Dramatic chapters, poems and songs :: :: University of Virginia Library

Six years are supposed to have elapsed since Chap. V.
Scene—The Interior of a well-furnished English Cottage; a small table set with a simple evening meal; Dorothy, very old and deaf, seated by the wood fire; Hannah, her granddaughter, walking about impatiently; clock strikes eleven; Hannah listens to the storm which is raging without, and then speaks.
HANNAH.

Still he comes not! still, still he comes not!
How the wind howls, wild as a dying wolf
Through the black forest! and the heavy rain
Beats 'gainst the groaning casement dismally:
How wilt thou struggle with this ruffian blast,
My poor, lone boy?

Mother, I say—so you
But get your old warm chair, the lad may die!
Five times I've braved the tempest, yet in vain;
Better to see him dead than fear him so!
Mother, I say, will you not hear, nor speak?

What said Adolphus when he left this morn?
What took he with him? Oh, that you can sit
Tame and unmoved whilst I . . .
Quick, what said he?

DOROTHY,
feebly arousing herself.
Didst thou speak, daughter?

HANNAH.
Adolphus, mother, what took he forth? [Suddenly turning aside a cloak.]

I do not see his spear: went he with that?

DOROTHY.
Adolphus, dear—hath not the lad returned?

HANNAH.
Thou know'st he hath not: I have sought, talked, raved,
Since nine o' the clock, outwearying the time,
And now thou ask'st me, “Hath he not returned?”
Will—thou should'st ask—will, will he e'er return?

Dorothy,
with increasing attention.
'Tis a wild night; but I've heard many such.
The winds blow feebler than in my young days:
Ah! I remember me in fifty-eight,
That was a storm! half Colne made desolate!
We lay upon our faces, and thus low
Awaited death.

Hannah,
interrupting her.
Mother, you try all patience: here you speak

Of sixty years ago as yesterday;
And things of yesterday, to-day, an hour,
Nay, of a moment passed, your memory finds not!
Went he not hunting, mother—tell me that?
Oh, heaven, some peril may beset his path,
And I no help, no help, no help!

[Covering her face with her hands, and sobbing bitterly.]
DOROTHY.
[Who rises slowly, and with great difficulty, from her chair, approaches her daughter with totterring steps, in the last weakness of extreme old age.]
Hast thou no Trust? no Helper? Go to Him,
Thou who art heavy laden and oppressed,
Lay at His feet thy fears. My child, I'm old;
Thy mother's mother hath been long on earth
(Heaven take me in its time!); but never yet
Found she the humble truster in her God
Forgotten in her need! Take comfort, daughter:
He that directs the blind bird's weary flight
Will light the storm-path of this wandering boy.

[Hannah starts up, and again paces backwards and forwards to the door, to the window, in increasing agitation.]
HANNAH.

Mother, I cannot pray: my thoughts are wild;
I think a thousand evils.

[Pauses, and collects herself to speak calmly.]

He took his spear?

DOROTHY.

Surely he did.

[Hannah clasps her hands tightly, as in great inward distress.]

A hundred times before
Thou'st known him take his spear, and cautioned not.
The lad might be thine own, thou frettest so.

HANNAH.
He is my own; in double love mine own!
Left by his dying mother to my charge:
Poor gentle heart! deceived and broken heart!
Oh, when at last we lost that Indian coast,
Few words she spoke, and those so wild and weak,
No ear, save Pity's, might comprise their grief!
“Oh, misery!”—and ever night and day
Those words made dry her lips—“oh, misery!”
And thus she reached our cold, sad English coast;
And thus, ere forty hours elapsed, she died!
Loving him still who broke her loving heart!
My own! Oh, yes; in double love my own!

DOROTHY.
Why wished she that her grave should be unknown
To her poor child?—that was a hard request;
Hard and unnatural.

HANNAH.
No, say not hard:
She feared the son might in his mother's wrongs
Forget the sire, and think but of revenge.
“Oh, keep him innocent of all, dear friend;

“And should his sire repent, then bring them both,
“And I will speak forgiveness from my grave!
“I know thy worth; bless thee, thou faithful heart!”
And thus . . . she died.

DOROTHY.
Well, I am old; belike I am too old,
And see not this as thou wouldst have me see it:
I would have shewn the boy her place of rest.
His little knees beside her lonely grave,
The prayers poured from his little heart to heaven,
Had surely made the mother's spirit blest!

HANNAH.
Oh, to have seen her by that vessel's side,
Gazing her heart out towards that Indian strand,
And dying inch by inch! I've seen strong men,
Hard, weather-beaten, reckless, sea-bred men,
With weeping eyes gaze on her piteous face,
And curse the cruelty that stabbed her peace!
When he's away, as now, with chance of ill,
His mother's look, her heart-worn, weary look,
Her last beseeching prayer, to watch her child,
Is with me e'en as then; 'twould drive me mad
Should aught endanger him. [Pacing to and fro.]

I cannot rest; quiet is torture to me.
There was that Indian gipsy prowling near,
That Midgley, as they call her; she who goes
Idling and pilfering with these forest-men:
Who knows but she—the witch—may be employed
To work him evil! 'Twere a deed to suit
The malice of his vile inhuman sire,

Who, as I hear, is now within the isle.
Alas, my boy! my poor, lost, helpless boy!
Thine only aid a feeble woman's love!

[A sudden crash of storm without; Hannah snatches her cloak and belts it round her.]
DOROTHY.
Whither now? Thou'rt dreaming, sure?

HANNAH.
Bar close the door, mother; here is wood,
Fuel to keep thee warm. I'll not be long;
Thou need'st not fear . . .

DOROTHY.
Fear? I am too old for fear!
The helplessness of age is its protection.

[Hannah opens the door; the storm drives furiously; she starts back as irresolute; a distant cry is heard, and she rushes out despairingly; Dorothy slowly settles herself in her old chair. Scene closes.