DICKON [Moving a step nearer on the table.] Hillo, Gilly! Hillo, Bess!
JUSTICE MERTON Dickon! No! No!
DICKON Do ye mind Auld Lang Syne—the chorus that night, Gilly? [Sings.] Gil-ead, Gil-ead, Gil-ead Merton, He was a silly head, silly head, Certain, When he forgot to steal a bed-Curtain! Encore, now!
JUSTICE MERTON No, no, be merciful! I will not harm her; she shall not hang: I swear, I swear it! [Dickon disappears.] I swear—ah! Is he gone? Witchcraft! Witchcraft! I have witnessed it. ’Tis proved on thee, slut. I swear it: thou shalt hang. [Exit wildly.]
GOODY RICKBY Ay, Gilead! I shall hang on! Ahaha! Dickon, thou angel! Ah, Satan! Satan! For a son now!
DICKON [Reappearing.] Videlicet, in law—a bastard. N’est ce pas?
GOODY RICKBY Yea, in law and in justice, I should-a had one now. Worse luck that he died.
DICKON One and twenty years ago? [Goody Rickby nods.] Good; he should be of age now. One and twenty—a pretty age, too, for a rival. Haha!—For arrival?—Marry, he shall arrive, then; arrive and marry and inherit his patrimony—all on his birthday! Come, to work!
GOODY RICKBY What rant is this?
DICKON Yet, Dickon, it pains me to perform such an anachronism. All this Mediævalism in Massachusetts!—These old-fashioned flames and alchemic accompaniments, when I’ve tried so hard to be a native American product; it jars. But che vuole! I’m naturally middle-aged. I haven’t been really myself, let me think,—since 1492!