Butts. I'll go at once.
[Exeunt severally, Butts up street, Ursula in tavern.
Enter Roger Prynne, travel stained.
Roger. We are not masters of our paths, although
Our wills do seem to guide our faltering steps:
Ship voyagers are we, and roam at will
Within the narrow confines of the deck,
But neither plot nor steer the destined course.
I may have passed her house—I'll ask my way
Here at the inn. Long live King Boniface!
What ho! some wine!
Ursula. [Within] Your patience, Captain, I'll be there anon.
Roger. At your leisure, hostess; I've learned to wait.
[Sits.
A bachelor at sixty, I found myself
[top] Encumbered with a ward—nay, not that—
Enriched with female loveliness and grace
Bequeathed unto me by a dying friend.
Volition had no part in that, nor in
My sudden recrudescency of love.
I willed our marriage; but 'twas fate bestowed
The joys I long had fled. Then came our life
In Amsterdam; each day so filled with bliss
It overflowed into the next, and days
Of joy grew into weeks and months of happiness—
Let me have wine, I say!
Ursula. [Within] Coming, sir!
Roger. Anon the traveling itch—was't fate or will—
Possessed my soul to see America,
And money matters calling me to London,
Where raged the plague, I sent my wife before me
To America with Captain Butts, then bound
For Boston. Ah! well-a-day, the parting!—
I hurried up my business; fled London town;
Shipped for America; was wrecked far South;
Captured by Indians; escaping, wandered North
Until I found the white man's colonies;
And now footsore and old I've reached the place
I first intended. What next, O, Fate?