 | Mary Stuart |  |
Scene III.
Before Tixall Park.Mary Stuart, Mary Beaton, Paulet, Curle, Nau, and Attendants.
Mary Stuart.
If I should never more back steed alive
But now had ridden hither this fair day
The last road ever I must ride on earth,
Yet would I praise it, saying of all days gone
And all roads ridden in sight of stars and sun
Since first I sprang to saddle, here at last
I had found no joyless end. These ways are smooth,
And all this land's face merry; yet I find
The ways even therefore not so good to ride,
And all the land's face therefore less worth love,
Being smoother for a palfrey's maiden pace
And merrier than our moors for outlook; nay,
I lie to say so; there the wind and sun
Make madder mirth by midsummer, and fill
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The heartier hours that clothe for even and dawn
Our bosom-belted billowy-blossoming hills
Whose hearts break out in laughter like the sea
For miles of heaving heather. Ye should mock
My banished praise of Scotland; and in faith
I praised it but to prick you on to praise
Of your own goodly land; though field and wood
Be parked and parcelled to the sky's edge out,
And this green Stafford moorland smooth and strait
That we but now rode over, and by ours
Look pale for lack of large live mountain bloom
Wind-buffeted with morning, it should be
Worth praise of men whose lineal honour lives
In keeping here of history: but meseems
I have heard, Sir Amyas, of your liberal west
As of a land more affluent-souled than this
And fruitful-hearted as the south-wind; here
I find a fair-faced change of temperate clime
From that bald hill-brow in a broad bare plain
Where winter laid us both his prisoners late
Fast by the feet at Tutbury; but men say
Your birthright in this land is fallen more fair
In goodlier ground of heritage: perchance,
Grief to be now barred thence by mean of me,
Who less than you can help it or myself,
Makes you ride sad and sullen.
Paulet.
Madam, no;
I pray you lay not to my wilful charge
The blame or burden of discourtesy
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This weight of thoughts untimely.
Mary Stuart.
Nay, fair sir,
If I, that have no cause in life to seem
Glad of my sad life more than prisoners may,
Take comfort yet of sunshine, he methinks
That holds in ward my days and nights might well
Take no less pleasure of this broad blithe air
Than his poor charge that too much troubles him.
What, are we nigh the chase?
Paulet.
Even hard at hand.
Mary Stuart.
Can I not see between the glittering leaves
Gleam the dun hides and flash the startled horns
That we must charge and scatter? Were I queen
And had a crown to wager on my hand,
Sir, I would set it on the chance to-day
To shoot a flight beyond you.
Paulet.
Verily,
The hazard were too heavy for my skill:
I would not hold your wager.
Mary Stuart.
No! and why?
Paulet.
For fear to come a bowshot short of you
On the left hand, unluckily.
Mary Stuart.
My friend,
Our keeper's wit-shaft is too keen for ours
To match its edge with pointless iron.—Sir,
Your tongue shoots further than my hand or eye
With sense or aim can follow.—Gilbert Curle,
Your heart yet halts behind this cry of hounds,
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Now close in covert till her bearing-time
Be full to bring forth kindly fruit of kind
To love that yet lacks issue; and in sooth
I blame you not to bid all sport go by
For one white doe's sake travailing, who myself
Think long till I may take within mine arm
The soft fawn suckling that is yeaned not yet
But is to make her mother. We must hold
A goodly christening feast with prisoner's cheer
And mirth enow for such a tender thing
As will not weep more to be born in bonds
Than babes born out of gaoler's ward, nor grudge
To find no friend more fortunate than I
Nor happier hand to welcome it, nor name
More prosperous than poor mine to wear, if God
Shall send the new-made mother's breast, for love
Of us that love his mother's maidenhood,
A maid to be my namechild, and in all
Save love to them that love her, by God's grace,
Most unlike me; for whose unborn sweet sake
Pray you meantime be merry.—'Faith, methinks
Here be more huntsmen out afield to-day
And merrier than my guardian. Sir, look up;
What think you of these riders?—All my friends,
Make on to meet them.
Paulet.
There shall need no haste;
They ride not slack or lamely.
Mary Stuart.
Now, fair sir,
What say you to my chance on wager? here
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That too must fail if hope now fail me; these
That ride so far off yet, being come, shall bring
Death or deliverance. Prithee, speak but once;
[Aside to Mary Beaton.
Say, these are they we looked for; say, thou too
Hadst hope to meet them; say, they should be here,
And I did well to look for them; O God!
Say but I was not mad to hope; see there;
Speak, or I die.
Mary Beaton.
Nay, not before they come.
Mary Stuart.
Dost thou not hear my heart? it speaks so loud
I can hear nothing of them. Yet I will not
Fail in mine enemy's sight. This is mine hour
That was to be for triumph; God, I pray,
Stretch not its length out longer!
Mary Beaton.
It is past.
Enter Sir Thomas Gorges, Sir William Wade, and Soldiers.
Mary Stuart.
What man is this that stands across our way?
Gorges.
One that hath warrant, madam, from the queen
To arrest your French and English secretary
And for more surety see yourself removed
To present ward at Tixall here hard by,
As in this paper stands of her subscribed.
Lay hands on them.
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Was this your riddle's word?
[To Paulet
You have shot beyond me indeed, and shot to death
Your honour with my life.—Draw, sirs, and stand;
Ye have swords yet left to strike with once, and die
By these our foes are girt with. Some good friend—
I should have one yet left of you—take heart
And slay me here. For God's love, draw; they have not
So large a vantage of us we must needs
Bear back one foot from peril. Give not way;
Ye shall but die more shamefully than here
Who can but here die fighting. What, no man?
Must I find never at my need alive
A man with heart to help me? O, my God,
Let me die now and foil them! Paulet, you,
Most knightly liar and traitor, was not this
Part of your charge, to play my hangman too,
Who have played so well my doomsman, and betrayed
So honourably my trust, so bravely set
A snare so loyal to make sure for death
So poor a foolish woman? Sir, or you
That have this gallant office, great as his,
To do the deadliest errand and most vile
That even your mistress ever laid on man
And sent her basest knave to bear and slay,
You are likewise of her chivalry, and should not
Shrink to fulfil your title; being a knight,
For her dear sake that made you, lose not heart
To strike for her one worthy stroke, that may
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She gapes for like a bloodhound. Nay, I find
A face beside you that should bear for me
Not life inscribed upon it; two years since
I read therein at Sheffield what good will
She bare toward me that sent to treat withal
So mean a man and shameless, by his tongue
To smite mine honour on the face, and turn
My name of queen to servant; by his hand
So let her turn my life's name now to death,
Which I would take more thankfully than shame
To plead and thus prevail not.
Paulet.
Madam, no,
With us you may not in such suit prevail
Nor we by words or wrath of yours be moved
To turn their edge back on you, nor remit
The least part of our office, which deserves
Nor scorn of you nor wonder, whose own act
Has laid it on us; wherefore with less rage
Please you take thought now to submit yourself,
Even for your own more honour, to the effect
Whose cause was of your own device, that here
Bears fruit unlooked for; which being ripe in time
You cannot choose but taste of, nor may we
But do the season's bidding, and the queen's
Who weeps at heart to know it.—Disarm these men;
Take you the prisoners to your present ward
And hence again to London; here meanwhile
Some week or twain their lady must lie close
And with a patient or impatient heart
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Must with Sir William back to Chartley straight
And there make inquisition ere day close
What secret serpents of what treasons hatched
May in this lady's papers lurk, whence we
Must pluck the fangs forth of them yet unfleshed,
And lay these plots like dead and strangled snakes
Naked before the council.
Mary Stuart.
I must go?
Gorges.
Madam, no help; I pray your pardon.
Mary Stuart.
Ay?
Had I your pardon in this hand to give,
And here in this my vengeance—Words, and words!
God, for thy pity! what vile thing is this
That thou didst make of woman? even in death,
As in the extremest evil of all our lives,
We can but curse or pray, but prate and weep,
And all our wrath is wind that works no wreck,
And all our fire as water. Noble sirs,
We are servants of your servants, and obey
The beck of your least groom; obsequiously,
We pray you but report of us so much,
Submit us to you. Yet would I take farewell,
May it not displease you, for old service' sake,
Of one my servant here that was, and now
Hath no word for me; yet I blame him not,
Who am past all help of man; God witness me,
I would not chide now, Gilbert, though my tongue
Had strength yet left for chiding, and its edge
Were yet a sword to smite with, or my wrath
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Take with you for your poor queen's true last word,
That if they let me live so long to see
The fair wife's face again from whose soft side,
Now labouring with your child, by violent hands
You are reft perforce for my sake, while I live
I will have charge of her more carefully
Than of mine own life's keeping, which indeed
I think not long to keep, nor care, God knows,
How soon or how men take it. Nay, good friend,
Weep not; my weeping time is wellnigh past,
And theirs whose eyes have too much wept for me
Should last no longer. Sirs, I give you thanks
For thus much grace and patience shown of you,
My gentle gaolers, towards a queen unqueened
Who shall nor get nor crave again of man
What grace may rest in him to give her. Come,
Bring me to bonds again, and her with me
That hath not stood so nigh me all these years
To fall ere life doth from my side, or take
Her way to death without me till I die.
| Mary Stuart | |