous device—well poised
By those achievements, rare and manifold,
Heroically wrought by Edward Bruce,
Douglas, Boyd, Fraser, Gilbert de la Haye,
Randolf, and many another famous knight,
Whose deeds already ring in lands afar—
At Inverury he and your husband met:
And there the earl suffered such dread defeat,
That ignominy has become the grave
Where all his hopes lie buried.
Countess of Buchan. Wretched soul!
Crombe. Now in the length and breadth of this free land,
One castle only is in England's power.
Would I had time to tell you how 'twas done!
Countess of Buchan. What castle?
Crombe. Stirling. Edward found the siege
For his hot blood too long, and made a pact,
That if the governor, Sir Philip Mowbray,
Were not relieved within a year and day,
He should surrender. In the interval
Sir Philip went to London to the king—
Edward the Second, an unstable man—
And couched his eyes of that security
That curtained Scotland's state. He levied soon
The mightiest army ever England raised;
And in the sight of Stirling, Bruce and he
Are met to fight.
Countess of Buchan. Now?
Crombe. Now. And news is come
That Bruce to-day o'erthrew a champion
Between the armies; and that Randolf fought
And conquered Clifford, who had dreadful odds.
Countess of Buchan. And are they fighting now?
Crombe. No; but to-morrow
The battle is.
Countess of Buchan. Then, gallant friend, away!
Take horse and ride! You must not miss to-morrow.
Spur through the night!—Nay, think no more of me!
Or think me sitting lightsome on the croup,
And smiling at the moon. I go with you:
My soul is in your arm!—You must not stay.
One stout heart more!—Ride, ride!—I thank you, friend:
To know your dear and steadfast constancy,
As now I do, is worth these lonely years.—
Away to victory!—I can weep at last!—
Here, take this withered rag! It is the scarf
The queen gave me that far-off night in Drome.
My parched and desert eyes that sorrow shrunk
Are wet with happiness! See! Am I red?
My pale and stagnant blood wakes up again,
I would that we were flying together, Crombe,
As once we did, rebels, so free and glad!
Now go! Now go!—Yes, kiss me through the bars:
My kiss shall help to win the battle. Go!
[He kisses her, and goes out. The scene closes.

SCENE II.—The Scottish Camp at Bamwckburn. Bruce in his tent at night.

Bruce. This drowned and abject mood; this sodden brain;
This broken back; this dull insanity,
That mopes and broods and has no thought at all;
This dross, that, in exchange for molten gold
Of madness thrice refined, were hell for heaven;
This flabby babe; this hare; this living death;
This sooty-hued, cold-blooded melancholy!
We know it for a subtle, potent lie—
A vapour, a mere mood! But when it comes,
Stealing upon us like unwelcome sleep
In high festivity, we've no more power
To shake our souls alive, than if we'd drunk
Of Lapland philtres,—muddy brew of hell!
When we, like beakers brimmed with wine, are full
Of living in the hand of God, there strikes
Some new divine idea through His brain,
And in the careless instant we are spilled
To be replenished never: so we feel.
We feel? How hard it is to fix the mind!
Only less hard than to withdraw it. Sleep?
No; not to-night. Heart, faithless heart, grow strong.
Ay, now I have remembrance of a thought
A dear breath whispered making wisdom sweet.
"Husband," she said, "when faith is strong in you,
Then only have you any right to think,
To judge, to act." And kissed me then, as if
Her healing truth had need of honey!
O, Love with its simple glance can pierce the night,
When drowsy sages at their tapers nod!
I will not trust myself but when self-trust
Is buoyant in me. And I surely know
to-morrow's battle finds one soul sufficient.—
I wonder how my wife is! Have these years,
These days, these hours—it is the hours that tell—
Dealt kindly with her in her nunnery?
Poor lady! She is gentle, delicate—
A lute that can respond to nothing harsh.
If she be shattered by this heavy stroke
Of separation! I, with sinewy strings,
Endure the constant quivering——

Enter Guard.

What now?
Guard. The leaders wait without, your majesty.
Bruce. Is it that time? Well, bid them enter.

Enter Edward Bruce, Douglas, Randolf, and Walter the Steward.

Friends,
Good morning. Let me see your eyes.—Randolf,
You have not slept.—Sir James, perhaps you have!
Your eyes were never dull.—What, half awake!
Why, Walter, love, if not anxiety,
Should have kept watch in that young head of yours!
Brother, I know you slept.
Edward Bruce. Why should I not?
I thanked God for the error that I made
In giving respite to the garrison,
Since it has brought us to this desperate pass
Where we must conquer. Then I slept, and dreamt;
And wakened, laughing at I know not what.
Randolf. I had no sleep. This would not leave my mind,
That we were one to five.
Bruce. Why Randolf, shame!
You are the last who should complain of that.
What good knight was it, like a water-drop,
Lost shape and being in an English sea,
Which found him out a rock, but yesterday?
Why man, you are my cousin, Thomas Randolf;
And this is Douglas; this, my brother Edward;
We are men who have done deeds, God helping us.
God helping us, we'll do a deed to-day!
Randolf. I do not fear; but, lonely, in the night
I could not see how we must win.
Bruce. No! come.
[They go to the door of the tent and look out.
I see the battle as it will be fought.
The sun climbs up behind us: if he shine,
His beams will strike on English eyes. Look there!
The earth throws off her mourning nightly weed;
And the fresh dawn, her bowermaid, coyly comes
To veil her with the morning, like a bride
Worthy the sun's embrace. This fight you dread,
Regard it as a happy tournament
Played at the marriage of the fragrant world,
If the full weight and awe of its intent
Press on you too o'erwhelmingly.
Randolf. Not I.
I'd rather lose the fight for what it is,
Than win it jestingly.
Bruce. Well said! The night,
That filled you with its gloom, out of your blood
Exhales, and it is day. Imagine, now:
Between high Stirling and the Bannock stream,
Whose silvery streak hot blood will tarnish soon,
Four battles stand. To westward, Edward's charge,
Douglas and Walter to the north and east,
Randolf, the doubter, in the central van;
I keep the second ward. Pent in this space
We cannot be unflanked, the river's gorge
On this wing, and on that, calthrops and pits.
The English archers scattered—Edward's task—
There but remains to stand, while yonder host,
Which leaves its revel only now, shall twine,
And knot, entangled in its proper coils,
Crammed in a cage too small for such a bulk,
Such sinuous length, such strength, to bustle in,
Save to its own confusion and dismay.
Speak I not reasonably, and quietly?
Randolf. Too quietly for me! Why, in this trap,
This coffin, they shall die for want of air!
Edward Bruce. It is too cheap a victory!
Douglas. When won,
I hope we may not find it all too dear.
[Bagpipes, drums, trumpets.
Bruce. Ha! now the din begins! My blood is lit!
Come, let us set our soldiers in a glow!
After the abbot says the battle mass,
I'll speak to them, and touch them with a flame.
Douglas. They'll burn.
Edward Bruce. They'll make a bonfire.
Walter the Steward. To announce
That Scotland's liberty's of age.
Bruce. Well roared,
My lioncel!
[They go out.

SCENE III.—The Field of Bannockburn. Enter Edward II., the Earl of Pembroke, Sir Giles De Argentine, Sir Ingram De Umfraville, with other Lords and Knights, in advance of the English lines.

Edward II. Will yon men fight?
Umfraville. Ay, siccarly. My liege,
If you will hear an old man's humble word
Who knows the Scotchmen well, feign a retreat:
Then will these fiery children of the North—
Children they are in every gift save strength,
And most in guileless daring—rush on us,
Leaving their vantage, and be overcome
Utterly, as in many a fight before.
Edward II. I'm a young warrior, and I mean to win
By dint of strength, and not by strategy.
To sneak a victory I came not north;
But in a lordly way to overthrow
The base usurper of my lordship here.
Leave paltry sleights and fawnings upon chance
To starveling rebels, keen as hungry curs
That dodge the whip, and steal the bone at once.
Think you we brought our friends across the sea
To juggle with them? We are here to fight,
As in the lists, like gentlemen. My lords,
I give you Scotland. Nothing for myself
Save sovereignty I claim: and that must be
Not snared by ambush, for assassins fit,
But seized by courage, frank and English.
Pembroke. Sire,
One reason only urges strategy:
Adopting it, less English blood will flow.
Edward II. That touches me.
De Argentine. And it is kindly thought.
But I have heard the Scotsmen plume themselves
On victory over any English odds,
In battles, pitched, embroiled, and hand to hand;
That we have never vanquished them in fight
Except when treachery assisted arms.
Conquest unchallengeable, dearly bought
Were worth its cost. A wily victory
Would leave our foes unhumbled, unappeased,
And confident of ultimate success.
Edward II. This is the wisest counsel.
Umfraville. Hear me yet.
What warrior is wilier than Bruce?
The schiltron he has perfected: no knights
Can break the Scottish spearmen: chivalry
Means nought for them save mounted foes whose trust
Is in their horses——
Edward II. 'Tis a base device,
This slaughter of our steeds! A dastard's trick!
The delicate art of war, where excellence
Lay in the power of noble blood alone,
He makes a trade for ploughmen. Battle-fields
Are shambles since this rebel taught his clowns
To fear not knighthood!
Umfraville. True indeed, my liege!
And some have thought that this new style of war
Will drive the other out. But see you not
That every possible advantage——
Edward II. No!
For I will not!—Behold, the Scots ask mercy!
Umfraville. They do—from Heaven. These men will win or die.
Edward II. I hate such kneeling, whining warriors, I!
What right have they to think God on their side?
Our glorious father taught them otherwise
With iteration one had deemed enough.
I burn to teach them finally. My lords,
Our swords shall pray for us. One hour's hot work,
And Scotland is your own. Let us begin!
Each to his post, and everlasting shame
Blight him who cherishes a moment's thought
Of other means of victory than these,
Our English bows and lances, English hearts,
And not less English courage of our friends
Whose foreign banners grace our army. Come;
England shall stretch from Orkney to Land's End
After to-day. St. George for Merry England!
[They go out.

SCENE IV.—Another part of the Field. The Scottish Army. Enter Bruce and the other Leaders.

Bruce. I think we all know well what courage is:
Not thews, not blood, not bulk, not bravery:
Its highest title, patience. Fiery haste
Has lost most battles. Till the word be given,
Let no man charge to-day: no seeming flight
Must lead you to pursue: take root; grow strong;
The earth is Scottish. For our country stand
Like bastioned, frowning rocks that beard the sea,
And triumph everlastingly. Doubt not
The time to charge will come—once and straight home:
We'll need no spur: so must you curb your blood;
Command your anguished strength: a false start now
Will lose a race we cannot run again.
If any of you feel unfit for fight
From any cause whatever, let him go,
Leaving us undiluted. Scorn nor curse
Shall blast him; but our generous thought shall praise
His act and consecrate his name,
As one who did his best in doing nought;
For victory depends on each of us.
I say, if gallant souls be timorous,
Get them behind the hill, and be not sad:
Great courage goes to make an open coward.
[A great shout.
Then are we all one heart. Our enemies,
Our English enemies, who hope to drown
The very name of Scot in Scottish blood,
And these outlandish battle-harlots, hired
From Holland, Zealand, Brabant, Normandy,
Those Picards, Flemings, Gascons, Guiennese,
The refuse of the realms from which they swarm,
Are robbers lured by plunder, one and all,
From king to scullion: they are in the wrong.
We are the weapon to defend the right
God grasps to-day. Can we be put to shame?
Soldiers. No!
Bruce. Forward, trusty friends! The hour is come
For long-desired redemption of the vows
Groaned out when tender mothers, sisters, wives,
Fathers we worshipped, brothers we adored,
Were spared not. Let our battle-cry be—No;
I'll give you none. Each soldier shout the name
Of that best friend in prison buried quick;
Of yonder heaven-homed, most beloved soul
Among the multitude whose butchered limbs
Lie pledged in sepulchres. My countrymen,
Welcome to victory, which must be ours,
For death is freedom!
Soldiers. Victory or death!
[Exeunt.

SCENE V.—The Gillies' Hill. Men and women watching the battle.

A Young Friar. "St. Andrew and St. George! Fight on! fight on!"
A whole year's storms let loose on one small lake
Prisoned among the mountains, rioting
Between the heathery slopes and rugged cliffs,
Dragging the water from its deepest lair,
Shaking it out like feathers on the blast;
With shock on shock of thunder; shower on shower
Of jagged and sultry lightning; banners, crests,
Of rainbows torn and streaming, tossed and flung
From panting surge to surge; where one strong sound,
Enduring with continuous piercing shriek
Whose pitch is ever heightened, still escapes
Wroth from the roaring war of elements;
Where mass and motion, flash and colour spin
Wrapped and confounded in their blent array:
And this all raving on a summer's morn,
With unseen larks beside the golden sun,
And merest blue above; with not a breeze
To fan the burdened rose-trees, or incense
With mimic rage the foamless rivulet,
That like a little child goes whispering
Along the woodland ways its happy thought;
Were no more wild, grotesque, fantastical,
Uncouth, unnatural—and I would think
Impossible, but for the vision here—
Than is this clamorous and unsightly war,
Where swords and lances, shields and arrows, flash,
Whistle, and clang—splintered like icicles,
Eclipsed like moons, broken like reeds, like flames—
Lewd flames that lick themselves in burning lust—
With scorpion tongues lapping the lives of men;
Where axes cut to hearts worth all the oaks;
Where steel burns blue, and golden armours blaze—
One moment so, the next, a ruddier hue;
Where broidered banners rustle in the charge,
And deck the carnage out——A skeleton,
Ribboned and garlanded may sweetly suit
The morris-dancers for a May-pole now!—
Where hoofs of horses spatter brains of men,
And beat dull thunder from the shaking sod;
Where yelling pibrochs, braying trumpets, drums,
And shouts, and shrieks, and groans, hoarse, shrill—a roar
That shatters hearing—echo to the sky;
Where myriad ruthless vessels, freighted full
Of proud rich blood—with images of God,
Their reasoning souls, deposed from their command—
By winds of cruel hate usurped and urged,
Are driven upon each other, split, and wrecked,
And foundered deep as hell. The air is dark
With souls. I cannot look—I cannot see.
[Kneels.
A Woman. The battle's lost before it's well begun.
Our men fall down in ranks like barley-rigs
Before a dense wet blast.
A Cripple. Despair itself
Can only die before the English bows.
O that they could come at them! Who are these
That skirt the marsh?
Woman. My sight is weak. But see;
Here's an old fellow, trembling, muttering. Look
How he is strung; and what an eye he has!
Cripple. Old sight sees well away. I warrant, now,
His is a perfect mirror of the fight.
You see well, father?
Old Man. Ay. That's Edward Bruce;
And none too soon. The feathered deaths speed thick
In jubilant choirs, flight after singing flight:
That tune must end; the nest be harried. Ride,
Fiery Edward! Yet our staunch hearts quail not.
Ah! now the daze begins! I know it well.
The cloth-yard shafts like magic shuttles, weave
Athwart the warped air dazzling, dire dismay,
And the beholder's blood slinks to his heart
Like moles from daylight; all his sinews fade
To unsubstantial tinder. Ha! spur! spur!
There are ten thousand bowmen! Gallop! Charge!
Now, by the soul of Wallace, Edward Bruce,
The battle's balanced! On your sword it hangs!
Look you; there's fighting! Just a minute's fight!
Tug, strain! Throe upon throe! Travail of war!
The birth—defeat and victory, those twins,
That in an instant breathe and die, and leave
So glorious and so dread a memory!—
The bowstring's cut! What butchery to see!
They shear them down, these English yeomen! God!
It looks like child's play too! And so it feels,
Now I remember me.—That's victory.
St. Andrew and the right!
Woman. The knights, the knights!
Old Man. I see them. But our spearmen! Do you see?
This hill we stand on trembles with the shock:
They budge not, planted, founded in the soil.
Another charge! Now watch! Now see! Ugh! Ha!
Did one spear flicker? One limb waver? No!
These fellows there are fighting for their land!
The English army through its cumbrous bulk
Thrilled and astounded to the utmost rear,
Twists like a snake, and folds into itself,
Rank pushed through rank. Now are they hand to hand!
How short a front! How close! They're sewn together
With steel cross-stitches, halbert over sword,
Spear across lance, and death the purfled seam!
I never saw so fierce, so locked a fight!
That tireless brand that like a pliant flail
Threshes the lives from sheaves of Englishmen—
Know you who wields it? Douglas, who but he!
A noble meets him now. Clifford it is!
No bitterer foes seek out each other there.
Parried! That told! and that! Clifford, good night!
And Douglas shouts to Randolf; Edward Bruce
Cheers on the Steward; while the King's voice rings
In every Scotch ear: such a narrow strait
Confines this firth of war!
Young Friar. God gives me strength
Again to gaze with eyes unseared. Jewels!
These must be jewels peering in the grass,
Cloven from helms, or on them: dead men's eyes
Scarce shine so bright. The banners dip and mount
Like masts at sea. The battle-field is slime,
A ruddy lather beaten up with blood!
Men slip; and horses, stuck with shafts like butts,
Sprawl, madly shrieking! No, I cannot look!
[Exit.
Woman. Look here! look here, I say! Who's this behind?
His horse sinks down—the brute is dead, I think.
His clothes are torn; his face with dust and sweat
Encrusted, baked, and cracked. He speaks; he shouts;
And shouting runs this way. He's mad, I think.
Cripple. He's made his hearers mad. Tents, blankets, poles,
Pitch-forks, and staves, and knives, brandished and spread
By women, children, grandsires! What is this?

Enter Crombe followed by a crowd bearing blankets for banners, and armed with staves, etc.

Crombe. I rode all night to strike a blow to-day:
The noblest lady living bade me go:
Her kiss is on my lips and in my soul.
Come after me—yea, with your naked hands,
And conquer weapons!
[They go out, shouting.

SCENE VI.—The Field of Bannockburn. The Scotch Reserve. To them enter Bruce.

Bruce. Most noble souls who wait so patiently!
Your splendid faith is in the air about you;
Your steady eyes shine like a galaxy;
Your presence comforts me: pressed in the fight,
The thought of you, like balm upon a wound,
Softened the thriftless aching of my heart.
The English waver; on the hill behind
Our followers fright them, marching in array
Bannered and armed, a legion out of heaven.
The tide of battle turns, and victory
Needs only you to launch it bravely forth.
Now—I would bid you think, but that the thought
Eludes me, like a homely, old-known song,
Wreathing in fitful gusts beyond the sense—
Now will the lofty keystone of our life
Be pitched in heaven for ever. We have dreamt
Our prayers into fulfilment many a time:
to-day we wrestle, and the victory's ours:
And yet I feel so scantly what it means
That I'm ashamed. Enough: I know you all.—
Now for our homes, our children, and our wives,
For freedom, for our land, for victory!
And cry our old cry, Carrick!
Soldiers. Carrick and victory!
[They go out.

SMITH: A TRAGIC FARCE
(Crieff, 1886)