University of Virginia Library

SCENE I

Sunday Morning
[Groups of men and women outside the Village Church. The bells ringing merrily.]
CRONE.

Mercy on us! What a clang and a clatter they do make! Up and down, down and up, and never a taking of breath. They seem to think no one has anything to say but themselves.

1ST MATRON.

The Blessed Mother must be honoured, grannie, even if it does spoil talk a bit; and how better than by the tongues of all the belfry?

2D MATRON.

Santa Klaus! Look at Elspeth! Bib and tucker, kirtle and stockings, complete. One might think she was the Rosière.

1ST MATRON.

And why not? I lay she's as clean as any of them, as clean even as Eve herself, if not quite so winsome.

CRONE.

Aye, there it is! The world always veered that way, ever since I was in it. There's no such best as good looks. Your plain wench is never much, one way or t'other: too uncomely to be surmised crooked, too unheeded to have a wreath clapped on her head for perfection. Well, well, when one's old, one can go one's own way, and none heed.

1ST MATRON.

But Eve is very good.

2D MATRON.

Who's to tell? I suppose Father Gabriel knows; but the Confessional is as mum as the mountains, thank God.

CRONE.

Aye, aye; that dark box knows a thing or two the quickest don't guess. Saint Mary help us! Our feet are not always as prim as our faces. 'Twas a frisky world, when I was green; and maybe 'tis so still! Love and naughtiness are always in their teens.

1ST PEASANT.

Have the Englishmen gone?

GUIDE.

Yes, before the mist curled. Nothing stops those people. When they want to climb, they take the weather for a lackey, and fancy it will turn

all ways to please them. Because the sun shines here, they think it will follow at their heels like a beggar, till they give it something, or tell it to go away.

2D PEASANT.

Will they return, think you?

GUIDE.

Likely enough, not; I don't like the look of the Weisshorn. Then, perhaps, they'll be content. I suppose life comes so easy to such folks, they covet death.

1ST PEASANT.

That's a stake soon won. And so you wouldn't go with them?

GUIDE.

I'd have gone, had it been any other day. But I don't want to miss seeing the crowning of the Rosière.

2D PEASANT.

It'll be a rare sight. They ought to be coming soon. She's to be all in white.

3D PEASANT.

Like a bride. Let's hope she'll really be one soon. But folks that are better than their neighbours are always tetchy difficult to please.

GUIDE.

I don't think she's proud.

4TH PEASANT.

Proud? After all, what's pride? The top of the Matterhorn 's not proud; but it's not easy to get at. And Eve's got a far-off way with her, that makes a man gaze, but doesn't help him to get any nearer.

GUIDE.

You've said it. Good's good, but fair is better; and then she's both. Though she's a sight cleverer than the other lasses, she minds her flocks, and says her prayers.

1ST PEASANT.

I think, of late, she's been oftener in church than ever.

2D PEASANT.

And when Father Gabriel takes such pains to teach her, he thinks her none the worse for her April face and her trim little gait.

3D PEASANT.

Neither will Saint Peter, I warrant, when she knocks him up. I suspect he lets all the pretty ones sneak in, somehow.

4TH PEASANT.

Much of a Heaven it would be, if he didn't. See! here they come.

[A Procession, formed of the young girls of the village, comes along the street, singing the Litany of Loreto. In their midst is Eve, dressed in white, and wearing a white veil.]

1ST MATRON.

Come, we'd better be going in, or we shan't have good places.

CRONE.

Lord! Lord! how pretty she does look! She could not be more beautiful, if she were already in Paradise.

2D MATRON.

And so innocent; with her eyes

on the ground, as though ashamed of her own goodness.

CRONE.

Aye, and how sweetly the children sing! all the more sweetly, like the birds, because they do not understand what they are saying.

1ST MATRON.

You, first.

[They push the heavy curtain aside and enter, and the rest follow. The Procession enters the Church, singing the close of the Litany.]