University of Virginia Library

ACT II.—

SCENE I.

Chorus.
Fond of shooting, fishing, hunting,
Sound of bagpipe, drum, or fife,
Yacht and sail and flying bunting—
All the ways of savage life;
Sick of clubs and jolly fellows,
Play and pantomime and clown,
Novels bound in blues and yellows—
All the idle ways of town;
Tired of all the strife of Parties,
Solemn dinners, routs, and drums,
Public meetings where no heart is,
And a chairman haws and hums;
What shall youth do when the river
Has no pools where salmon lie,
And the sun is shining ever,
And the trouting streams are dry,
And the grouse-cock gaily crowing
Fears not either dog or gun,
And the partridge broods are growing,
While the corn grows in the sun?
Weary he of fly and feather,
Weapon shining on the shelf,
Weary of unchanging weather,
Weary maybe of himself;
For he was not meant for daily
Bringing basket full, or bag,
Shooting grouse or capercailzie,
Stalking of the timid stag.
What shall he do, weary-laden,
If in such a vacant hour
He shall happen on a maiden
Lovely as a sweet wild-flower,
With a noble nature truly,
Pointing him to noble deeds,
Plucking up the thoughts unruly
Growing in his mind like weeds,
Opening to his soul a grander
Life than he has lived before,
As among the hills they wander,
Or beside the grey sea-shore?
Ah! the passion, all-constraining,
That now lifts his heart above
Vacant mood and vain complaining,
Lapt in bliss of early love!

Scene—Kildrostan. Sir Diarmid and Lady MacAlpine.
Sir Diarmid
(singing)
“To Norroway, to Norroway,
To Norroway owre the faem.”

Lady MacAlpine.
Why do you sing that ballad? My old heart
Goes pit-a-pat to hear it; like the merle
That sees a gled o'erhead. Surely you are not
Tired of me yet.

Sir Diarmid.
Nay, mother, not of you;—
You're always pleasant company—but somewhat
A-weary of the weather which is bad,
Being so good, and of myself a little,
And of the world in general.

Lady MacAlpine.
Don't be silly.

Sir Diarmid.
I think I never was more sensible,
But to be sensible is to be dull;
All sensible folk are tiresome. Have you heard
That ever any of our ancestors
Mingled their blue blood with a gipsy witch's?

Lady MacAlpine.
What do you mean, boy?

Sir Diarmid.
Only this, that I
Am rather of their roving disposition,
And with the first crisp bursting of the leaf,
Or even while buds are only reddening yet
On the bare boughs, and primrose banks are bare,
Begin to feel a stirring in my veins,
As if I must be off into the woods,
And hang a kettle on a tripod o'er
A fire of sticks, and steal my own young hares.
Yet here is half the summer past, and still
I'm at the chimney nook. Had I not been
A baronet, I should have been a poacher
In shabby velveteen, and had a lurcher
Close at my heels, and half my days in jail,
And half i' the moors and woods. I wonder we
Can hate them so, they are so like ourselves.

Lady MacAlpine.
Don't talk so idly, you do let your tongue
Run off with what small sense you have.

Sir Diarmid.
But how
About that gipsy, mother? I am sure
There must have been one in our family tree.
Was she dropt from it as a rotten branch,
Or christened Lady Margaret Merrilees,
Or Honourable Gertrude Jenny Faa
Of Hedgerow Elms, in Thieveshire?

Lady MacAlpine.
Hold your peace.
Your ancestors were noble and highborn,
And mated with the best blood of the land.

Sir Diarmid.
Well, mother, do not frown at me; I do
But jest, and yet it was a foolish jest,
The birth of vacant brains. Having nought to do,
I've seen you bring old rubbish from your drawers—
Scraps of brown lace, housewifes, and baby linen,
Buttons, old dingy letters, battered thimbles—
And litter all the room with them; and I
Being idle, throw the rubbish of my mind
About me too, and sorry stuff it is.

Lady MacAlpine.
Well, well; you might find matter for your jests
Fitter than those to whom you owe your being.
But now you'll stay at home. 'Tis weary waiting
Alone in my old age.

Sir Diarmid.
Old age! why, you
Are younger in my eyes, and handsomer
Than half the girls I meet. My little mother,
You never can grow old, your heart's so young,
While they are old i' their teens. Yet I must go,
Only I would not leave you quite alone.

Lady MacAlpine.
But wherefore must you go?

Sir Diarmid.
A promise, mother;
Far rather would I be at home with you.
And after this I mean to spend my days
In sheer respectability, and go
Duly to church, and play the justice too,
And lecture rogues and vagabonds, and sit
On Boards, and manage every one's affairs,
Like a true Chief. But there's a College friend
Who worships Thor and Odin, when he tires
Of Zeus and Aphrodite and Apollo;
And I had promised he should see the land
Of Vikings and Berserkers, and the Fiords
From which their galleys oared to seek adventures.
So now he writes me he is coming here
To-day, and I must get the old yawl in trim,
And see if she will float to Norroway.

Lady MacAlpine.
A friend who worships Odin! Why, the man
Must be a pagan.

Sir Diarmid.
Well; he rather is
A something of a pagan and a poet,
Yet no bad fellow, either, in his way.
He will not sacrifice the sheep, or kids,
Or horses; being æsthetic, he will be
Content with fruits and flowers and wine libations.

Lady MacAlpine.
What do you mean? Is that what young men learn
At College now?

Sir Diarmid.
Yes; some of them prefer
Boating or boxing, cricketing or hunting,
Lawn-tennis, or to drive a four-in-hand;
But the more studious mostly spend their terms
Seeking for a religion.

Lady MacAlpine.
Now you jest;
I know it by your look:—As if young men
Could leave their parents' homes without religion!
Why let this mocking fiend ironical
Cover your better thought?

Sir Diarmid.
I do not mock.
It may be that they bring up from their homes
Their cradle-faiths, but they are stript quite bare
Ere many months pass. And besides, a man
May wish new clothes, who is not wholly naked,
May feel he has outgrown his baby robes,
May be ashamed too of his rustic fit,
And fain to dress his soul in the last fashion,
And wear it jauntily. So we are grown
To be a sort of dandies in religion,
Affecting the last mode. At present, we
Incline to Pagan cults, but are not sure
Whether is best the Greek or the Barbarian:
While some prefer pure Atheism to both,
And will have neither soul, nor other life,
Nor anything but organisèd dust
Which lives its day, and on the morrow is
Moral manure enriching other lives.

Lady MacAlpine.
Diarmid, you have not lost your faith?

Sir Diarmid.
Well, no;
I have not found a better than my mother
Sung o'er my cradle.

Lady MacAlpine.
That is well. Pray heaven
You hold to that. I hear such dreadful things
About our young men now; and even the girls
Chatter half-atheism with as brisk an air
As if it were new ribbons they discussed.
There's Ina Lorne reads books would make my hair
To stand on end.

Sir Diarmid.
No fear of Ina, mother;
Her heart's all right. And that reminds me now,
It was of her I meant to speak. She is
Alone in that dull house, and for a while
You too will be alone: why should you not
Have her with you to cheer your solitude?
We are her kinsfolk, and I've heard you say
She makes a good day in a drizzling rain.

Lady MacAlpine.
She sees no visitors, keeps her room, and claims
The privilege of sorrow to be rude.

Sir Diarmid.
Nay, mother, rude she cannot be, and least
Of all to you.

Lady MacAlpine.
Well, no: but what means this—
This new-born care for cousins who would scarce
Count kin save in the Highlands? You're not wont
To speak so warmly of them.

Sir Diarmid.
That is true;
For some are bores, and some are gossips born,
And some are butterflies, and some are wasps,
And some are geese. But Ina's not like them.

Lady MacAlpine.
No; but she's somewhat flighty, is she not?

Sir Diarmid.
How mean you?

Lady MacAlpine.
Well, she always has some new
Enthusiasm—some pet scheme or other,
To remedy the lot of our poor folk,
Which yet is ne'er the better for it.

Sir Diarmid.
Yes!
Maybe; and yet one likes her all the more;
For if it be a fault, at least it's not
A common fault among our Highlanders.
We're not enthusiasts for the people's rights;
More shame to us that she is so alone!

Lady MacAlpine.
But, Diarmid, what will Doris say to it?
They have not taken kindly to each other.

Sir Diarmid.
Why, what has she to do with it?

Lady MacAlpine.
She'll think
It is her place to keep me company,
And will resent to see another here.

Sir Diarmid.
Why should it be her place? and why should she
Resent your choice of Ina? And indeed
That girl is too much with you.

Lady MacAlpine.
But the time
Draws near; and you must first arrange with her
Before you go.

Sir Diarmid.
What time? what do you mean?
What is there to arrange with her? Oh yes!
About her shootings—I will see to that.

Lady MacAlpine.
Her shootings! nonsense: 'tis about herself.

Sir Diarmid.
Now, mother, you are many fathoms deeper
Than my line goes.

Lady MacAlpine.
Did not your father tell you,
As he lay dying, how things stood between
Doris and you?

Sir Diarmid.
Well; he was very fain
That I should wed her some day, and I promised—
For that I saw his heart was set on it—
That I would try to love her if I could,
And wed her if I loved her, which I cannot.

Lady MacAlpine.
And was that all? was there no sterner hint
Of hard necessity?

Sir Diarmid.
There was no more.

Lady MacAlpine.
Oh this is cruel, laying it on me
To blur a father's memory. But you promised
To love her, and you'll keep your promise.

Sir Diarmid.
What
Troubles you, mother? You are strangely moved.
I said that I would love her if I could,
And I tried hard, but she would never let me.
Even as a girl she always spited me,
Threw stones into the pool where I was angling,
Tore down the nests I watched with tender care,
And rode my pony till she foundered him,—
Cruel as well as spiteful.

Lady MacAlpine.
A spoilt child
With that hot Indian blood in her, untamed;
But unripe fruit is bitter oft i' the mouth,
Yet mellows with the months.

Sir Diarmid.
But has she mellowed?
I could not bear to leave you here with her;
And Ina too so lonely.

Lady MacAlpine.
Never fear;
We shall do nicely. And for Ina, when
You make your nest here in the old family tree,
'Twere well to feather it softly, not to plant
A thorn there for your mate.

Sir Diarmid.
But Ina's not
A thorn. She's never sharp, and never stings
Like Doris.

Lady MacAlpine.
Dear, I do not understand
Why you should harp on Ina. Let her be.
Her uncle's house, of course, will be her home;
He's rich and solitary. If you have nothing
Against poor Doris but her childish freaks,
Would you for them neglect your dying father's
So earnest wish?

Sir Diarmid.
Nay, not for them alone.
Mother, no man, that is a man, would care
To catalogue a lady's blemishes;
To say, I cannot love her for her pride,
Yet love her less in her humility;
When she is bitter, I cannot abide her,
And yet I loathe her more, when she is sweet.
Ask me no more; indeed, I tried and failed:
Besides, I cannot offer to a market
That does not want my wares.

Lady MacAlpine.
There I am sure
You are mistaken, for she likes you, Diarmid.

Sir Diarmid.
Then 'tis a liking that I do not like,
And never shall. Were Doris the one Eve
In all the world, I'd rather, for my share,
The thorns and briars outside, and leave her Eden
All to herself, than company with her.
Have I not seen you frown, with mingled shame
And anger, at her reckless speech? for still
Her thoughts go naked, and are not ashamed;
Yet not from innocence. You love her not,
And would not like, I think, to sit on nettles
What time my wife opened her mouth to speak.

Lady MacAlpine.
I know she has her faults—so have we all:
But you might help to mend them. And oh, Diarmid,
It must be.

Sir Diarmid.
What must be? And also why
Must it so be? You speak in riddles to me.

Lady MacAlpine.
Diarmid, you love your father's memory;
Would you not rather suffer any loss
Than part with that?

Sir Diarmid.
Indeed I would. But who
Can take from me the picture of his goodness,
Hung in the inmost chamber of my heart,
As men set up a holy altar-piece
For worship. That he was mistaken about
This girl, harms not his memory to me.

Lady MacAlpine.
Ah me! I wot not what to do. This task
Should never have been left to me. I tell you
You have no choice but marry Doris now.

Sir Diarmid.
I have no choice, for I have made my choice,
And would not have her, mother, if she brought
A kingdom for her dower.

Lady MacAlpine.
Nay, hear me; let
Me tell the sorry tale. Your father, Diarmid,—
'Tis hard to unveil the faults of those we love,
When death has hallowed love—in his hot youth
Had wasted his estate with cards and dice;
But when he won my hand, which brought much wealth,
He promised ne'er to gamble while he lived.
Happy our life was while he kept his word!
Nor did he break the letter of it ever,
Only the spirit, cheating conscience so
With words depleted of their natural sense.
Then came this Malcolm Cattanach from India,
A widower, with one child, and very rich:
He had been born a crofter in Glenara,
Was a contractor and a money-lender,
And there were strange things whispered about him—
I know not with what truth, of course, but men
Were shy of him who had been in the East,
As many here had been.—But 'tis too much;
I cannot go on with it.

Sir Diarmid.
Quite right, mother;
Let Doris and her dubious father drop
Out of your mind; they only give you pain.

Lady MacAlpine.
Would that were possible! I must tell you all,
Howe'er it wring my heart. He settled near us
In the next glen, and lived a sumptuous life,
Costly, luxurious, though his ways were coarse,
And with a splendour of colour, hardly fitting
The sober grey of our dim Highland glens.
Your father took to him, although he laughed
At the peach-coloured liveries; praised his talent,
Quoted his sayings; hankered to berich,
And live like him; and they were closeted
Often for hours together. Until then
He never had a secret thought from me;
But now he kept me in the dark, and that
Wounded and wronged my love. It soon appeared
This clever, scheming man had led him on—
Who knew no more than I—to speculate
In foreign loans, and mines, and for the rise
And fall of markets; and he, all unskilled
To watch the turns o' the tide, bought in too soon,
And sold too late, and gambled all away.
Ah me! the weary days! the anxious looks!
The fretful temper! and the settled gloom,
With the fell crash at last!

Sir Diarmid.
But why recall
This story now, since, after all, we have
Enough for all our wants? What need to cry
O'er our spilt milk, when all our pails are full,
And the cow yields as ever?

Lady MacAlpine.
Wait a bit;
One day he told me that my all was gone,
And I, like you, said lightly, Never mind;
We have the old home still, and our old love,
Which none can rob us of. But therewithal,
He only looked the gloomier, and cursed
Himself, his friend, and all the ravenous crew
Of jobbers and promoters. Then I said,
Now, let us have no secrets; that has been
The worst of all our losses, the decay
Of that full trust that made us one indeed.
Perhaps a woman's wit may find a way
To mend things, or to bear them. I was sore
At his concealment, sorer than I said,
For empty heart is worse than empty purse,
And mine had been made vacant by neglect.
But when I found that Malcolm Cattanach
Had led him on and on, till every acre
And every stone o' the house, and every right
Of fishing, shooting, mining, were in bond
To him for moneys lent and lost, my heart
Utterly failed me.

Sir Diarmid.
Are we beggars, then,
On Doris' charity?

Lady MacAlpine.
Scarcely yet. I have
My jointure, and I got a legacy
After your father's death. Not otherwise
Could you have gone to College.

Sir Diarmid.
Had I known this,
I would not so have wasted all these years
In idleness, that might have yielded fruit
For wintry days.

Lady MacAlpine.
I thought your father told you.
But that's not all. There is another bond,
That if you claim her hand ere you have passed
Your four and twenty years, then she and all
Her gathered wealth are yours.

Sir Diarmid.
How, if I fail?

Lady MacAlpine.
That will be very ruin.

Sir Diarmid.
One word more.
What, if I ask, and she refuse my hand?

Lady MacAlpine.
To punish her, he gives you back the land.
But she will not refuse.

Sir Diarmid.
I daresay not.
'Tis a hard case. Has Doris known all this?

Lady MacAlpine.
Yes, years ago.

Sir Diarmid.
Ah! that accounts for much.
I must have time to think.

Lady MacAlpine.
There is your friend
Just driven to the door; a handsome youth,
But yet a bit effeminate. I'll see him
At dinner time.

Sir Diarmid.
It is unfortunate
His coming at this moment. But I must
Be civil, though my head is in a whirl.

[Exeunt.
Chorus.
Vain for a man to think that he
Can hide what a woman is fain to know!
Vain to dream that she does not see,
Because her seeing she does not show
He cannot lie with a guileless look
Of innocence pure that falters not,
And she will read like a printed book
The riddle of his most secret thought.
Well she saw where his love was given,
Saw that her tidings had quenched his light,
Saw that he grasped, as if for heaven,
A hope that would leave him in sorry plight.
And oh that Ina might be her daughter!
Oh the dread of his fated wife!
Oh the hopes that were writ on water!
Oh her boy, and his shipwrecked life!

SCENE II.

Chorus.
Ah! what to do, if one should get
A tawny lion for a pet!
Or some volcano as a boon
To play its fireworks like a tune!
O terror of his playful moods!
O horror of its lava floods!
So troubled and amazed were they,
So feared what he might do or say,
That youth fantastical whose wit
With the old Pagan cult was smit,
And stormed, in words that swing and swell,
Like changeful peal of tripping bell,
Against the love that is divine,
And for the love inflamed with wine.
Daily their simple souls were shocked
With fleering scornful words that mocked
At Faith and Unfaith, nothing loth,
At God and Science, lightlying both;
But what the shallow heart believed
Of all it praised, and all it grieved,
Although he did his rating well,
'Twould need a wiser man to tell.
Still Zeus to him was Great and Mighty,
Still reigned the foam-born Aphrodite,
Still bright Apollo's arrows flew,
Still Dian brushed the evening dew,
Still Naiads haunted fount and brook,
And life was like a fairy-book:
Or Odin stern came back again,
And Thor, and noble Balder slain
By Loke's dark counsel, and the Tree.
Great Ygdrassil, of Mystery,
And all the Myths of ancient Night,
Myths of the dawn and growing light,
Myths of the earth, the cloud, the star,
And life and its eternal war.

Scene—Kildrostan Park. Sir Diarmid and Tremain.
Sir Diarmid.
So we give up our cruise, then, after all?
'Tis well; for, as it happens, it would scarce
Have suited me to go. You'll not regret it?

Tremain.
Why should I? 'Twas a sudden fancy struck me,
And just as sudden left.

Sir Diarmid.
No other reason?

Tremain.
What other would you have? Must one have reasons
To knock down fancies with—a club to beat
The vapour off, that passes with a puff?
I choose to have my whims, and let them go
E'en as I list. It is a folly, man,
A superstition of these modern times,
To be in bonds to reason.

Sir Diarmid.
As you like.
But there's a nice breeze tripping on the loch,
Tipping the waves with foam. Have you no fancy
To ride the white steeds in a merry gale?

Tremain.
Nay, that's all past. I hate a boisterous life.
Give me the calm of Tempe, where no wind
Blows on the vine-stocks roughly, and where love
Pants in the sunshine dreamily among
The lotus leaves and asphodels.

Sir Diarmid.
What then?
Are all those pictures of the bounding sea,
And billowy roll of life there, and your skill
With sail and rope and rudder in a storm,
But so much moonshine?

Tremain.
Moonshine! surely no;
But poetry of course. O you dull fellows,
Tied down to facts, you lose the half of life,
Missing its fancied part. I sit and dream
Of lying in a pinnace with my love,
On a pard's skin, or carpet Easterndyed
Of gorgeous colours, with a cloudless sun
Inflaming every sense, as we look down,
And watch the pulsing globe, and tangled arms
Of myriad Medusæ. Then I see
Ideal storms loom darkly, and the waves
Lashed into madness, which I master so
That by the sense of power we relish more
The soft delights of love. But your wet ropes,
And clumsy oars—faugh! they give blisters first,
And then a horny hand; and life is lost,
By so much, when you lose a perfect sense.
'Tis needful for my Art that I should have
Nice touch and taste and smell and sight and hearing,
That through all gates may fine sensations pass
Into my being, and enrich my life.

Sir Diarmid.
Tush! man; you are not so effeminate
As you affect.

Tremain.
I never handled rope,
Nor held a tiller, nor yet mean to do:
A harp, even, blunts the finger-tips. You think
To be effeminate is to be weak:
I hold that manhood only then is perfect,
When it has all a woman's delicate sense,
And absolute refinement, and will answer,
Like the wind-harp, in tremulous response
To every breath of fancy.

Sir Diarmid.
How then shall you
Employ your holiday? Our ways are rough,
Nor do we fear to blunt a sense by use.

Tremain.
If I might just go on as now we do,
Bound to no method, held to no set plans,
Floating as fancy wills, or Fate decrees!
Those hills are beautiful in the purple lights
Of evening, glassed upon the quiet loch;
And weird-like are the wavering morning mists,
Tinted with rainbow fragments, like the glories
Which hover in the cloudland of old times;
And pleasant is the swaying of the boat,
And lapping of the waters; and I think
I could write something smacking of the life
Of the young world, while yet the gods were in it,
As I look round and see the fisherwomen
Wade through the surf i' the twilight to the boats,
Each with her husband, or her sweetheart, maybe,
Borne pick-a-back.

Sir Diarmid.
A barbarous custom! I
Have tried to shame the men out of these ways,
And do not wonder that you mock at them.

Tremain.
I do not mock at them. I never felt
More tenderly to any ancient relic
Than to this fond survival. Let it be.
Why drive your modern ploughshare over all
The ways of primitive custom, making them
As flat and commonplace as turnip fields.
Let it alone. It is the antique symbol
Of women's loyalty to love—a link
Uniting us with a more touching life
Of loyal service. Had I but such a Naiad—
Only not quite so freckled and uncombed—
To plash her large limbs in the waves for me!

Sir Diarmid.
Never was such a plea for barbarism
Pleaded before.

Tremain.
And yet as good a one
As you shall find for worshipping a maid,
Until she is a wife to worship you.
Why is it barbarous? Was the Greek a savage,
When the fair princess, with her laughing maidens,
Washed the white linens in the sparkling brook,
And lovers lay upon the grass, and noted
The dainty feet that splashed the shining spray?

Sir Diarmid.
Well, you may well play the lawyer for the nonce,
And draw me out, from murky heathen times,
Precedents of authority to bar
The way of progress. But you'll not persuade me
The custom's not degrading.

Tremain.
Ay, in vain
We hope to master prejudice by reason.—
But how about this Doris you should wed,
And will not, though her acres are so handy?
What ails you at her?

Sir Diarmid.
This; she loves me not,
As shrewdly I suspect; nor love I her,
As certainly I know. And when we speak
Of marriage, that's a point at least.

Tremain.
I know not;
I'm not a marrying man, though all my life
Is love and poetry, which mostly lose
Their glory at the touch o' th' wedding ring.
It is a quakerish thing connubial bliss,
Tame and slow-blooded, dressed in browns and greys,
And with no flash of passion in the eye,
Or flush o' the cheek. Is she not beautiful?

Sir Diarmid.
Truly; yet with a dangerous kind of beauty,
Beauty as of a panther or a snake,
Lustrous and lithe; or so at least she shows
To me who love her not. Her father wedded
In the far East a Hindoo girl, and so
The daughter is not, like our Highland maids,
Ruddy and large with amber in their hair,
But slight and supple, and the sun has dyed
Her cheek with olive. Yet she is most fair.

Tremain.
Ah! now you interest me. 'Tis just the kind
Of beauty that I worship. Helena's
Was dangerous, and the grand Egyptian Queen's
Who conquered the world's conquerors, and the sun
Had softly dusked the snow of cheek and bosom,
That chills our northern women. There's no joy
Without the sense of danger; therefore men
Climb the precipitous mountains with a feeling
Of tingling, perilous gladness: and I hate
Your meek and milky girls that dare not kiss
A burning passion, clinging to your lips.

Sir Diarmid.
Doris is not a Cleopatra, nor
Helen of Troy—she's just a Highland lady
Touched with an Eastern strain. You must not liken her
To your wild-eyed Aspasias.

Tremain.
But you said
Hers was a dangerous beauty, like the serpent's,
And that is what I like above all things.
Serpents twine round you, clasp you in their folds,
And charm you with a gaze that does not flinch;
Firing you as the many-husbanded
Helen was wont to do, till men would lose
The world for one brief rapture of her kiss.

Sir Diarmid.
I spoke too loosely: you misconstrue me,
So fancying her.

Tremain.
There's nothing else against her,
Except that dangerous beauty, which is only
The prejudice of people commonplace.
I like to play with adders. I had one
I loved once as you love your dog, and had
Subtler communion with it, richer thoughts
From its uprearings, and its wondrous eyes
Than you shall get from any noisy hound
With its rough shows of liking.

Sir Diarmid.
Well, I'd rather
My dog should jump on me, and wheel about
Barking for joy, than have an adder twine
Slow folds about me. But tastes differ.

Tremain.
Ay,
They differ; yet there is a worse and better,
For taste is the true test of character:
The crown of culture is a perfect taste,
Which lacking, men are blind and cannot see
The higher wisdom. 'Tis the want of it
That floods the world with stale stupidities,
And hangs a vulgar arras round the mind
Of misbegotten fallacies. Tastes differ!
And so do faiths and policies, but yet
Their differences are not indifferent.

Sir Diarmid.
You need not rave about it, man. I used
A common phrase, as one does current coin,
Not caring to ring copper half-pennies
Upon the counter.

Tremain.
Oh, yet I take leave
To doubt the taste that shrinks from such a girl
As you describe your Doris: that is all.
The kind of woman, bred of Christian cult,
Whom you call womanly, to me is watery—
A ghost, a mist that chills you with its touch.
How changed from the grand creature Nature made
For joy, and music, and the giddy dance,
And glorious passion! There's a story of
Pelagia, leader of the mimes at Antioch
On the Orontes; how she came one day
Up from the silvern baths with her fair troop
Of girls, all glowing with the flush of life,
And bounding with light mirth, and lures of love,
Like the young hinds, what time the year reveals
The antlered stag freed from the down of his horns;
And as she came, arrayed in purple skirt
Of Tyrian, golden bracelets on her wrists,
And tinkling anklets, and the flash of gems
Upon her bosom, on her brow of flowers—
Lo! then an anchorite, dried up, and baked
With dirt of some dim cave where he had burrowed
With bats and owls, looked wistfully on her,
And craftily assailed her with regrets
That she brought not her beauty and her joy—
Another Magdalene!—to serve his Lord:
Wherewith being touched, she turns a penitent,
And comes next day, and lays aside her robes
Of splendour, and her bright and joyous ways
So winsome, and in squalid garb arrayed
Of sackcloth, visits graves and lazar houses,
Pale as lily—a shadow called a saint.
What think you now of such a work as that
To pleasure Heaven with? While the old gods lived
A woman was the glory of our glad
And fruitful earth. But now you make of her—

Sir Diarmid.
I prithee, peace, man. If I did not know
This is but spinning moonshine for the love
Of phantasy, and framing paradox
To seem original, I could be wroth
With such trash-speaking. Interrupt me not.
What, if your leader of the mimes had been
A chaste pure maiden, daughter of a home
Where mother-love enfolded her in customs
As sweet as lavender, and that she met
Some gay apostle of the flesh, and as
His penitent, became—what you have known?
The world is bad enough, and false enough
Without such gloss to prove its darkness light.
The devil is up to that; and does not need
That you should make fine clothes for him to wear
When he goes masking. Let this stuff alone;
Or weave it into verses, if you will,
For fools to read, although I used to think—
But that was in my youth's fond innocence—
That poetry should stir the best in us,
And give fit utterance also to our best
In rhythmic music.

Tremain.
That was not your thought:
'Twas but an echo you and others tossed
From mouth to mouth, and thought that you had thought.

Sir Diarmid.
Echo or living voice, the thought is true;
God gives us song to make usnobler men
And purer women.

Tremain.
Nay, for art is not
The slave of virtue, turning songs to sermons;
But it is free, and is its own excuse,
And finds its purpose in its exercise.

Sir Diarmid.
What do you mean?

Tremain.
This. Picturing truly all
Ideals—good or evil, as you call them—
Art doth fulfil her office, but comes short
Of her vocation when she aims at aught
But perfect form and colour and harmony.

Sir Diarmid.
Enough: I did not count on getting such
Art-lectures from you. Keep them for the freshmen.

Tremain.
You make a pedant and a pedagogue
Of that which is the sovranest thing in nature,
The freest and the gayest. Out upon
The tyranny of small moralities,
Shop-keeping ethics, Pharisee respects!
As if high Art must minister to them,
Like a fair tablemaid who must not speak,
But let them prose and prose! I hate it all.
For evil and good, yea sense and nonsense, Art,
Soaring above them in her own bright realm,
Yet lifts them up, and blends them in her charm
Of light and music and divinest vision.
But you are still in bonds to commonplace,
And cannot bear this yet.

Sir Diarmid.
Nor ever shall,
Nor ever wish to. One might land in Bedlam
For less conceit of wisdom.

Tremain.
By the way,
There's one thing more I wish to know. Last night,
Or rather in the gloaming, as you have it,
Upon the heights, beside the waterfall
That wavers like a tremulous white veil
Of bridal lace to hide the moss-clad rock,
I had a vision of beauty.

Sir Diarmid.
Oh, belike
The purple glow was on the hills.

Tremain.
Nay, but
A maiden passed me tall and beautiful,
Robed all in black. Her step was like a queen's,
Pallas-Athene had no statelier mien,
Broad-browed, large-eyed, and with the confidence
Of strength and courage in her. Who is she?

Sir Diarmid.
How should I know? No matter.

Tremain.
Girls like that
Can't walk about the shore incognito:
You surely know her; think of it again.
I did but pass some pretty compliment—
Thrown at her, to be picked up if she chose,
Not spoken to her—an impromptu verse
That sprang up to my lips at such a vision
Of might and beauty delicately mixed,
When she, just pausing, gave me such a look,
As if she could have tossed me o'er the crag
Into the pool, then leisurely swept on.
Who is she? All the fisher folk would say
Was, “It will be Miss Ina.”

Sir Diarmid.
Ay, that was
Ever her favourite walk. Now, if you chance
To meet her there again, best let her pass
Without impromptu verses. You might find
They breed unpleasant consequences.

Tremain.
But
Who is she?

Sir Diarmid.
Well; no matter: my kinswoman.
Her father was our pastor, lately dead—
No more of her. When shall we visit Doris?
She's far more to your taste.

Tremain.
Oh, when you will.
But that dark-robed Pallas-Athene your
Kinswoman, said you?

Sir Diarmid.
Surely you would not
Intrude upon the sacredness of sorrow
Like hers.

Tremain.
The parson's daughter—

Sir Diarmid.
Sir, I tell you
She shall not be molested.

Tremain.
So: I see
Why Doris' beauty is so dangerous.
Pallas-Athene, broad-browed, shining-eyed,
That is your style, is't?

[Exit.
Sir Diarmid.
Pshaw! why should I care
For that fool's babble? for a fool he is
With all his genius, which is but a trick
Of stringing words together musically.
How could I ever bring him to the home
Of pious, pure-souled women. Yet he'll serve
My purpose, if he only take to Doris,
And she to him—she is not over-nice.
But is it fair that I should plot and scheme
To save myself from a detested fate
By luring her into as dark a snare?
Nay, but I only bring these two together,
And by the mutual attraction of
Their kindred natures let them coalesce,
If so they will—and surely so they will:
Only the time is short. Yet such folk jump
Into their loves; and if it so befell,
My path were clear, and all should yet be well.

Chorus.
O cunning schemer!
O idle dreamer!
With crafty head,
And heart elate,
Spinning a thread
To baffle Fate!
Twirl the spindle ever so fast,
Let the thread be ever so fine,
Fate will rend thy web at last,
Fruitless labour surely thine.
Sore against thee are the odds
Wrestling with the immortal gods.

SCENE III.

Chorus.

Scene—Street: Post Office Door. Ina, Mrs. Slit, Doris (in the distance).
Mrs. Slit.

Good-bye, then, Miss Ina; and it iss a light there will be in the shop this day, because you have been in it again.

Ina.

Good-bye. You will be sure to remember the warm things for old Elspet's rheumatism.

Mrs. Slit.

Och! yes, I will remember them.

Ina.

And Dugald's snuff, and Alisthair's tea.

Mrs. Slit.

And the snuff and the tea, though it iss the porridge that iss good enough for him, and more than he deserves, for it would be the whisky that brought him to this.

Ina.

Maybe. But who of us get just what we deserve?

Mrs. Slit.

That iss true. Yes! Some get more, and some get less; some have a penny's-worth for their halfpenny, and some only a farthing's-worth for their penny; and it iss the scales of Providence that would not do for a shop, whatever. But I will mind, Miss Ina.

Ina.

That is right. But there is Sir Diarmid's yacht in the Loch. Is he going a trip anywhere?

Mrs. Slit.

Och! it iss that Poet-man that gets the letters and the printed papers every day. He will not be for leaving the Loch, I think. They are saying he iss a great bard or Seannachie, though I never heard him sing, or even whistle, as our lad Kenneth will do.

Ina.

But Poets make songs, and other people sing them now. However, I must bid you good-bye.

Mrs. Slit.

Good-bye; but it iss Miss Doris that will be coming along the street now; and which iss more, she will be picking her steps, and sniffing as if her father would be a Chief instead of a cottar's son. Maybe you will not be caring to see her.

Ina.

Why should I not wish to see Doris? But even if I did not, I cannot help it now, for she has seen me.

Mrs. Slit.

Fare you well, Miss. And take care of that one. It will he easier dealing with Elspet's rheumatics than with her smiles, which only show her teeth.

Ina.
Good-morning, Doris. You are early astir.

Doris.
Well, this is pleasant, Ina, seeing you
Abroad, and like yourself again. They told me
Your eyes were red with weeping; but they're not.
Indeed, I think they never were so bright.
That's right. What is the good of injuring
The very feature of one's face that men
Chiefly admire? One ought to think of that.

Ina.
Ought one? I don't know that I did think of it.
But never mind: my eyes are all right, Doris.

Doris.
That's plain enough to see; you look quite brilliant.
But how did you get through the time of mourning?
Is it not horrible—the blinds, the silence,
The people whispering, the dismal looks?
I was so sorry for you, and I called
A score of times, I'm sure.

Ina.
I'm vexed at that;
The servant only told me about once.

Doris.
Oh, twice, at least. But then I meant to come
So often, and you would not let me in;
Indeed, I thought of you from morn till night,
And could not keep you from my sleeping dreams,
I was so grieved. How did you pass the time?
You don't read novels; yet they're such a help
At such a season. Why, I lay all day,
And got through half of Mudie when my daddy
Dropt from his perch. I can't think how you did.
It's dreadful to be shut up with the Bible,
And Pilgrim's Progress, just like prisoners
Upon the silent system.

Ina.
Well, I was not
Condemned to that quite, though I might have had
Worse company.

Doris.
You did not think of cards,
I daresay; yet you've no idea how
They get you through the evenings, when your heart
Is like to break.

Ina.
No, certainly I did not.

Doris.
Well, it's a pity now; for they just give you
The kind of mild excitement which you need
When you are low—not staking much, you know,
Only what will give interest to the game.
And when I called that day I meant to try them,
In case you had been very bad.

Ina.
Oh, thanks;
I daresay you meant kindly, but you do not
Quite understand me.

Doris.
Yes, indeed I do.
I hear folk say they cannot comprehend you,
But that is their stupidity, and I
Tell them I see you through and through like glass;
You are so simple.

Ina.
Oh!

Doris.
And when you shut
Your door, and would not see a visitor,
I said it was a proper thing to do,
And when the proper time came you'd appear
Splendid as ever; and there you are, my dear,
A miracle of beauty. That dress, now;
You cannot think how perfect you are in it.
Where was it made? But all your dresses fit you.
Was this what smote Tremain?

Ina.
What do you mean?
Who is Tremain?

Doris.
Not know Tremain! and he
Raving about you as a heathen goddess—
Not Venus, but another quite as handsome,
And cleverer far, though I forget her name.
Why, what can Diarmid mean, that he has never
Brought him to see you?

Ina.
Oh, I am not seeing
Strangers at present.

Doris.
But he's quite a genius,
And one should see them when they come one's way,
Which is not often; then he is so handsome,
And knows so many people, and is so
Charmingly wicked—but you'll not like that
Of course, because you've grown up in a Manse
Where every one is bound to be good, of course.
Tremain is quite a pagan, but his gods
Are all dead long ago; and he knows that,
And does not worship Zeus and Aphrodite,
As he would like to do; only he rages—
Ever so eloquent and beautiful!—
At those who overthrow their shrines and altars.

Ina.
Doris, you surely do not lend an ear
To one who, for the living God, would thrall you
To these poor bodiless shadows. He must be
A shallow fool, I think; for there are some
Whose genius, like a marsh-light, flickers where
There is no footing for a man to go.

Doris.
But you know, Ina, I am only half
A Christian, half a Brahmin, and a daughter
Goes with the mother mostly, and I like
The folks you call poor heathens. What he says,
Besides, is that it does not matter much
About our gods, whether they are or are not,
Or what they are. The one thing that concerns us,
Is the idea of life which they call forth,
And ours is now all wrong. The Church, he says,
Has consecrated grief instead of gladness,
Has cast the shadow of the cross where heaven
Poured down the laughing sunshine; even science,
That scorning miracle is full of wonders,
Potters o'er facts and numbers, and makes man
Just a machine for grinding out these facts.
But the old gods of Greece made joyous life
With song and dance and flowers and wine and love—
Oh, you should hear him, just.

Ina.
Do you think so?
I fancy that a cross which tells of hope
Through sorrow, is better than remorseless Fate
Chaining the soul to rocks and piercing ice.
I wish folk had more pleasure in their lives,
More flowers and sunshine, though I'd rather not
More foxglove, hellebore, and deadly nightshade.
What does he say of conscience?

Doris.
Conscience! Oh,
He thinks it is a blister that has made
The soul so sensitive it cannot bear
The touch that nature meant us to enjoy.
He's very scornful of it.

Ina.
So I fancied
The trifler would despies its inspirations.
Zeus neveer had much conscience.

Doris.
Then he brings you
Just to the verge of shocking things, and when
You're bridling up in anger, 'tis such fun
To watch him sailing off, as if he had not
Seen the improper thoughts which made you pause.

Ina.
And does Sir Diarmid like a man like that?
I cannot think it.

Doris.
They're inseparable.
'Tis strange he has not brought him to the Manse.

Ina.
Nay, it were stranger to have brought him there;
Its air would not agree with him.

Doris.
Indeed,
He's quite a revelation—something new
Entirely in these parts.

Ina.
Yes, I should hope so.
A revelation—only of the darkness,
Not of the light. I think I saw the man
Once, and I took him for a coxcomb truly.

Doris.
Oh, but he raves of you.

Ina.
That's likely enough:
His words are mostly ravings.

Doris.
No, indeed;
He has the daintiest fancies, beautiful,
Poetic; and he makes you gasp for fear
Of what he may say next, which is so nice.

Ina.
Is it? I'd rather walk where footing is sure
Than on the thin and perilous bending ice.
But as you will: he does not interest me.

Doris.
That's odd; I think I never met a man
So interesting, so fresh, and so mysterious.
Don't you like mystery in a man?

Ina.
I like
Truth, Doris, first, and reverence and manhood;
And the true man is reverent to all women.
But now, adieu. I am not given to preach,
And young men, they do say, are not like us,
Though why they should not be, I do not know.
But Doris, were I you, I'd hold aloof
From one who grazes improprieties,
And does not blush to make a woman blush.
Farewell.

Doris.
Where are you going, Ina dear?
Oh, to Isle-Monach? Yes! 'tis natural
You should go often there, and Diarmid too
Visits, of course, the graves of all his fathers.

Ina.
I have been once there, Doris, since I laid
My dead in it; and if Sir Diarmid goes
Often, I cannot tell.

Doris.
I fancied you
Might have met, now and then, by chance of course,
Where there is so much to attract you both—
A common feeling of your common kin.
But then he is so busy with his friend
Whom he admires so warmly, dear. Adieu.

[Exeunt.
Chorus.