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——