University of Virginia Library

ACT I.

Scene 1.

A room in the Governor's house. Seaton alone, leaning on a table covered with maps, plans, &c.
SEATON.
My native country, what a fate is thine!
Thy Bruce no more, his infant son afar,
His faithful Regent treacherously slain,
His rival, Baliol, roused again to arm
In contest for the crown—scarred as thou art
With former wounds, and must thou bleed afresh,
From the remorseless blows of civil war?
Yet more, those home-bred feuds have proved the heralds
Of foreign war, and now its best ally,
As these three ling'ring, suffering months can witness,
Since haughty Edward, with a chosen host,
Buckled his armor on and spurred his steed
To Berwick's menaced walls.

(Enter Attendant.)
ATTENDANT.
My lord! the envoys,
The British envoys seek you.

SEATON.
Strait admit them,
Then, Walter, to the castle's commandant,
Greet him from me, and ask his presence hither.

(Exit Attendant. Enter Neville and Mordaunt.)
NEVILLE.
Hail we not here Sir Alexander Seaton,
The Governor of Berwick?

SEATON.
You are right;
I own the name and office, with the purpose
Ne'er to discredit either.

NEVILLE.
Be it so!
Like trait is ours in this our embassage.
We bear a message from our royal master,
Edward of England.

SEATON.
What hath England's king
For Seaton's hearing?

MORDAUNT.
Even to demand
The town's surrender as our monarch's right,
And holden by his father's heretofore,
Ere farther loss of time, and wealth, and life,
Serve to impoverish you, exasperate him,
And make the path to future peace and concord
Less easy than the present. We have said.

SEATON.
I will convene the council, and impart
Promptly their answer; meantime, worthy Barons,
If such poor cheer as times like these allow
Meet your regard, betake you to our board.

NEVILLE.
We are beholden to your courtesy.

SEATON.
Myself the Lady Agnes will apprise
What guests do honor us. She hath a son,
Alas! within your custody, and doubtless
Will profit of your presence to indulge
A mother's fond inquiries. This way, sirs.

[Exit.

Scene 2.

Another apartment. Mordaunt, Neville discovered, to whom enter Seaton and Dunbar.
SEATON.
Barons, the Scottish Council have decreed
That I should thus reply unto your mission:
Berwick was always ours, till thirst of power
Prompted your monarch's warlike ancestor
By violence to seize it; but when Bruce,
Our glorious champion, won his country back
From its usurpers, Berwick with the rest
Resumed its ancient government and laws.
But more; the right of conquest thus obtained,
By right of treaty was confirmed; for, pressed
And counselled by the wise men of his land,
Four years ago your English King renounced
All right himself or his forefathers claimed
To Scotland's crown, and swore to leave its realm
Free as it was ere the contending claims
Of Bruce or Baliol rose, pressed by no yoke
Of foreign servitude; even to return
All scrolls of compacts, bonds, or whatsoe'er
Might seem a vestige of a subject state;
And, on our part, we promised to repay
A stipulated sum for those domains
By Edward and his sires possessed among us,
To yield to him our lands in England held,
And even to consider Stanmore's cross
Our utmost boundary. To fix this league
We farther fastened on the added tie
Of family and friend; our Prince espoused
The sister of your sovereign, and the names
Of Robert and of Henry to our ears
Were as the names of brothers.
Wherefore, then,
Have we been thus assailed with secret art
And open warfare, while ourselves in aught
Had ne'er infringed those articles of peace,
Nor would reject it now on any terms,
So they were honorable?

MORDAUNT.
Is this all?

SEATON.
This for your monarch; for yourselves, as missioned
To mediate between us, we would urge
A claim to favorable offices;
Such as may seem to you as but comporting
With duty to your country; well persuaded
You cannot prove yourselves less true to Edward
By being just to Scotland. You are answered.

MORDAUNT.
I am concerned our orders should insist
Plainly and positively on this point,
Stated at first—the rendering up of Berwick.

SEATON.
But, surely, you did not at first exact
Instant surrender.

NEVILLE.
Truly, no, we did not;
And to the farthest we are authorized
To grant you, will we go. Take a given time;
Name it yourself; till which, if no relief
Come to the garrison, (aware that soon
The Douglas will arrive,) you then consent
To yield it to our arms.

SEATON.
I must consent!
Unwilling howsoe'er. Too well you know
I have no choice. 'Tis now the thirteenth day
Of our midsummer month; if ere the thirtieth
No succors reach the town from Douglas' force,
I yield it up.

MORDAUNT.
But further, our instructions
Demand that, as a pledge for the performance
Of this engagement on your part, your son,
(Twin-born with him who now is pris'ner with us,)
Be rendered for an hostage.

SEATON.
My poor Duncan!
Must he, too, go? His brother's early valor
Already had betrayed him to captivity;
Must I be reft of both?

DUNBAR.
You press us hardly;
As men, as knights, I put it to yourselves;
Are not these harsh conditions?

NEVILLE.
'Tis not ours
To make them easier; though, to your discretion,
I own the wish that they were otherwise.

MORDAUNT.
Our worthy host and his compeer are each
Too well informed upon a soldier's duty
Not to acknowledge it the part of such
But to discharge their orders—not dispute them.

DUNBAR.
Yet soldiers do remonstrate; aye, rebel,
When their own rights, or real or supposed,
Have seemed to be impaired; their pay withheld;
Their privileges lowered; causes like these
Sometimes create such things as mutinies,
Even in English armies. But for injury
Done toward others—for a stranger's wrong—
Then to expect resistance or regret
Were all too high or low for sober manhood—
Chimerical or childish.

NEVILLE.
Little know ye
The mind of him we serve, if you imagine
That aught in us were prevalent to alter
His strenuous will, or check his dread resolve
On sovereignty here.

DUNBAR.
Vain expectation!
Can iron break the northern iron? No!
Ours is yet harder metal than your own.
Witness the many shocks by which 'twas bent,
But never yet was riven. Your Roman master
Obtained no mastery here. His legions scaled
Our cliffs in vain; and to his eagle's scream
Athwart our cliffs, was borne with echo back,
Answering defiance from our native eyrie.
Since then the like assault hath still received
The like discomfiture; our frigid clime
Had reared a race too rough for the grim Norman
Or bloodier Dane to quell.

MORDAUNT.
The more the glory
If we succeed.

DUNBAR.
How far succeed, I pray?
What if a castle fall, a town be taken?
Dream not that Scotland is subdued! that stake,
So long contested, cannot thus be won.
Behold the board whereon the game is played!
Look far and wide; each rock shall prove a castle,
Each crag a tower, each cave a walled city;
Ramparts of strength, on which the miner, Nature,
Hath wrought so secretly, and surely, too,
That human prowess vainly may assail
The superhuman barrier.

MORDAUNT.
Nay, go on;
Stop not with Nature. Canst not tell us somewhat
Of marvels passing Nature, which your Celts
Have long had credit for?

DUNBAR.
Did I think meet
For tongue of sturdy soldier or the ear
Of Christian knights to note such fantasies—
For such they seem, albeit they may be more—
There were enough to occupy more time
Than, by the strictness of our several callings,
Could now be warranted. Of sprites that haunt
Our Caledonian forests, all their own,
With nameless mischiefs for intruding alien;
Of shapes that people all our Highland mists,
And spread its dimness on the eyes beneath
They would bewilder; of the goblin brood
That prank them ever in our lochs and fens
To lose the wanderer by the light that leads him.
Enough of these.

NEVILLE.
But you did not include
The strange pretensions of those bold diviners
Who claim to call the future—and it cometh?

DUNBAR.
True, Englishmen, I did not; for, believe me,
There's more of might, whate'er of mystery,
In this than merits scoffing; nor would I
To stranger eyes expose a gift thus solemn;
The less that, peradventure, at some period,
Themselves may mark its power.

(Enter Donaldus behind, unperceived by all but Seaton.)
SEATON.
They mark it now.

DONALDUS.
Woe! woe!

SEATON.
To whom denounced?
To whom, Donaldus?

DONALDUS.
To all; to thee, good Seaton, even to thee!
Thou and thine house. The hovering pestilence
Strikes down the righteous with the reprobate.
The dogs of war once out, the bloodhounds track
No less the anchorite in his hermitage
Than robber in his den. Woe, then, to Scotland!
And woe to England, too, the ruthless cause!
Woe to us all!

[Exit.
DUNBAR.
It is the gifted seer,
Who, hand in hand with dark Futurity,
Sees that, to others without form and void,
Moulded to shape, and fraught with circumstance.

NEVILLE.
Truly, an awful presence! felt you not (to Mordaunt)

As with the disembodied?

MORDAUNT.
But, my comrade,
Be that as may, our business toucheth not
The world of spirits, but concerneth merely
Such an inferior sphere, that I would counsel
We put the warning to some present use;
Letting it hasten us in our leave-taking,
Soon as the Governor prepare his hostage
To bear us company.

SEATON.
I'll not detain you;
What must be, must! Go with me now.

DUNBAR.
Then, sirs,
Fare you well, hence, in all but your attempts
Against my country.

NEVILLE.
With like reservation,
Prosperity to you.

MORDAUNT.
Good Commandant,
The same from me.

[Exit all.