University of Virginia Library

Scene 2.

A room in Winthrop's house. Anne and Alford playing at chess; Winthrop reading.
ALFORD.
Fair Mistress Winthrop, you're too hard for me.

WINTHROP
(aside).
I'm glad of it.

ANNE.
Your lordship is not playing
As though you meant to win: I fear you spare me.
Pray play in earnest, sir!

ALFORD.
Shall I do so,
And win of you?

ANNE.
But that I did not fear
The chance of losing, sir, I had not played.
Pray show your strength; I'm bent to conquer you.

ALFORD.
That were an easier matter than you think,
Perhaps, fair mistress.

ANNE.
I crave your lordship's pardon,
I did not hear you.

ALFORD.
'Tis no matter, madam;
You had not heeded had you heard, perchance,
And that had been worse—your moves are very cautious.

WINTHROP.
Your lordship's not a foe to trifle with;
She's right.

ANNE.
This game is mine, for a crown.

ALFORD.
Indeed!
(Aside)
—The other game is mine, I think, though.

[Enter a Servant.
SERVANT.
Mistress,
Here is a dame come up from the village, craves
To speak a word with you.

ANNE.
Oh, 'tis Dame Ingle, husband;
I bade her come, and promised her, moreover,
Her husband's pardon.

WINTHROP
(to the Servant).
You may go away.
[Exit Servant.
I'm sorry for it, wife.

ANNE.
Sorry for what?
Why, 'tis but closing of your book a minute,
And writing out the man's dismissal.

WINTHROP.
Nay,
You promised him his pardon, and you must give it.

ANNE.
Why, sir, you jest; I promised it, indeed,
Because I knew that you would give it.

WINTHROP.
You should not
Have promised for another, Anne.

ANNE.
Pshaw! nonsense!
'Tis hard indeed if my credit may not reach
To such a point as this!

WINTHROP.
Perhaps it is;
But it may not.

ANNE.
What do you mean, Judge Winthrop?

WINTHROP.
That you have promised what you cannot do.

ANNE.
No; but you can.

WINTHROP.
Indeed, I cannot.

ANNE.
How!
Cannot!—cannot set a man free from gaol,
Who's there by your own warrant! You will not,
You should have said.

WINTHROP.
I'll say it, then—I will not
Nay, Anne, ne'er frown, nor look so scornfully:
I will not, and I cannot break the laws,
By whose just doom this man is cast in prison.
D'ye think I make the statutes I enforce?
Nay, I am but their voice—the parchment sheet
In which they are set down, that shows them forth.

ANNE.
Ne'er tell me, sir, but you have power enough
To do this thing, if you were minded to it.
What! the first man in the shire, Judge Winthrop,
Not able to let a man go free from gaol?

WINTHROP.
Neither to send him thither nor take him thence
Have I the power—were I the king of England,
I could not do it. Thank Heaven! 'tis no man's will
Can touch the free life of an Englishman,—
Nought but the sovereign laws—nor take from any,
The meanest soul alive in all this land,
One tittle of his precious liberty.
You have mistook the matter.

ANNE.
What shall be done?
I told the woman I would get him free.

WINTHROP.
You must tell her now you cannot. Be content, wife;
The man's not worth your care, and where he is,
There he is best.

ANNE.
Nay, but I pledged my word.

WINTHROP.
You were to blame: I cannot help it, Anne.
You need not vex yourself about the woman;
I'll have her looked to well.

ANNE.
No doubt you will;
But, sir, that's not the point. Must I go tell her,
Judge Winthrop will not make my promise good,
He has refused me?—shall I have no more
Account made of my prayer than the next dame,
Who comes from quarrelling on market-day
To have her matters righted by his worship?

WINTHROP.
Your prayer is of no more account than hers,
But of the same, Anne, and shall meet from me
With the self-same justice. Unto her and you,
And every one, I would deal righteously.

ANNE.
Have I, your wife, no other privileges?

WINTHROP.
Yes, many—folded in the private chamber
Of my heart and home; none on the judgment-bench,
Or in the court, wife.

ANNE.
Shall this be believed?

WINTHROP.
Come, you have left his lordship long enough,
Pondering his next move;—get you to your game.
I will go speak to the woman; where is she?

ANNE.
In the oak parlour, sir, I bade them put her.

WINTHROP.
Very well! Go to your game; and, Anne, remember,
Be charier henceforth of your promises.
[Exit Winthrop.

ANNE.
I cry you mercy, sir! Shall we go on?

ALFORD.
Your leisure is my master, gentle madam.
I'm sorry for the failure of your suit.

ANNE.
O sir, I heed it not.

ALFORD.
A cause so pleaded,
By such an one too, might have won itself.

ANNE.
It matters not at all.

ALFORD.
How many men
Would have died gladly but for half those words!
Madam, I think you are not in your game—
That's a strange move: will you recall it?

ANNE.
No, sir;
I don't recall what I once do.

ALFORD.
Take heed, then,
And play more carefully, or I shall beat you;
Your king's in check.

ANNE.
Pshaw! I am blind, I think.
That's better.

ALFORD.
Hardly; there, you're caught again;
Check to your king!

ANNE
(rising).
I cannot play! I know not
What I am doing! to be thus refused;
Before a stranger, too, to have my promise,
Like a child's brag, turned down my throat.

ALFORD.
'Tis pity indeed! Perhaps, however, madam,
You have already used Judge Winthrop's interest
In these kind of matters. I have known some wives
Who scattered their husband's influence so fast
That they were left adry; their courtesies
Were spent by their ladies with so free a hand.

ANNE.
'Tis the first favour, sir, I ever asked him,
And thus he answers me.

ALFORD.
The first! O Heaven!
To be thus sued to, and to answer thus!
Your husband, Mistress Winthrop, is a man
Like none that ever lived in the world before.
There be—ay, hundreds—who but for one word
Of lightest bidding, uttered by such lips,
Would leap into the fire.

ANNE.
O sir; but then
One's husband never would be one of these.

ALFORD.
Fatal decree! that still possession dulls
The sense to the owning the most precious treasure;
Yet I had not believed this, but for seeing it.

ANNE.
'Tis hard indeed!

ALFORD.
You, you whom I remember
Absolute queen over so many hearts!
The drooping of whose eyelid might have bid
The lordliest of our court fall down before you
In happy worship of your slightest wish;
You to be thus refused!—I crave your pardon—

ANNE.
O sir, go on! You saw it, and you may,
And doubtless will, speak what you saw. You'll say
You saw me, like an humbled school-girl, stand
To be tutored about this and t'other word
That I had spoke too much; to be denied
The suit I asked, and bade take care henceforth
What things I asked for;—and indeed I will!

ALFORD.
Have patience, madam!—it is true, your husband
Might have more gently put you from your suit,
Answered with something more of courtesy.
Alas! I can imagine no such grief
As having to deny a prayer of yours.

ANNE.
He does not think so.

ALFORD.
Pardon me, fair mistress—
You must make some allowances for age.
The tender heart, that in that gentle breast
With pity and with kindness throbs towards all things,
Is young enough to have been Judge Winthrop's daughter's.
Had you but mated your sweet prime of life
With one akin to you in years, you had found
Perchance a happier lot: but you forget,
Time, as it goes, lays ice within our veins,
Which coldly curdles round an old man's heart:
'Tis not your husband's fault, but your ill fortune,
That he no more is young.

ANNE.
'Tis very true:
'Tis an ill thing when opposite seasons meet.

ALFORD.
And opposite ages are like spring and winter;
'Tis the spring suffers always in the encounter,
And the gentler bows to the sterner influence.

ANNE.
My father made this match; he was his friend.
Oh! let me think how much he was his friend
Who married me, portionless, friendless!

ALFORD.
Madam!
What is't you say? portionless! Where's the dower
Might with your wealth of beauty hold compare?
Portionless! why, the giving of yourself,
Decked as you are with charms not of this earth—
Turn not away, I speak the common words
Of all men, where your name is only uttered—
Was the bestowing of so great a gift,
That, tho' he should make up Methusaleh's years,
He ne'er could pay you for't. O Heaven! portionless!
The peerless Greek that set the world in arms
Ne'er fired the nations with such matchless beauty.
To look on you alone is happiness,
And he has called you his—his own!

ANNE.
My lord!

ALFORD.
Oh! pardon me, you do not know—you cannot
Ev'n guess—what chords are thrilling in my breast,
That have perforce been silent many a year.
You never knew, and now 'tis useless all
That you should know, the hopes, the dreams, the worship
That once did shrine your image in my heart—
Hopes that had sickened till I thought them dead,
And worship that should now be dumb for ever;—
Yet 'tis impossible to hold one's peace
And hear you thus decry your precious self.
Portionless! friendless! If you were thus friendless,
It more became him ne'er to make you look
From him to others who no others have,
To hold his place if he should fail to you.
You have no brother, madam, nor no sister?

ANNE.
Not one of kin to me in the wide world.

ALFORD.
Yet 'tis not so, fair creature! say thou not
That thou art friendless; every eye that sees thee,
Each heart that feels thy sovereignty of beauty,
Is friend and servant to thine excellence.
Oh! honour me with such a blessed title,
And call my life your own.

ANNE.
I thank you, sir:
To-morrow you go hence, never again
To hear my name, or look upon my face.
Your proffers were most kind, could they stead me aught.

ALFORD.
Yet, oh! remember them!

ANNE.
Be sure I will;
And let me pray one thing of you—your silence
On what this evening you have witnessed.

ALFORD.
Madam,
Your will locks that within my lips.

ANNE.
Good night, sir!
Ere you depart to-morrow I shall see you.

ALFORD.
Once more I shall be happy then. Good night,
Sweet lady! and may pleasant dreams wait on you!
[Exit Anne.
I would I might but order those same dreams:
'Tis wonderful how much is worked by them.
The unconscious reason thrust aside the while,
Feelings and passions oft lay hold of us,
Which, i' the waking hours of soberer judgment,
Were hard withstood: not so in kindly sleep—
The spell lies soft upon the dreaming spirit,
And the foe creeps into the slumbering stronghold,
Whence daylight and its sterner thoughts can't drive it.
Fair Mistress Anne, would I were Morpheus
To-night for your sweet sake! How proud she is!
The tow'r's so high, 'twill topple of itself;
For wisdom says pride goes before a fall,
And if decreed so, why, I cannot help it.
Bless Mother Ingle! I will pension her,
Though 'twere my last groat, for this good night's work.

[Exit.