University of Virginia Library

Scene I.

Reuben's parlour. Jane sitting at the breakfast table.
Jane.
Already comes the morning sun across
To lick the shadows from our side the street,
And noisy children shift their playing ground
To bask like flies i' the heat. Outside, the day
Is thoroughly awake—indeed half done,
While here, inside, it seems not yet begun. (Rings bell.)

The greater part of life is spent in waiting
To do that which the other never does.
My appetite is sated through the eyes,
Waiting for Reuben, who leaves his in bed;
Or if he bring it with him, his affairs
Step in 'tween it and the meal. Breakfast with him
Is but the flourish of the instruments
Before a piece of music left unplay'd.

Enter Mary.
Mary.

Please, Miss, he's only been two or three hours in bed, Miss; and he does not sleep such a terrible deal, Miss; his key never comes to the door, not much before I get up, and good broad daylight, too, Miss, and the sun shining; and boots just awful to clean, Miss, and ------

Jane.
Well, do as I bid you.

Mary.

He pass'd me in the lobby just as I went to let in the sweeps, and they kept bawling in the chimney a full hour at least, Miss; and no wonder he doesn't get up; and, I'm sure, if you was me—that is, if I was you ------

Jane.
Now, now; that's enough. [Exit Mary.

He ever was a wanderer of the night,
Yet seldom past night's noon. When he returned
We saw he had not been in vicious ways;
He came as from a bath of meditation,
Its freshness still about him; in his eyes
A mild light, got with looking in the moon,
And all his nature dimpling as a spring
Of sweet good humour, mellow as rich cream.
So am I not untroubled by the change
That, like a sudden rack on a fleet wind,
Has over-run his life, and hung a cloud
Between him and this little world of home.
I feel not now the warm beams of his heart;
His presence lacks the soul; in through his eyes
I see no moving tenant, but the mould
And desolation of a haunted house.
His outward garniture bespeaks a lover;
But worthy love within illumes a ruin—
Gives it the semblance of a lighted fane;
He loves unworthily, if he love at all.
I've used my artfullest wiles to incline his heart
Towards my friend Eliza, my best friend;
'Tween whom and me needs but a brother's love
To make us more than sisters. But in vain.
He cannot see how dotingly her soul
Pours out its wealth on him; nor can he see
How much her virtues even exceed the bound
Of my great estimate. With such a one,
How prosperous were the matrimonial voyage,
So often jarr'd by storms.

Enter Reuben.
Reuben.
My breakfast, Jane.
You should have waked me sooner. Sleep's a vice
Confoundedly tenacious of its hold.
Like all the little vices, it will claim
That as its due to-morrow which to-day
We give by way of favour.

Jane.
True enough;
But hunger'd creatures are not to be blamed
For over-feeding when they get the chance.
You bedded late last night.

Reuben.
Yes, pretty late.
How over-hot this coffee is for haste!

Jane.
I did not hear you coming in last night.
At what time came you, did you say?

Reuben.
Past twelve.
You should have had it pour'd ere I came down.

Jane.
I'll bring it cold enough,

[Exit Jane.
Reuben.
Past twelve! and yet,
'Twas but a quarter—of a day—past twelve.—
I trust they hanged him that invented clocks.
Not only do they lie among themselves,—
They are the most prolific cause of lies,
Quibble, and deceit, in us who would be true.
Had not the steeples with their babbling tongues
Rung all the morning hours into my ear,
I had been ignorant, and could not lie.
It were a virtuous world without a clock!
Yet virtue come of ignorance never raised
A soul one step to heaven: therefore, those things
That prompt us to our sins and teach the way,
Are ministers of virtue and of heaven.—
I never can escape that infinite circle.
In argument I reach the self-same point,
Whichever way I turn; and thus I find
I never can become a partizan.

[Rises to go.
Re-enter Jane.
Jane.
Now, try a cup of this. What, done already!
You've taken nothing! Do begin again.

Reuben.
Thank you, I've eaten heartily, very heartily;
So heartily, indeed, my heart is full.

Jane.
I'd rather that your stomach were. But stay,
I want to speak to you. This afternoon
I go to spend the evening with Eliza,
Who accuses us that we do not return
Her frequent visits hither. I will go
Early, and take my needlework, and you
Will come and fetch me home.

Reuben.
Well, but—I have—
That is—at least—I—you—and then—you see—
But yet, it may keep fair—it may, it may.

Jane.
Keep fair! look out—there's not a flake in the sky!
But what although it come a glittering shower!
There's many a sheltering tree along the way.
Nothing so pretty as the summer rain,
Shooting like silver arrows from the sun,
Darting and pattering on the leafy shield
Above one's head. How pleasant when it fairs,
To step again into the beamy day,
Along the reeking hedgerows, while the thorns
Wink with their little eye-drops! And how sweet
To hear the bees resume their droning song,
The woods, the bushes, the blue sky itself
Break out in bells of music, as the cloud
That brought the shower lifts up its skirts and limps
Northward beneath the bright and shiny bow
That spans the valley. If you think 'twill rain
I cannot choose but go. Say, then, you'll come.

Reuben.
Of course; but then, you'll stay so late; and then,—
But yet, I'll come—if I can find the way.
Perhaps I'll find it.

Jane.
If you would, you will.
You cross the river by the wooden bridge—
You know the way right well!—then straight along
The ruin'd tram-road where the rank grass whistles
Over the broken rails, and toad-stools gaze,
With blind eyes, from the sides of rotten planks,
And nettles, thistles, hemlock and dischilaig,
'Mong wrecks of waggons and overturn'd wheels,
Infect the mind with sadness—

Reuben.
Ah, you mean
The broken bridge that crosses the canal
Near to its head or end. It is indeed
The melancholiest picture of decay,
In midst of thriving traffic, I have seen!
The sodden punts lie swamp'd up to the lips;
The green sink is long dead, and yet alive,
With reptile and with vegetable life;
It bocks and bubbles, and anon a toad
Raises a black snout through the slimy scum,
Startles the dead dogs with a horrid croak,
Then back to slime and silence. Round the marge
The long rank grass and fat unwholesome docks
Harbour the water-rat and bloated worm;
And all around, fragments of strange machines,
Invented and then left to rust and rot.

Jane.
You know very well that's not the way I mean,
But quite the opposite. When you have cross'd
The river—not canal—and gone along
The little ancient railway till you come
To the second lane on the right, you turn down that,
Pass an old lime-kiln and a white-wash'd house,
And on and on, leaving, upon your left,
An old house with three gables, and a date
Carved quaintly on the lintel of the door;
Then onward, crossing by a one-arch'd bridge
A sluggish little stream; and then your road
Winds round a small wood, deafen'd with noisy rooks.
There, in a bed of roses and sweet briars,
You come upon a cottage roof'd with straw.
You'll know it by the taste—indeed, sweet thoughts
It breathes around it; by the little green,
And by the antique dial 'fore the door,
The honeysuckle tangling to the eaves,
The narrow casements curiously set
With stain'd glass like a chapel. That is it.

Reuben.
Ah—bridge—white-house and tram-road—right and left;
And then the old lime-kiln on the one-arch'd bridge;
Then the house with the seven gables. Let me see—
You'll leave Eliza's, say at half-past six;
I'll meet you at the seven-gabled house.
Till then—

[Going.
Jane.
(following)
Nay, stop; why that's the loneliest part,
The very dreariest bit of all the road!
I'll stay until you come, however late.

[Exeunt.