University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

—The Bar and Parlour.
Enter the Hostess, conducting Last, Mortice, and Mallet.
Hostess.
Walk in, good master Mallet. Gentlemen,
Walk in, you're welcome. What will't please you have?
We've choice for all, and nought but's of the best.

Mallet.
We'll taste your ale, good mistress Trusty. Hark!
How does your pretty barmaid? Did you speak,
As late you promised, a good word for me?

Hostess.
I did.

Mallet.
And was she pleased?

Hostess.
'Tis hard to say
When maids are pleased. When I myself was one,
What most I seem'd was, oft, what least I felt.

Mortice.
Your ear, kind hostess.—Gave you mistress Bess
The message that I sent her?

Hostess.
Word for word.

Mortice.
What word did she return me?

Hostess.
Marry, none!
Bess is a prudent wench. Maids' thoughts go cheap
That can be had for asking! Little worth,
Yet hoarded charily, great price they bring.
I found it so myself when I was young.

Last.
A word, good mistress Trusty, when you're done.

Hostess.
I'm at your service, now, sir.

Last.
Handed you
My gift to Bess?

Hostess.
I did.

Last.
And took she it?

Hostess.
She took it not.—'Tis here for you again.
Presents to maids are earnest. Take they them,
They next should take the donors. Had not I
Thought so in my free days, I should have won
A dower in gifts! You shall be served anon.

Mortice.
I guess you've come bad speed.

Last.
Hast thou come better?

Mallet.
The fault's our own. Love's not a game at law,
Wherein the player is not he that stakes.
I'll play my game myself, and ask sweet Bess
To church to-morrow!

Last.
So will I.

Mortice.
And I.

[They go out.
[Bess crosses the stage after them with a tankard.
Enter Hostess conducting Belmont and Wilford.
Hostess.
Walk in, walk in—I'll show you to a room.

Wilf.
And please you get my chamber ready straight;
I will, at once, to bed.

Hostess.
I'll see to't, sir.
He early goes to rest—He must be ill?
Love-sick perhaps? There's comfort for him then,
Like all his sex he'll soon get over that!

Bel.
Hostess!

Hostess.
Your will?

Bel.
I'd try your wine—Is't good?

Hostess.
The very best! Please you sit down, good sirs.

[Places chairs and goes out.
Bel.
Still rapt as ever! Rouse thee, Wilford, rouse thee!
Shake off this lethargy, and be a man!
Take faster hold of hope! We'll find her yet.
But should we fail, what then? Art thou to pine
To death? This malady is of the head
More than the heart. Believe it can be cured,
Thou'lt find 'twill be so. Be thyself again!
Be free! But once beheld may be forgot.

Wilf.
Yes, if a thing that any fellow hath!
I may forget a diamond, can I find
Another one as rich; but show me one
That is the paragon of all the mine,
And try if that's forgot, though seen but once!
Say that but once I see a beauteous star,
I may forget it for another star;
But say but once I gaze upon the sun,
And name the orb will blot its image out!

Bel.
But of a single draught of love to die!

Wilf.
Why not? There is your poison, strong and weak;
One kind admits of antidote—one not.
One by the drachm, one by the scruple, kills:
Another by the grain—for not in bulk,
But subtleness, the lethal virtue lies.
So are there kinds in love! A dozen shafts
May gall him, and the bounding deer run on,—
But one shot home, behold he's down at once!

Bess enters with wine, which she places on a table, at some distance from Belmont and Wilford; the former sees her at once, and regards her with an expression of fixed admiration —the latter remaining in a state of perfect abstraction.
Bel.
E'er saw'st thou thing so fair?

Wilf.
What speak'st thou of?

Bel.
Yon maid that waits on us.

Wilf.
I've seen! I've seen!

Bel.
This is to dream!
He sleeps—I'll wake him then. My pretty maid,
Hand thou the cup to yonder gentleman.
[Bess, whose eyes have just fallen on Wilford, stands gazing upon him, apparently insensible to everything else.
What ails the girl? Does she not hear? She's fix'd
As statue to the pedestal—what is't
She gazes at? As I'm alive, 'tis he!
Commend me to a sallow cheek! She's smit,
If Cupid is a marksman! Maids, I've heard,
Like books they weep over, the which, the more
They're made to melt, the greedier they devour!
See how she reads him! Marry, she will get
The book by heart!

Bess.
'Tis he! 'tis he! How's this?
I feel at home the while I look on him!
Seem near me hearts I know! I could believe
The roof our own! I scarce would start, were now
The door to ope, to see my father's face!
Yet what is he to me? Acquaintance of
My eyes, whom ne'er they met but once before!

Bel.
A shot! a shot! Cupid is in the vein!

Bess.
[Drawing her father's picture from her bosom.]
How like! how like! how very—very like!
There only wants a smile upon the lip—
I think the lip more sweet the smile away—
Fie! 'tis my father's lip! My father, then,
As often I have heard my mother say,
Had newly won my mother's love—I ween
My mother then smiled too! Who ought to smile,
If not the maid that's woo'd by him she'd wed?
Her Bess will never wed!

Bel.
A sigh! Be sure
The arrow 's home!

Bess.
Just now I felt at home,
And now I feel a thousand miles from home!
Things, strange before, are now still stranger grown,
And he most strange of all—the farthest off,
The least expected ever to be near—
The sight of whom brought home so near to Bess!
What's Bess's home to him? He'd pass the door,
And would not know she dwelt there! If he did,
Would never thank the latch to let him in!
He has a home, and friends that love him there—
Friends that he loves. Poor Bess is far from home,
Was never farther—never half so far!

Hostess.
[without].
Why, Bess! what, Bess!

Bel.
How deep the maiden's trance.

Hostess enters, and goes to her.
Hostess.
Why Bess, what ails thee, child?

Bess.
[Abstractedly.]
Anon! anon!
I'll do it this moment.

Hostess.
Do it! what wilt do?

Bess.
[Confused and hurriedly.]
Whate'er you bid.

Hostess.
Why, what has happen'd to her!
Look to the bar till I come back again.
Why Bess, dost hear me, that thou dost not move?

Bess.
[Confused.]
I'll go this moment—Where am I to go?

Hostess.
The girl 's bewilder'd! “Where am I to go!”
Canst tell me what I said to thee just now?

Bess.
Thou saidst, I think—or I mistake—thou saidst—
Thou saidst—perhaps I did not rightly hear;
Thinking of one thing, one forgets at times
Another thing—Thou saidst—It was not that—
Nor that—In sooth, I know not what thou saidst—

Hostess.
I knew't. I bade thee go and mind the bar.

Bess.
I'll do't.

[Still looking in the direction of Wilford.
Hostess.
Thou'lt do't! and go'st thou not to do it?
Yonder 's the bar—Why, Bess, thou art asleep!
Thou dreamest! Rouse thee, Bess. Go, mind the bar.
The girl 's not like herself!

[Bess and Hostess go out severally.
Bel.
A point-blank shot!
An entry this in Cupid's register!
Lord Wilford, was't not noon with you just now?

Wilf.
Noon!

Bel.
Felt you not the sun?

Wilf.
The sun! what sun?

Bel.
I' faith a glorious one, but not so kind
As that which shines by day; for not a beam
It threw on aught beside. You were its earth—
The grateful earth unlike—the orb alone
For which its light seem'd made; absorbing it,
Without so much as e'en a smile, to show
You knew't from very darkness!

Wilf.
You are merry;
And I can only wonder that you are,—
As sickness doth, that health can feed, while she
Herself from rarest viands loathing turns!
It is not fancy; or, if fancy 'tis,
'Tis such as breeds reality—as, from
Imagination only of disease
Disease itself will grow. Do I but dream?
Say that the anguish of a probéd wound
Is but a dream!—Say he that writhes in fire
Is fancy-haunted—just as much am I!
See'st not my fever? Is't not in mine eye?
My cheek? if not, my pulse will show it thee!
For if its throb be not the counter one
To that which haleness knows, 'tis anything
But index of my heart!

Hostess enters.
Hostess.
Ho! Bess, I say!
Enter Bess, who is immediately perceived by Wilford, and meeting his eye, stands as transfixed.
Why, Bess, how's this? Is't true thou wast o'erheard
To one, to two, and three, to give consent,
When ask'd to be a wife? Art thou not pledged
To marry Ralph?

Wilf.
Is she to be a bride?

Bel.
Are you awake?

Wilf.
I am! I am!—as one,
That long at sea pines till he's sick, for land,
And, ever dreaming on't, starts up at last,
With the rebound which says his bark has struck,
And drowns in sight and very reach of it!

Bel.
Is that the maid?

Wilf.
It is. Now wonder at me!
Wouldst thou not ask, sprang ever that from earth?
Look there, and think of an anatomy!
Can lurk the canker death in such a cheek?
Is not that flower imperishable, as
It lodged the virtue of the feignéd one,
Which never dies—in poet's song yclept
The immortal amaranth! Is she to be
A bride? I'll speak to her!

Bel.
Thou'rt mad!

Wilf.
And if I am,
Then once at least is madness rational.
Being what I am, not to be mad as I,
Were to be kindred to the cloddish brute,
That looks at her and knows not what it sees!—
Prevent me not! Art pledged to any one?
Art thou to be a bride? Say yes or no.

Hostess.
Speak, Bess! Say yes! Thou know'st thou'rt pledged to Ralph!
Enter Ralph.
Maids, sir, you know, are coy—give me thy hand.
There—art thou now content?

[Places her hand in Ralph's without her being conscious of it.
Wilf.
Content!—Enough!
O'ermeasure on't! I've done,—Yet would I touch
The precious thing, so much I've coveted,
Was ne'er till now in reach of—now, so near—
Find can ne'er be mine!—Whoe'er thou art,
Thou art acquaintance of my heart—as soon
As seen, beloved! I saw thee only once,
That once too oft!—For then I thought upon
My marriage-bell, and wish'd it might be thine,
But now, when thine they ring, they ring my knell!
'Tis not a crime to kiss thy hand, while yet
The banning of the priest forbids me not.
There! Let thy bridegroom at the altar set,
In presence of the watching cherubim,
A truer seal upon thy lip than that
I've fixed upon thy hand—though his shall last
Till doomsday! Take me hence! 'Tis hard to look
At what we wish were ours, and while we do't,
Persuade ourselves it cannot be.—Take me hence!
The only sight of her is hold too strong
For me to struggle 'gainst! It pulls me towards her!
I feel as though she'd suck my vision in!
My breath! my life!—I cannot quit her!
[Breaks from Belmont and rushes towards her. Ralph interposes. Wilford seems to have lost all power over himself. Belmont approaches him to lead him out; but, when at the wing, he turns— gazes distractedly upon Bess.
Lost!

[Rushes out, followed by Belmont, and at the same moment Bess sinks senseless on the shoulder of Ralph.