University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

—A large Hall.
Enter Babington.
Methinks there is a weight upon the air,
As if the clasping element sympathized
E'en with our bosoms. Be it so. This heaviness
Is nature's impost. When Columbus launch'd
Upon the ocean of his enterprize,
Until the sun-tipp'd Spanish hills were lost,
Even that elated and expansive spirit
Did linger on the land that he was leaving,
As lead were on its wings. Lend me thy plumes,
Oh Love! to lighten mine. Nerve me, oh Honour!
To this most just, but perilous enterprize—
Fame, let me mount up to thy firmament,—
Or, if I fail, even like those wand'ring stars
That plunge into th' obscure abyss of night,
But leave a glorious track of light behind them,
So let me perish.
Enter Ballard, Tichbourne, Charnock, and Abingdon.
Boone!—and gentlemen,
Friends, comrades,—nay, all brothers, welcome!

CHARNOCK.
Welcome!
Now, if a man may augur from a look,
Our meeting here should have a happy end,
From yours this morning.

BABINGTON.
Sir, your prophecy
Shall be fulfill'd; at least, so let us trust.

BALLARD,
(aside.)
Not quite so fast; your sunny dawns, they say,
Have tearful endings.

TICHBOURNE.
Prophecy! a fig!
Give me a stirring hand and a bold heart,
They are the best of augurs. Let's to business.

BABINGTON.
Gentlemen,
Wherefore we meet is known unto you all—

BALLARD.
Pause you a while. They say e'en walls have ears,
And spies, mole-like, can mine beneath our tread;
I will make sure o' the outer portal, ere
A dangerous breath be breathed.

TICHBOURNE,
(warmly.)
What!—in this house?
If treason can couch down with Babington,
Why, then, give up our vain confed'racy.
The world's past mending. If doubt harbours here,
Ours is a needless trouble. Ay, sir—look
Ten thousand meanings if you will, and none
A good one.

BALLARD.
Sir, my meaning's single, plain,
And not unusual. With most politicians,
The quality called Caution, commonly
Is rated at some little, and it's opposite
Is held for dangerous—or, what's worse—suspicious.

TICHBOURNE.
Suspicious?—no—let me contain myself.—
Methinks, sir, 'twere as well to quit this key:
Leave such sage maxims to the needy plotters,
Or stabbers, liquorish of each other's throats,
'Midst whom they were hatch'd. Here, in this company,
There's but one rule, and that well serves for all;
He who doubts here, should be himself suspected.

BALLARD.
Stabbers—suspected—Have I heard aright?
Sure I mistake you, honourable sir.

BABINGTON.
No more. You, Tichbourne, as you are my friend,
Mark me; this hot disruption of our purpose
Is ill—I say that it becomes you not.
Father, methought the spirit of your calling
Chastised your bosom of these humorous pranks
Which in unreverend youth we may excuse,
But scarce in you.

BALLARD,
(aside.)
Now note this down, my soul;
Insulted, school'd, forget it not—ay, note it;
Brand it here, shame, in burning characters.
(Aloud.)
—Oh! sir, mistake me not; you say most true;
The spirit of mine order doth command
To bend to injury. We are but flesh—
Bear with me. I have not forgot my vow.
—'Tis past. See how, before your breath, mine anger
Hath melted like the snow! Is't not enough?
If there be more shapes of humility
I must pass through, propose them. I am but
Your servant; and but wait to know what trust
Your honours please to give into my hand,
And so perform it.

BABINGTON.
Sir, this is too lowly—
You are my bosom friend and counsellor,
Nor shall be counted less: no more of this;
It grieves me more than I shall speak of now.
My friends, this cloud being happily o'erpast,
We will to business.
Wherefore we meet is known unto you all;
A general wrong needs no interpreter.
Have we not seen the ruin that hath roll'd
O'er our dear country; Pestilent heresy
Flame like a brand cast in the autumn corn,
Till all the goodly harvest is burn'd up;
Holy Religion turned to robbery!
Her sacred shrines unroof'd, and made the haunts
Of th' unclean fox and owl; Penance-worn Age
Chased forth to die beside some bypath ditch;
And stainless Innocence turn'd loose to shiver,
And starve i' the causeway—Destitution nipt;
Honour betray'd for of her sister Faith;
Beauty oppress'd, because she is not false;
Goodness proscribed, because it will not change?—
And who have done these things? not savage Goths,
Who conquer only that themselves are strong,
Who know not light, because themselves are dark;
But the wolf Lucre, vestured like the lamb;
And bat-like Sophistry, whose filmed eyes
Find day in twilight, and whose leathern wings
Flit ever round the ruins that it loves;
Amphibious, miscreate; loathsome alike
To those who crawl, as well as those who soar.
Is this not so? If then, or blood will quench
This fiery pestilence, or fire burn out
The hideous reptiles that infest our fields,
Why should we pause or start? If that your veins
Have ta'en a feverous, or an aguish taint,
Do ye not lance them? If a rabid tooth
Hath torn ye, sear ye not the wound? My friends,
Which of us here shall not do for his country
What for himself he doth?

ABINGDON.
None; none.

TICHBOURNE.
I go,
As far in this as any; only this,
The less of blood the greater is our gain.

CHARNOCK.
The less of blood, the less the devil's gain;
I know not who can gain by them but he.

ABINGDON.
Dost thou love blood?

CHARNOCK.
Sir, no. I love not blood;
But cannot hate their blood who would love mine.

BABINGTON.
Comrades, we shall but shed what blood we must,
And what we must, we ought.
We are agreed.
Let every hand that's here be join'd with mine.
My friends, ye know that we have deeply sworn
To this, and with our souls impledged our honours,
To stand or fall together. Ye know, too,
That more to knit up this stern brotherhood,
These features are all limn'd; so, if we fail,
They may know whom to strike; if we succeed,
They may know whom to praise. Yet, even now,
If any pulse of those I have touch'd here
Beat cold or fearful—I say, even now,
That man is free to go. I would not have
A hand to join me in this enterprize,
That struck not with devotion like mine own.
Doth any answer me?

BALLARD.
I ask thee this,
Dost thou suspect aught here?

BABINGTON.
Suspect? no, no!

BALLARD.
Then what but this, God speed our enterprize?

BABINGTON.
Amen, amen. How should we fail, for danger
But makes the brave man firm and confident,
Which gives the coward a vomit. Therefore, Peril
Shall be our handmaid.
We will meet no more,
My friends, until we meet to act. The signal
Of where, and when, ye are possess'd withal.
And now let us disperse. I would not have
My household note too much our conference.
Go not at once, but severally. Good morrow;
Charnock, we'll try your hounds at early dawn.
I'll follow your anon.
(They all go except Ballard.)
Stay, Father, I
Would speak with you.
Come nearer to me, Father
And friend—'twould wrong you, did I hide from you
Mine inmost thoughts. Father, you well must know
The purpose that we hold is dangerous;
Most perilous both in the execution
And after-compt; and God knows which of us
In the fell sweep and current of events
May not be stranded. In such exigence
It doth become a man to make provision
Against the worst, that those whose happiness,
Nay, very life, are twined with his, may bide
The separation—if that such must be.
There are two helpless women I would fain,
Whatever be the lot of Babington,
Essay to find some ark for, that may float
Their little fortunes up, if mine be wreck'd—
My mother, and her gentle ward—forgive me,
The heart will fill even though the eyes be dry
Sometimes. One moment's space and I go on—
If we miscarry, you shall haply 'scape.
Your calling doth forbid that you should plunge
Your hands into the blood that must be spilt
At the first threshold of our enterprize—
If it be so—as haply it may be,
Although God speed it other—but if 'tis,
Be you their guardian.
Now I have said,
But do not answer me, I know full well
Thou would'st be that without behest of mine,
But 'twas my duty, and we still commend
There where we know our words strike surest root.

BALLARD.
Sir, you may know mine answer—or you should—
Without the aid of any breath of mine.

BABINGTON.
Yet one thing more or ere I go. I think
You are possess'd that Tichbourne loves my ward,
The gentle Agnes, and I could well wish,
For that he is a good and gallant youth,
It were return'd. Let not the little heat
His spirit shew'd to-day make him weigh lighter
In your kind estimation. Haply here
Your council may avail us, for I have mark'd
She holds you in much awe, and knows besides
You are my dearest and most trusted friend
And counsellor.

BALLARD.
If any words of mine
May sway the balance to the side you wish,
Trust me I shall not spare them; and, meanwhile,
'Twere well I had some brief authority
Under your seal as to the trust wherewith
You please to honour me, but which, please Heaven,
Shall not be wanted.

BABINGTON.
'Tis well thought upon,
You shall have such a document anon.
Its use—Heaven shall direct.
Farewell, dear father.

[Babington goes out.
BALLARD.
The stream, just ere it rushes o'er the cliff,
Runs swiftest; so men, on the brink of ruin,
Seem oft to run into destruction. Fate
Doth film their eyes, and they pull down their death
On their own proper heads.
Yea, 'tis most strange now. She, o'er whom I would
Have most authority, thrust on mine hands
For guardianship—myself too delegated
To plead for him, whose suit I most would blast—
If that events—as some have held—should be
Our chiefest prophets, these speak plainly out.
As dangers thicken, so must acts—and now
One hour determine what the next shall do.

[Ballard goes out.