University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

The inside of the prison. Rayner and Elizabeth are discovered sitting sorrowfully by one another in earnest discourse.
Ray.
Thou sayest well, my sweet Elizabeth;
In this I have against thy love offended.
But in the brightness of fair days, in all
The careless gaiety of unruffled youth,
Smiling like others of thy sex, I loved thee;
Nor knew that thou wert also form'd to strive
With the braced firmness of unyielding virtue
In the dark storms of life—alike to flourish
In sunshine or in shade.—Alas! alas!
It was the thoughts of seeing thee—but cease!
The die is cast; I'll speak of it no more:
The gleam which shows to me thy wondrous excellence
Glares also on the dark and lowering path
That must our way divide.

Eliz.
O no! as are our hearts, one is our way,
And cannot be divided. Strong affection
Contends with all things, and o'ercometh all things.
I will unto thee cling with strength so terrible,
That human hands the hold will ne'er unlock.

Ray.
Alas, my love! these are thy words of woe,
And have no meaning but to speak thy woe:
Dark fate hangs o'er us, and we needs must part.
The strong affection that o'ercometh all things,
Shall fight for us indeed, and shall o'ercome:
But in a better world the vantage lies
Which it shall gain for us; here, from this earth
We must take different roads and climb to it,
As in some pitiless storm two 'nighted travellers
Lose on a wild'ring heath their 'tangled way,
And meet again.

Eliz.
Ay, but thy way, thy way, my gentle Rayner—
It is a terrible one.
Oh flesh and blood shrinks from the horrid pass!
Death comes to thee, not as he visiteth
The sick man's bed, pillow'd with weeping friends:
O no! nor yet as on the battle's field
He meets the blood-warm'd soldier in his mail,
Greeting him proudly.—Thou must bend thy neck,
This neck round which mine arms now circled close
Do feel the loving warmth of youthful life:
Thou must beneath the stroke—O horrid! horrid!

Ray.
(supporting her from sinking to the ground).
My dear Elizabeth, my most beloved!
Thou art affrighted with a horrid picture
By thine own fancy traced; look not upon it:
All is not dreadful in the actual proof
Which on th' approach frowns darkly. Rouse thy spirit;
And be not unto me at this dark push
My heaviest let; thou who shouldst be my stay.
[She groans heavily.
What means that heavy groan? I'll speak its meaning,
And say, that thou to nature's weakness hast
The tribute paid, and now wilt rouse thyself
To meet with noble firmness what perforce
Must be; and to a lorn and luckless man,
Who holds in this wide world but thee alone,
Prove a firm, gen'rous, and heart-buoyant mate,
In the dark hour. Do I not speak it rightly?

Eliz.
Thou dost, thou dost! if nature's weakness in me
Would yield to the heart's will.

[Falling on his neck in a burst of sorrow.
Enter Father Mardonio.
Mar.
My children, ye have been in woful conference
Too long: chide not my zeal that hither brings me
To break upon it. On you both be shed
Heav'n's pitying mercy!

Ray.
Amen, good father! thou dost call us children
With a most piteous and kindly voice:
Here is a daughter who in this bad world
Will yet remain to want a father's care;
Thus let me form a tie which shall be sacred;
[Putting Elizabeth's hand into Mardonio's.
She has no parent.
Enter Keeper of the prison.
What brings thee here? We would be left in peace.

Keeper
(to Rayner).
I am by a right noble stranger urged,
Who says he has in many a rough campaign
Served with your valiant father in the wars,
To let him have admittance to your presence.
Bertram conducts him hither.

Ray.
Served with mine honour'd father! and thus circumstanced,
Now comes to see his son! Well, be it so:
This is no time for pride to wince and rear,
And turn its back upon the patt'ring hail,
Bearing the thunder's shock. Let it e'en be:
Admit him instantly.
[Calling him back.
Nay, ere thou goest,
What is he call'd?

Keeper.
The Gen'ral Hardibrand.

Ray.
An honour'd name. [Exit Keeper.
(To Elizabeth.)

Retire, my love:
I cannot bear to have thy woes exposed
Before a stranger's gaze.

[She retires with Mardonio to an obscure part of the prison at the bottom of the stage.
Enter Hardibrand and Bertram.
Har.
(to Bertram: stopping short as he enters, and gazing upon Rayner, who is turned away from them, and looking after Elizabeth).
It is the son of Rayner: in his form
And face, though thus half turn'd from us, I see
His father. Still a soldier and a gentleman
In ev'ry plight he seem'd. A clown or child
Had sworn him such clad in a woollen rug.
[Advancing to Rayner.
Young soldier, I did know your gallant father;
Regard me not as an intruding stranger.

Ray.
I thank you, courteous sir: in other days
Such greeting to my heart had been most welcome.
A gallant father and condemned son
May in the letter'd registers of kindred
Alliance have; but in the mind's pure record,
They no relation bear: let your brave friend
Still be to you as one who had no son.

Har.
No, boy; that sentiment bespeaks thy blood.
Heed not those fetter'd hands: look in my face,
Look in my face with the full confidence
Of a brave man; for such I'll swear thou art.
Thinkst thou that I am come to visit thee
In whining pity as a guilty man?
No, by the rood! if I had thought thee such,
Being the son of him whose form thou wearst,
I should have cursed thee. Thou by mis'ry press'd,
Hast strongly tempted been, I know thy story:
Bertram has told it me: and spite of courts,
And black-robed judges, laws, and learn'd decisions,
I do believe it as I do my creed.
Shame on them! Is all favour and respect
For brave and noble blood forgotten quite?

Ray.
Ah, do not fear! they will remember that,
And nail some sable trappings to my coffin.

Har.
I would that to their grave and pompous chairs
Their asses' ears were nail'd! Think they that men,
Brave men, for thou thyself—What corps, I pray thee,
Didst thou belong to in thy prince's service?

Ray.
The first division of his fourth brigade
Was that in which I served.

Har.
Thou hast companion been to no mean men.
Those six brave officers of that division,
Upon the famed redoubt, in his last siege,
Who did in front o' th' en'my's fiercest fire
Their daring lodgement make, must needs of course
Be known to thee.

Ray.
I knew them well; five of them were my friends.

Har.
And not the sixth?

Ray.
He was, alas! my greatest enemy;
To him I owe these bonds.

Har.
A curse light on his head, brave though he be!

Ray.
O curse him not, for woes enough already
Rest on his wretched head.

[Bowing low, and putting his hand on his head.
Har.
Ha! thou thyself,—thou wast thyself the sixth!
Thank heav'n for this! Then let them if they will
Upon a thousand scaffolds take thy life,
And spike thy head a thousand feet aloft;
Still will I say thy father had a son.
[Rushing into his arms.
Come to my soldier's heart, thou noble bird
Of a brave nest!—must thou indeed be pluck'd
And cast to kites? By heav'n thou shalt not die!
Shall such a man, as thou art, from his post
Be shamed and push'd for one rash desp'rate act?
It shall not be, my child! it shall not be!

Ray.
(smiling).
In faith, good gen'ral, could your zeal prevent it,
I am not yet so tired of this bad world,
But I could well submit me to the change.

Har.
I'll with all speed unto the governor,
Nor be discouraged, though he loudly prate
That grace and pardon will but leave at liberty
The perpetrators of such lawless deeds
To do the like again, with such poor cant.

[Elizabeth, who has been behind backs, listening eagerly to their conversation, and stealing nearer to them by degrees in her eagerness to hear it, now rushes forward, and throws herself at Hardibrand's feet.
Eliz.
We ask not liberty; we ask but life.
O grant us this, and keep us where they will,
Or as they will. We shall do no disquiet.
O let them grant us life, and we will bless them!

Ray.
And wouldst thou have me live, Elizabeth,
Forlorn and sad, in loathly dungeon pent,
Kept from the very use of mine own limbs,
A poor, lost, caged thing?

Eliz.
Would not I live with thee? would not I cheer thee?
Wouldst thou be lonely then? wouldst thou be sad?
I'd clear away the dark unwholesome air,
And make a little parlour of thy cell:
With cheerful labour eke our little means,
And go abroad at times to fetch thee in
The news and passing stories of the day.
I'd read thee books: I'd sit and sing to thee:
And every thing would to our willing minds
Some observation bring to cheer our hours.
Yea, e'en the varied voices of the wind
O' winter nights would be a play to us.
Nay, turn not from me thus, my gentle Rayner!
How many suffer the extremes of pain,
Ay, lop their limbs away, in lowest plight
Few years to spend upon a weary couch
With scarce a friend their sickly draughts to mingle!
And dost thou grudge to spend thy life with me?

Ray.
I could live with thee in a pitchy mine;
In the cleft crevice of a savage den,
Where coils the snake, and bats and owlets roost,
And cheerful light of day no entrance finds.
But wouldst thou have me live degraded also;
Humbled and low? No, liberty or nought
Must be our boon.

Har.
And thou shalt have it too, my noble youth:
Thou hast upon thy side a better advocate
Than these grey hairs of mine.
(To Elizabeth.)
Bless that fair face! it was not made for nothing.
We'll have our boon; such as befits us too.
No, hang them if we stoop to halving it!
[Taking her eagerly by the hand.
Come with me quickly; let us lose no time:
Angel from heaven thou art, and with heav'n's power
Thou'lt plead and wilt prevail.

Ray.
In truth thou wilt expose thyself, my love,
And draw some new misfortune on thy head.

[Endeavouring to draw her away from Hardibrand.
Eliz.
(to Hardibrand).
What new misfortune? can they kill thee twice?
We're tardy: O move quickly! lose no time!

Har.
Yes, come, and Bertram here will guide our way:
His heart is in the cause.

Ber.
Yes, heart and soul, my gen'ral. Would my zeal
Could now make some amends for what those hands
Against him have unwittingly committed.
O that the fellest pains had shrunk their nerves
Ere I had seized upon him!

Ray.
Cease, good Bertram!
Cease to upbraid thyself. Thou didst thy duty
Like a brave man, and thou art in my mind:
Not he who seized, but he whose gen'rous pity
Did, in my fallen state, first show me kindness.
[Bertram kisses his hand.
Go go! they wait for thee.

Ber.
They shall not wait. Would that we were return'd,
Bearing good tidings!

Har.
O fear it not, my heart says that we shall.

[Exeunt Elizabeth, Hardibrand, and Bertram. Manent Rayner and Mardonio.
Mar.
Hope oft, my son, unbraces the girt mind,
And to the conflict turns it loosely forth,
Weak and divided. I'm disturb'd for thee.

Ray.
I thank thee, father, but the crime of blood
Your governor hath ne'er yet pardon'd; therefore
Be not disturb'd for me; my hopes are small.

Mar.
So much the better. Now to pious thoughts
We will direct—Who comes to interrupt us?

Enter the Turnkey.
Ray.
It is the turnkey; a poor man who, though
His state in life favours not the kind growth
Of soft affections, has shown kindness to me.
He wears upon his face the awkwardness
And hesitating look of one who comes
To ask some favour; send him not away.
(To turnkey.)
What dost thou want, good friend? out with it, man!
We are not very stern.

Turnkey.
Please you, it has to me long been a priv'lege
To show the curious peasantry and boors,
Who from the country flock o' holy days,
Through his strait prison bars, the famous robber,
That overhead is cell'd; and now a company
Waits here without to see him, but he's sullen
And will not show himself. If it might please you
But for a moment opposite your grate
To stand, without great wrong to any one,
You might pass for him, and do me great kindness.
Or the good father there, if he be willing
To doff his cowl and turn him to the light,
He hath a good thick beard, and a stern eye,
That would be better still.

Ray.
(laughing).
Ha! ha! ha! what say ye to it, father?

[Laughing again more violently than at first.
Mar.
(turning out the turnkey in a passion, and returning sternly to Rayner).
What means this wild and most unnatural mirth;
This lightness of the soul, strange and unsuited
To thy unhappy state? it shocks me much.
Approaching death brings nought to scare the good,
Yet has it wherewithal to awe the boldest:
And there are seasons when the lightest soul
Is call'd on to look inward on itself
In awful seriousness.

Ray.
Thou dost me wrong; indeed thou dost me wrong.
I laugh'd, but, faith! I am not light of soul:
And he who most misfortune's scourge hath felt
Will tell thee laughter is the child of mis'ry.
Ere sin brought wretchedness into the world,
The soberness of undisturbed bliss
Held even empire o'er the minds of men,
Like steady sunshine of a cloudless sky.
But when it came, then came the roaring storm,
Lowering and dark; wild, changeful, and perturb'd;
Whilst through the rent clouds ofttimes shot the gleam
More bright and powerful for the gloom around it.
E'en 'midst the savage strife of warring passions,
Distorted and fantastic, laughter came,
Hasty and keen, like wild-fire in the night;
And wretches learnt to catch the fitful thought
That swells with antic and uneasy mirth
The hollow care-lined cheek. I pray thee pardon!
I am not light of soul.
Death is to me an awful thing; nay, father,
I fear to die. And were it in my power,
By suffering of the keenest racking pains,
To keep upon me still these weeds of nature,
I could such things endure, that thou wouldst marvel,
And cross thyself to see such coward-bravery.
For oh! it goes against the mind of man
To be turn'd out from its warm wonted home,
Ere yet one rent admits the winter's chill.

Mar.
Come to my breast, my son! thou hast subdued me.
[Embracing him.
And now we will lift up our thoughts to Him
Who hath in mercy saved thy hands from blood.

Ray.
Yes, in great mercy, for the which I'd bow
In truer thankfulness, my good Mardonio,
E'en with these fears of nature on my mind,
Than for the blessing of my spared life,
Were it now proffer'd me.

[They retire into the obscurity of the dungeon, at the bottom of the stage, and the scene closes on them.