FOURTH SPECTATOR
He’s a very obstinate and comical old gentleman; and by all account
’a wouldn’t make port when asked to.
SECOND SPECTATOR
Lard, Lard, if ’a were nabbed, it wouldn’t make a deal of difference!
We should have nobody to zing, and play singlestick to, and grin at
through horse-collars, that’s true. And nobody to sign our few
documents. But we should rub along some way, goodnow.
FIRST SPECTATOR
Step up on this barrow; you can see better. The troopers now passing
are the York Hussars—foreigners to a man, except the officers—the
same regiment the two young Germans belonged to who were shot four
years ago. Now come the Light Dragoons; what a time they take to
get all past! Well, well! this day will be recorded in history.
SECOND SPECTATOR
Or another soon to follow it! [He gazes over the Channel.] There’s
not a speck of an enemy upon that shiny water yet; but the Brest
fleet is zaid to have put to sea, to act in concert with the army
crossing from Boulogne; and if so the French will soon be here; when
God save us all! I’ve took to drinking neat, for, say I, one may
as well have innerds burnt out as shot out, and ’tis a good deal
pleasanter for the man that owns ’em. They say that a cannon-ball
knocked poor Jim Popple’s maw right up into the futtock-shrouds at
the Nile, where ’a hung like a nightcap out to dry. Much good to
him his obeying his old mother’s wish and refusing his allowance
o’ rum!
[The bands play and the Review continues till past eleven o’clock.
Then follows a sham fight. At noon precisely the royal carriages
draw off the ground into the highway that leads down to the town
and Gloucester Lodge, followed by other equipages in such numbers
that the road is blocked. A multitude comes after on foot.
Presently the vehicles manage to proceed to the watering-place, and
the troops march away to the various camps as a sea-mist cloaks the
perspective.]
SCENE V
THE SAME. RAINBARROW’S BEACON, EGDON HEATH
[Night in mid-August of the same summer. A lofty ridge of
heathland reveals itself dimly, terminating in an abrupt slope,
at the summit of which are three tumuli. On the sheltered side
of the most prominent of these stands a hut of turves with a
brick chimney. In front are two ricks of fuel, one of heather
and furze for quick ignition, the other of wood, for slow burning.
Something in the feel of the darkness and in the personality of
the spot imparts a sense of uninterrupted space around, the view
by day extending from the cliffs of the Isle of Wight eastward
to Blackdon Hill by Deadman’s Bay westward, and south across the
Valley of the Froom to the ridge that screens the Channel.
Two men with pikes loom up, on duty as beacon-keepers beside the
ricks.]
OLD MAN
Now, Jems Purchess, once more mark my words. Black’on is the point
we’ve to watch, and not Kingsbere; and I’ll tell ’ee for why. If he
do land anywhere hereabout ’twill be inside Deadman’s Bay, and the
signal will straightaway come from Black’on. But there thou’st
stand, glowering and staring with all thy eyes at Kingsbere! I tell
’ee what ’tis, Jem Purchess, your brain is softening; and you be
getting too old for business of state like ours!
YOUNG MAN
You’ve let your tongue wrack your few rames of good breeding, John.
OLD MAN
The words of my Lord-Lieutenant was, whenever you see Kingsbere-Hill
Beacon fired to the eastward, or Black’on to the westward, light up;
and keep your second fire burning for two hours. Was that our
documents or was it not?
YOUNG MAN
I don’t gainsay it. And so I keep my eye on Kingsbere because that’s
most likely o’ the two, says I.