LADY HESTER
I am grateful you are here again, good friend!
He’s sleeping some light seconds; but once more
Has asked for tidings of Lord Harrowby,
And murmured of his mission to Berlin
As Europe’s haggard hope; if, sure, it be
That any hope remain!
TOMLINE
There’s no news yet.—
These several days while I have been sitting by him
He has inquired the quarter of the wind,
And where that moment beaked the stable-cock.
When I said “East,” he answered “That is well!
Those are the breezes that will speed him home!”
So cling his heart-strings to his country’s cause.
FARQUHAR
I fear that Wellesley’s visit here by now
Strung him to tensest strain. He quite broke down,
And has fast faded since.
LADY HESTER
Ah! now he wakes.
Please come and speak to him as you would wish [to TOMLINE].
[LADY HESTER, TOMLINE,and FARQUHAR retire behind the bed, where
in a short time voices are heard in prayer. Afterwards the
Bishop goes to a writing-table, and LADY HESTER comes to the
doorway. Steps are heard on the stairs, and PITT’S friend ROSE,
the President of the Board of Trade, appears on the landing and
makes inquiries.]
LADY HESTER [whispering]
He wills the wardenry of his affairs
To his old friend the Bishop. But his words
Bespeak too much anxiety for me,
And underrate his services so far
That he has doubts if his high deeds deserve
Such size of recognition by the State
As would award slim pensions to his kin.
He had been fain to write down his intents,
But the quill dropped from his unmuscled hand.—
Now his friend Tomline pens what he dictates
And gleans the lippings of his last desires.
[ROSE and LADY HESTER turn. They see the Bishop bending over
the bed with a sheet of paper on which he has previously been
writing. A little later he dips a quill and holds it within
the bed-curtain, spreading the paper beneath. A thin white
hand emerges from behind the curtain and signs the paper. The
Bishop beckons forward the two servants, who also sign.
FARQUHAR on one side of the bed, and TOMLINE on the other, are
spoken to by the dying man. The Bishop afterwards withdraws
from the bed and comes to the landing where the others are.]
TOMLINE
A list of his directions has been drawn,
And feeling somewhat more at mental ease
He asks Sir Walter if he has long to live.
Farquhar just answered, in a soothing tone,
That hope still frailly breathed recovery.
At this my dear friend smiled and shook his head,
As if to say: “I can translate your words,
But I reproach not friendship’s lullabies.”
ROSE
Rest he required; and rest was not for him.
[FARQUHAR comes forward as they wait.]
FARQUHAR
His spell of concentration on these things,
Determined now, that long have wasted him,
Have left him in a numbing lethargy,
From which I fear he may not rouse to strength
For speech with earth again.
ROSE
But hark. He does.
[The listen.]
PITT
My country! How I leave my country!...