University of Virginia Library

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.