University of Virginia Library

ACT V.

SCENE I.

Chorus.

Scene—Post Office. Morag and Mrs. Slit.
Mrs. Slit.

Och! and it iss yourself, Mrs. Morag, that will be a sight for sore eyes, which it wass the loch said to the hill when it came out of a month's mist.

Morag.

Your eyes do not need salve, Mrs. Slit; they can do without me, and without the spectacles too, for they are as keen as a hawk's, though you are not so much younger than myself either. But I have been very busy, and I have had my troubles and my tempers too.

Mrs. Slit.

Yes, yes! We are all born to troubles and tempers, as the sparks fly upward.

Morag.

It is just like the seal I am. I get my head above the water maybe for a minute, and turn this way and that to see about me, and then I'm down to the depths again among the crabs and the tangles—that's the troubles and tempers.

Mrs. Slit.

But Miss Ina will not have her tempers, though.

Morag.

Will she not? But she brings out mine whatever; and it is all the same.

Mrs. Slit.

But an angel might do that, Morag.

Morag.

Girls are not angels, Mrs. Slit, as you would know if you had any. Angels will know their own minds, at least, and we have four and twenty minds in the four and twenty hours.

Mrs. Slit.

Yes, I know. It iss a great change to be left all alone.

Morag.

But she is not more alone now than ever she was before. For he would be always at his books and his sermons, as close as a limpet to a rock.

Mrs. Slit.

That iss true, but then he wass always there, Mrs. Morag, which it just makes the difference. My Eachan would be a useless body sitting there by the fire for years, cramped and twisted with the rheumatics. But he wass always there to be seen to, and to be wanting this and that; and it wass not like the same house after his arm-chair would be empty. Poor thing! it iss myself that can be sorry for her.

Morag.

But it is not for you, Mrs. Slit, to be calling her a poor thing, like any fisher-lass in the clachan; and her a lady, and a minister's daughter too!

Mrs. Slit.

Surely she iss to be pitied, Morag, for she iss in trouble, and which iss more, she iss an orphan, and which iss more, she will have no one to look to, but that ne'er-do-well uncle who iss here to-day, and nobody knows where to-morrow, away among heathens or tinklers. Och! yes, she iss to be pitied.

Morag.

No, she is not to be pitied, but to be roused up, and told her duty, and to be respected, Mrs. Slit. And for her uncle, he will be giving her a house and a down-sitting like a duchess, when she will go to him; and he is not to leave Glen Chroan any more.

Mrs. Slit.

It iss yourself that will be going with her then, Morag.

Morag.

She would as ill do without me, Mrs. Slit, as the gull without the water.

Mrs. Slit.

Yes, that iss true, you have been with her all her days. And it iss riding in your coach you will be, and living like the princes and rulers of the earth maybe. When will you be going, now?

Morag.

I do not know when we will be going, or if we will ever be going, and I do not want to go near a house which is no better than a heathen's.

Mrs. Slit.

But she will have to go somewhere soon, for we will be having the new minister, and he will need the manse, no doubt, but I hear there iss no wife to come with him, whatever.

Morag.

Minister! Is it the lad you would be having two Sabbaths ago you call a minister? To think she must leave her father's house for the like of him!

Mrs. Slit.

What iss wrong with him, Mrs. Morag? He iss a very pretty man, and, which iss more, he hass the beautiful Gaelic.

Morag.

Maybe he has: but has he the Gospel, Mrs. Slit? We used to blame the old man because he was more dainty about his words than his doctrine. But this one, he will have no doctrine at all either about God or devil. For I heard him tell Miss Ina at her own fireside that the devil was a myth of the Middle Age. As if he was not as busy with young folk as he is with the like of you and me, Mrs. Slit!

Mrs. Slit.

Och! yes, that iss true, whatever. But what iss a myth, Mrs. Morag? You should know that have lived in a minister's house so long.

Morag.

Do you think that I swallow dictionaries then, because I live in a minister's house? I do not know what it is. But it will be something bad, no doubt, or it would not be spoken about him, middle age or not middle age.

Mrs. Slit.

Yes, it will be something bad. But he hass the good Gaelic.

Morag.

And the devil has the Gaelic and the English too, Mrs. Slit.

Mrs. Slit.

That iss true too; but he will have more English, Morag.

Morag.

Maybe, I do not know. He has plenty Gaelic for his purpose. But is there no letter for us to-day?

Mrs. Slit.

Och! yes, there will be one for Miss Ina. I am thinking it iss from the laird himself. What will be taking him to London now, when we wass all hoping he would be come to settle among his own folk?

Morag.

How should I know what would take him to London? Maybe to bring an English wife to turn up her nose at us. But why did you not tell me of the letter before? and me wasting my time here that never gets out of doors till the bats are out!

Mrs. Slit.

But it wass yourself never asked till this fery minute, Mrs. Morag.

Morag.

And what else would I be here for at this time of day?

Mrs. Slit
(examining letters).

That iss for my lady. It iss thin, and wafered, and blue paper, and will be an account, no doubt; they are not fery welcome at the castle, I fear. There iss no hurry about that. This iss from the gamekeeper to the factor they would be for drowning in the loch. It can wait; he will not be caring for letters yet, I'm thinking. And there iss half a dozen for the long-haired poet-man that will be courting Miss Doris. It iss a bold man he iss, or maybe a blind one, whatever.

Morag.

Who is he, Mrs. Slit?

Mrs. Slit.

I do not know. But he will be

getting many letters and printed papers, and they say he is a great poet in the Sassenach. But, to be sure, that iss not like the Gaelic.

Morag.

Is he often with Doris then?

Mrs. Slit.

Och! they are like clam-shells; there iss no parting them. And he will speak sense to her maybe, but it iss just heathenish gibberish he will be talking in my shop.

Morag.

That will do now. There is Ina's letter. I have been too long away from her. But I was to be sure to ask about your Oe that had the fever.

Mrs. Slit.

Yes, she iss a kind lady, and thinks of everyone. Allisthair iss better now, and will be at the fishing again soon.

Morag.

And how is the fishing and the whisky?

Mrs. Slit.

Not more than usual, Morag, but always too much of the whisky, whatever.

Morag.

Yes! They will be like Donald Levach who was drowned in a ditch; and his last words would be—You are changing the drink, and there is too much water in it, Jenny, too much water.

[Exit Morag.
Chorus.
Truly she did not know it,
Dreamed not of humour or mirth,
Made not an effort to show it,
Travailed no whit in its birth:
Just it came to her easy,
The quaint, odd satire and fun,
Without any purpose to please ye,
Or pleasure in its being done.
Hard and grave were her features,
Though lit up with love now and then,
For laughter was not for such creatures
As sinful women and men.
It was simply the way that she reasoned,
The natural shape of her thought,
While it looked as if cleverly seasoned
With a sharp biting wit she had got.
O ye that strive to be witty,
And hunt through your brains for a quip,
When ye have caught one, in pity
Silence it straight on your lip.

SCENE II.

Chorus.
Shall not a woman insulted have her revenge on the man,
Mock at him, laugh at his anguish, smite with what weapon she can,
Cut where the wound shall be quickest, smile as he writhes in the dust,
Mirthful when he comes a-begging an obolus now, or a crust?
Does not the feeling of injury strike out seeking redress?
And why should the gods plant in her a passion she is to repress?
They know their business, and did not fashion our nature to be
A soft-hearted, soft-headed, milk-and-water philanthropy;
There's a hard grit in it, meant for use at the fitting time,
That rogues and villains may know the bitter bad taste of crime.—
Oh, be gentle and meek, and kiss the hand hot from the blow,
And stint your soul of the pleasure, the keenest of all that we know!
Drive the winds over the ocean, yet say to the mad waves, Peace!
Why should you lift up your heads now? there, let your murmurings cease!
Easy to say, Forgive, and lay up your wrath on the shelf:
But how, if you take it so tamely, shall you respect yourself?
If you're a worm to be trod on, trod on you shall be again;
Never a woman insipid found chivalrous spirit in men.—
So did the wild heart brood now, passioning so in her wrath,
And plotted to sweep her victim ruthlessly out of her path.

Scene—Room in Cairn-Cailleach. Tremain and Doris.
Doris.
Well, sir, what think you of this gear?

Tremain.
Think, Doris!
I am past thinking: there's a social earthquake
Shaking my world, and toppling all things down,
While darkness reigns, and mystery, and silence.
What does it mean? There's Diarmid, on a sudden,
Off like the swallows, with no fare-you-well,
And leaving no more trace than flight of bird
Through the impassive air; his mother packing
To follow him, and not a word to explain,
But Celtic exclamations all day long.

Doris.
So he is gone already.

Tremain.
Ay, he's gone;
But why and whither has he gone, and left
His guest to seek for other quarters, just
When one was taking to the place, and felt
Its strangeness, which at first was like a dream,
Growing familiar, with a taste of life
Fresh as the salt sea breezes?

Doris.
Gone already!
I did not count on that. And she's off too,
After him, doubtless. Much help I have got
From your fine phrases, sir. At every point
Baffled and mocked! I'm weary of you all,
But I will have revenge at least.

Tremain.
What's all
This rage about? It is a pretty play,
And it becomes you rarely, as indeed
All that you do becomes you; yet I like
My Doris tender more than Doris fierce,
Although the softness is more beautiful
By reason of the wrath restrained.

Doris
Pshaw! give me
Deeds and not words: I've had enough of them!
You were to get that girl out of my way.

Tremain.
And out of it she is: well for herself
I daresay.

Doris.
But not well for you, that she
Should drive off like a princess, followed by
The prayers and tears of all her subjects here—
The cripples, the rheumatics, and the idiots,
Who burden this poor land.

Tremain.
Why ill for me?
She has not left a legacy of these
Impotent folk to me.

Doris.
That's as you will.
But he who should have humbled, broken her,
And cast her from him as a thing of naught—
Well, him I could have loved; I hate her so.

Tremain.
And yet you went to see her lately.

Doris.
Yes;
I went because I had no man to go,
And do mine errand, and to smite her with
A word should blight her life, and break her heart,
As I had hoped it would. But with the look
Of a grand tragedy-queen she bade me be
A dutiful wife, forsooth, to my affianced,
And wear with grace what I had won by guile.

Tremain.
Affianced, Doris! am I then to take
This ring from your fair finger, and put mine
Here in its room?

Doris.
You take my ring from me!
Sir Diarmid's ring!—yes, his engagement ring!
I'd sooner part with life than part with it.

Tremain.
What do you mean?

Doris.
Oh, I forgot. You know not
The pretty silly farce we have been playing,
Which is to end in fateful tragedy.
Diarmid came here one day, insulting me
With offer of his hand, but not his heart—
A mere wired flower to wither on my bosom—
Hoping to be refused, and keep his lands
And sweetheart too, because he heard I loved you.
As if I could not see through such a thin
Shallow device, which he did hardly colour
With any show of likelihood!

Tremain.
Of course
You did refuse him?

Doris.
No; but at a word
Frankly accepted him on his own terms;—
Hands without hearts, vows that were lies avowed.
Would you have had me do the very thing
He hoped that I would do, and strip myself
Of all my rights that he might wed that girl?

Tremain.
Well; you accepted only as a ruse—
My clever Doris—meaning, by and by,
To wreck his hope more wholly.

Doris.
Not at all.
You poets, oh, how little do you know
The women, after all, you're fain to paint!
You see their eyes and hair, and hear their words:
But for their minds they are too fine for you.
Men's brains, I think, can have no convolutions,
They go at things so straight and stupid, like
A gaze-hound at a doubling hare.

Tremain.
Nay, Doris,
You could not surely throw away my love.

Doris.
Why should I throw away your love, because
I take an offer offering no love?
Should I not need, and prize it all the more,
That it would give me what my fate denied?
I've heard you say that love is poetry,
And marriage languid prose that never stirs
The pulse of high imagination, having
No passionate music in it. I must have
Some poetry in my life, and you could give it.

Tremain.
Yes! So! Like verses in a magazine,
I might come in to fill a space, a blank,
Between the story and the criticism;
Not even like the Chorus in the Greek
Drama, to fill the passion up, and cry
To the stern fates for pity. Thank you, Doris,
But love like mine will hardly serve for padding.

Doris.
What ails you now? A badly written book
May have its very essence and its life
In the appendix. And my life without you
Were dull enough with him.

Tremain.
You did not mean, then,
To marry him really.

Doris.
Indeed I did, and would;
I should have made his life a misery
Perhaps, and seen him bitterly repent
His dirty bargain; since we both agreed
To join our hands, and keep our hearts apart.
And really I did mean it.

Tremain.
Beautiful tigress!

Doris.
Tigress, if you will; but who has lost
Her spring, and turns more savage on her prey.
Look here. I will not hide a thing from you:
We sealed our bargain by exchange of rings,
And other pretty customary forms
Of kindness and affiance; and straight-way
He hurried to that girl who set him on
To break his plighted troth: contented she
To take him in the shame of such dishonour.

Tremain.
How know you that?

Doris.
How do I know it? Why,
I found them closeted together, heard
His own false lips renounce the vow he made
An hour before. Oh, he was most polite—
My gentleman! and did his villain-work
Like preaching; for of course he had been schooled,
How best to lay the moral varnish on,
And spout fine sentiment. I hate sentiment;
It is the flimsiest lie that walks the earth,
The mere thin ghost of truth. He must admit
With shame, forsooth, his offer was an insult,
And as an insult humbly he withdrew it:
He would not mock a lady with the boon,
If boon it could be called, of loveless marriage:
But frankly he had hoped I would reject it,
Which now he was ashamed of like the rest.
The moral prig! as if I did not know
Where he had learnt his lesson!

Tremain.
So he parted
With house and lands and honours all for love.

Doris.
And you too! You take up the tragic style
To glorify a fool!

Tremain.
Yes, for I could
Give all the world, too, just to win your love.

Doris.
Not long ago you said I was a tigress.

Tremain.
Even so; a grand and proud and terrible beauty,
A matchless strength of passion good or evil,
Like a volcano, having on its slopes
Fair vineyards here, there burning lava-floods.
And howsoe'er you show, you do transfix
My soul with admiration.

Doris.
Oh! Perhaps
You think my fires have burnt up Diarmid's share,
And now the sunny slopes are for your vines.

Tremain.
Why not? You know that poets always were
Alike the favourites of the gods and demons;
And he is gone whom you did never love,
While I am here whom you have said you loved.
What then will you do next?

Doris.
I will pull down
Each stone of that old house, and scatter all
The gatherings of ages—pictures, tapestries,
Arms, chinas, books, and nick-nacks, every heirloom
And symbol of their greatness, sending them
Where never can he hope by any chance
To pick them up again: and then I'll make
A forest of the place, and stalk the deer
Over his threshold.

Tremain.
You are thorough, Doris.

Doris.
Ay! he shall find that, who has flouted me.

Tremain.
Where is he now?

Doris.
Nay, you should know that best.

Tremain.
I know not. There is only Celtic wailing
All through the house, and I have found a shelter
Down in the village.

Doris.
He is gone at least;
And she, too, is away—perhaps with him.

Tremain.
Nay, she went with her uncle yester eve;
I saw her go, and thought her looking pale.

Doris.
Oh yes! you take a mighty interest,
Like others, in her movements and her looks!
Perhaps, too, you are fain to sacrifice—
If you have any such to offer up—
Houses and lands and honour for her love.
By all means do: you have my full consent
To play the fool as he did.

Tremain.
I could play
The fool indeed like him, but not for her:
I think I am even more a fool than he,
Clinging as for dear life to one who bids me
Go seek another love. You know well, Doris,
'Tis easy saying to the captive, Go,
When he is bound and fettered.

Doris.
My poor boy,
Are you so deep enthralled? But what was that
You said about an uncle? She has none.
Her father had a brother once in India
Was something to my father—agent, factor—
What not?—a scant-o'-grace and ne'er-do-well.
But he is dead, oh, years and years ago.

Tremain.
I tell but what I heard. Some one at least
Carried her off last night. I saw them go;
They said he was her uncle. Enough of her.
I know not why you should so hate her, Doris,
Or so hate anything. 'Tis so much better
To love, which sweetens all things like a flower.

Doris.
Ay! better truly for your sluggish souls,
Which, like your English rivers, creep along
Oily and dull and muddy. But for me
My love is hotter than can boil in your
Slow veins, and yet I hate more heartily
Than I can love.

Tremain.
When shall I call you mine,
Doris? Then you shall see how I can love.

Doris.
Why, that you call me twenty times a day.

Tremain.
Nay, do not trifle. Let us fix the time,
Since there is nought to come between us now.

Doris.
Oh, fixing times is stupid. I should hate
The day I fixed, and change it in a week.
Or, when it came, should keep my bed, and sleep
Its hours away, unnoted. But I thought
You were content to love, and held that marriage
Was like the lump of ice in the champagne,
Cooling and weakening passion.

Tremain.
Then I knew not
The agony and ecstasy of love,
The rapture and the misery of hope,
The jealous watching through the troubled nights,
And sinking of the heart. Say when.

Doris.
I cannot.
Maybe a year hence I may settle in
The dull jog-trot of marriage—may-be never.
Who knows what is to happen? I'm content
Meanwhile that things should go on as they do.

Tremain.
You cannot love like me, then.

Doris.
Go away!
I cannot babble sentiment, and coin
My heart into a ballad to be sold
To publishers, and sung by silly maids.
And if you are not satisfied with that
Which I can give you, there are lots of girls
Will lend their ears to hear your dainty speeches,
And even to believe them—they're such fools.

[Exit.
Chorus.

SCENE III.

Chorus.

Scene—Room in Cairn-Cailleach. Doris, Dr. Lorne, and Bennett.
Doris.
What would you, gentlemen? My time is brief.
You ask an interview, and fix the time,
Nor wait to know my poor convenience.
No matter. Only let us to the point
Without preliminary phrasing. My
Mare yonder waits for me, and grows impatient.

Bennett.
We have a little business—

Doris.
Business! Oh!
Here is my factor coming, and he does
All business for me.
Enter Factor.
Let me introduce you.

Bennett.
Happy to know the gentleman; but we
Crave audience of yourself for this affair,
Which he can scarcely order, not at least
Till you shall give him your authority
Express. Yet it is well he should be here
To counsel you.

Dr. Lorne.
Miss Cattanach, of course
You got the papers which I forwarded,
And so far are prepared for us.

Doris.
And pray
Who is this peremptory gentleman?

Dr. Lorne.
My name is Lorne—a friend once of your father's.

Doris.
I've heard of such a person—but he died;
Was drowned, or drowned himself—I forget which;
But people said it would be a relief
To all his kinsfolk. Any friend of his?

Dr. Lorne.
Only himself, come back to plague his friends
Who hoped he had relieved them of his presence,
And who will welcome him like other ghosts
That can't lie quiet in their graves. And now
About those papers, Miss?

Doris.
What papers? Oh!
That trumped-up story of his being alive,
And claiming monies trusted to my father
Years ago; yes, I think the papers came.
I did not read them; they are too absurd,
And you may have them back now if you like.
They're somewhere i' the waste-basket. I'm advised
To prosecute you for conspiracy,
If you are he that sent them; but the writer
Is fitter sure for bedlam.

Dr. Lorne.
You are well
Acquainted with their purport, for a person
Who never read them. As I never doubt
A lady's word, I must conclude you knew
The facts already. That will shorten matters.

Bennett.
Listen, Miss Cattanach; these are grave affairs;
And with a kindly purpose we are here
To choke a painful scandal in the birth,
If so we may. You could not overlook
Those documents.

Doris.
Well, no; I told a lie,
A stupid one too. Yes, I read the trash
With laughter as it merited. It seems
You'd rob my father of his honest name—
Who, you say, was your friend—when he is dead,
And cannot answer for himself; and next
You would rob me, and being but a woman
Weak-nerved of course, you point your pistol at me,
Shotted with stuff incredible, demanding
My money or my life—brave high-way-man!
Pray you now, pull the trigger, sir, and see
If I shall wince.

Dr. Lorne.
So that's your line. And now
Your factor here, does he approve of it?

Doris.
Sir, I can manage my affairs as yet;
I am of age, and not quite fatuous;
But you can ask him.

Factor.
Yes, I do endorse
All that my lady says.

Dr. Lorne.
So be it, then;
There's no more to be said, I apprehend.
Come, Bennett, let us go.

Bennett.
Nay, not so fast.
Do not by haste or wrangling further snarl
A knot already hard to disentangle.
My fair young lady, you can hardly know
The chances or the certainties of Law;
But if I had a little while alone
Now with your agent, I could make it plain
He gives you ill advice.

Doris.
No doubt, you two,
Being closeted together for an hour,
Would order all my life. But I prefer
To shape it for myself.

Factor.
And I would leave
The Law to give to every one his due.

Doris.
As your friend says, I think there needs no more.
This gentleman who went and drowned himself
To benefit his family, that did not
Profit much by his living, turns up now
Modestly asking eighty thousand pounds,
With interest and compound interest
For ten or twelve years past. But since the payment
Of all these monies would go far indeed
To beggar me, he is content if I
Will give up to Sir Diarmid house and lands
Now forfeited to me.

Dr. Lorne.
Ay, so I wrote
In that same paper which you did not read,
And have so clearly understood.

Doris.
Oh yes!
I understand it better than you think:
As thus: I read between the lines that you
Have made a covenant to wed your niece,
Miss Lorne, with Diarmid, who is my betrothed,
But by her counsel falsely breaks his word.
Now hear me. I will fight it to the last,
And will not stint my vengeance, though I starve
My life to feed it. I believe your stories
Are lies from first to last about my father,
From first to last inventions to entrap
Poor Diarmid in your snares. But were they all
As true as they are false, as credible
As they are clean impossible, it would not
Matter to me. That girl shall never sit
My lady in his house, and smile and fawn
Upon the man whose plighted troth I wear,
See, on my finger. There; you have my answer.
Our business now is ended.

[Exit.
Dr. Lorne.
A high-stepping
Filly, that now. But though her tongue is sharp,
And she has touched me somewhat on the raw,
I bear no grudge, if she had only left
Ina alone. I like a clever girl
With pluck and talent.

Bennett.
Was there ever creature
So reckless and unreasonable as
An angry woman?

Dr. Lorne.
Well, I do not know.
She means to get from life the thing she wants,
Cost what it may, as your philosopher
Will burn his diamond just to prove 'tis nought
But charcoal, and we call him wise. It all
Comes to the same at last. One toils for fame,
And from his garret where he gnaws a crust
Scorns your respectable folk; another swings—
I've seen them—on a hook whose iron digs
Into the flesh, and he too laughs at us
Who live by reason; she is fain to have
Revenge for love insulted; and perhaps
Each gets as much from life i' the end as we
Who gather wealth, and think that they are mad.
Only the pursuit pleases; the possession
Is empty or bitter always. But these aims
Have most intense delight, and in their failure
A kind of tragic grandeur. That girl now
Has lived, within this hour, as much at least
As three good years of our lives.

Bennett.
Fiddlesticks!
She is a fool, sir, and her sentiments
Are heathenish or even devilish.
[Looks out of window.
Look at her;
She'll drive that horse mad if she curb him so,
And lash him in her tantrums.

Dr. Lorne.
Ah! that's bad.
Now, if she were a friend of mine, she should not
Ride off alone, for horse and rider have
A wild eye in their heads. She cannot mean
To take the old hill-road on such a brute.
Yes! there she gallops up the rocky path,
Past the old mill, at every hoof a brush
Of fiery sparks; she's near the ashtree now
That sends a low branch right across the way.
By Jove! she's taken it like a fence, and crashed
Right through the twigs and leaves. Well ridden, girl!
Now, could I but throw off some forty years,
I'd risk a ride through life with such a mate.
She's out of sight now. There's an ugly bit
Of road along the crags, above Loch Dhu.
What's that? I could be sworn it was a scream;
And there's no tramp of hoofs now: it is fallen
Terribly silent.

Bennett.
Let us go and see.

Chorus.

SCENE IV.

Chorus.

Scene—Bridge near Glen Chroan Lodge. Ina and Morag.
Ina.
This is the land of sleep; here no man works,
Or thinks.

Morag.
The women work.

Ina.
Oh yes, they toil
'Neath heavy burdens, while their lords, forsooth,
Lie in the sun and watch them sweltering.
I could not live here, Morag; it is like
A life in death, oblivious listlessness
That nothing cares for, and remembers nought.
See, the slow brook creeps sleepily along,
The trout are slumbering yonder in the pools,
The cows lie on the grass with closed eyelids,
Languidly chewing, and the yellow bees
Wheel drowsily about. These inland lakes
Are not like our sea-lochs; there's life in them,
Motion and waves and pulsing of the tide,
And on their shores we know that we are near
The world's great highway thronged with busy life.

Morag.
You used to call Loch Thorar sleepy too.

Ina.
Ay, so it is, compared with busy streets
Where eager industries do push and drive,
And hurrying throngs answer the ringing bells,
And huge unwearying machineries
Are waited on by patient servitors,
Like gods that must be tended morn and eve.
There men and women work, and life is lived
At the full pitch, for there each man is kept
Strict to his task at book or saw or yardstick,
Or whatsoe'er his tool be, by the vast
Machine of civilisation.

Morag.
I am thinking
That no one wants to be just where he is;
We're fain to kick our shadows from our feet,
As we might do our slippers.

Ina.
Maybe so;
And yet I willingly would lose myself
In work which is not wholly for myself,
And thought which is not all about myself.
Yes, I am weary of that.

Morag.
But there's your uncle:
Might you not work, and think a bit for him?

Ina.
He will not let me. He is all for wrapping
A girl in cotton-wadding to be kept
Like a wax-doll. He is my slave to fetch
And carry for me: I am his morning thought,
His daily task too, and his evening care.
I must not let the sun freckle my skin,
Nor yet the night lamp weary my poor eyes,
Toiling at book or needlework or music.
'Tis always Me that must be thought about,
And I am sick of Me. Where did he learn
His notions about women? In the East
Among zenanas? They are worse, I think,
Than our rough crofters' ways.

Morag.
He's very good;
You should be grateful, Ina.

Ina.
Grateful, yes!
But then to live is more than to be nursed
And tended like a baby. What am I,
To get all this observance and respect?
I want to be at work. This idleness
Is like the waste of water-power among
Our hills, which might have brought the people bread.

Morag.
You're weary of being an idol to be worshipped;
And they do say a woman's soul was meant
Rather to worship man, and maybe guide him
To make him worshipful. Are you sure, Ina,
It is the worship, or the guiding of him
That you have dreamt of?

Ina.
Oh, all that is past.
There was a time of fond idolatry
When I did shrine an image in my heart,
And never wearied burning incense to it,
And offering sacrifice, and singing lauds,
And building temples of imagination
For other votaries. That time is gone.
The glory and the beauty and the dream
Are vanished; and the fire is burnt to ashes
That choke when they are stirred. I have no wish
Either to guide or worship, since the stream
That sang along my path amid the flowers
Is all gone dry and muddy and common-place.
God help me!

Morag.
Ina, one day I was sailing
By misty Morven in the early morning,
And as I looked I saw upon the mist
My shadow, and the shadows of all the rest,
And they were only shadows flitting dim,
But on my head there seemed a golden crown
Flashing with diamonds. So it was with all;
Each saw a halo circling his own head,
And all his neighbours only common shadows;
So is the vanity of youthful dreams.

Ina.
Nay, Morag, but the halo and the crown,
In my case, did not rest upon my brow,
Where vanity would put it, but on his;
And now there is no glory anywhere.
But work might bring forgetfulness.

Morag.
But, Ina,
Where can you go that trouble will not come?
You stand upon the beach, and there the waves
Tumble and foam, and, looking seaward, you
Are sure that all is bright and calm and sunny,
Till you are there.

Ina.
But there, at least, you find
Ropes to be hauled, and sails to reef, and waves
To battle with; and I would, like the sailor,
Rather a gale of wind than lie beclamed.
But there; enough of me and my affairs.
Have you heard aught of Kenneth lately?

Morag.
Ay!
Kenneth, poor lad, will never sing again;
His pipe is like the blackbird's, hoarse and rusty,
Just as the summer comes.

Ina.
How do you mean?

Morag.
You know that he and Mairi were together
Sitting among the bracken on the height
When Doris took her last mad ride along
The old hill road. 'Twas they that brought the tidings
How her horse shied there at a sudden turn
Upon the ridge, seeing a raven leap
From a dead lamb that he had picked all bare.
They said the boy looked scared.

Ina.
I do not wonder.
It was a scene of horror.

Morag.
Yes; but now
He says that, hearing that wild tramp of hoofs
Along the rocky path where never horse
Was known to gallop yet, he started up
Just as she reached the perilous turn o' the road;
And he will have it that his sudden rising,
And not the raven, scared the frantic brute,
Whose labouring flanks were white with creamy foam,
And its eyes red with blood, so that it made
The fatal step, and stumbled o'er the brink
Of dark Craig-dhu.

Ina.
It might be so, and yet
No blame to him.

Morag.
But he will blame himself.
And then his Mairi is the heir of all
Her cousin's wealth, and she, he says, could never
Wed him that murdered Doris, nor can he
Touch gold that is so stained with blood.

Ina.
Poor lad!
And what does Mairi say?

Morag.
She sits by him,
E'en like a patient dove beside its mate
That lies a-bleeding, croodling softly to him,
And glad to put her heritage away,
If he will smile again; and that he cannot.

Ina.
Ah me! what threads of sorrow everywhere
Run through this tangled life! But go now, Morag.
Here comes my uncle.

[Exit Morag and enter Dr. Lorne.
Dr. Lorne.
Ina, it is done,
The job you wished, and as you wished it done;
Yet a bad job, I fear.

Ina.
Nay, I am sure
'Tis the right thing, and the right way to do it.
No other way was possible. Does he know?

Dr. Lorne.
He knows that, when a search was duly made,
No deed was found such as he had supposed,
And so there is no burden on his land,
Or claimant for it. It has touched his heart
With some remorseful thoughts about that girl.

Ina.
That's as it should be. It is best for us,
And keeps our hearts the sweeter, that the lights,
Lingering about the grave, are soft and tender.
But he suspects no more—nothing behind.

Dr. Lorne.
Nothing. I wish he did. It is not right
This virtue unrewarded, lavishing
Wealth on a man who writes in melting mood
Of her that wronged him, with no recognition
Of her who set all right. It is too fine
For my taste. 'Tis as God had done his work,
And let the devil take all the credit of it,
Which God Himself objects to.

Ina.
Yet it could not
Be otherwise, for he's a gentleman,
And could not take a gift like this from me.
There was no way except to burn her claim
And yours in the same fire, so blotting out
That chapter, as it never had been writ.

Dr. Lorne.
I don't know that. He could have taken you,
And the rest with you. Men are not so nice
And dainty about marrying money, when
It is a handsome girl that's freighted with it.
There was no need to tell him his good fortune
Till the day after.

Ina.
That is past for ever.

Dr. Lorne.
For ever's not a word for woman's lips,
Nor a man's either. I have sworn it oft,
And every time I swore I had to break
My oath. For Ever—Never, that belongs
To God alone, who does not change His mind.

Ina.
Does he return here soon?

Dr. Lorne.
Yes, I suppose so.
He says that he has found that he can work,
But that he has not found his proper work:
That's here among his people—not in London.
I don't know what he means. There's nothing here
For man to do but shoot and fish and grumble.

Ina.
Oh, he will find his task in life, and now,
Uncle, you'll take me hence. For me at least,
There is no work here.

Dr. Lorne.
Whither would you, Ina?

Ina.
Anywhere, anywhere; but away from this.

Dr. Lorne.
What say you, then, to Italy?

Ina.
Italy!
I never thought of that. Yes! let us go,
And see the picture-galleries and statues,
The Temples of the gods, the Colosseum,
The towns perched on the hills among the olives,
The castles, and the ancient civic grandeur
Of merchants who were princes ruling states—
All that you oft have told me about Rome
And Venice and Verona and fair Florence.
I am so useless, and I wish to learn,
And Italy's a book with many a page
Wondrously written, and illuminate
With golden letters. Yes, we will go there.

Chorus.