University of Virginia Library

DRAMATIC

THE WYNNES OF WYNHAVOD:

A DRAMA OF MODERN LIFE. IN FIVE ACTS.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

• Sir Pierce Thorne, a wealthy brewer.
• Mr. Murdock, a banker.
• Mostyn Wynne, the dispossessed heir of Wynhavod.
• Norman, a poet, son to Sir Pierce, who has assumed the name of ‘Drayton.’
• Robert Murdock, son of the banker.
• Carteret, a young man of family, confederate of Robert Murdock.
• Cross, friend of Robert Murdock.
• Payne, friend of Robert Murdock.
• Tom Price, the young husband of Mrs. Price.
• Owen Owen, foster-brother of Mostyn Wynne.
• Dafyth, a Welsh harper.
• Footmen, Waiters.
• Mrs. Murdock, wife of the banker Murdock.
• Amanda, their daughter.
• Winifred Wynne, sister of Mostyn Wynne.
• Jenny Owen, servant to the Wynnes.
• Mrs. Price, housekeeper to Robert Murdock.

ACT I.

Scene I.

A Dining-room in the Star-and-Garter Hotel at Richmond, with French window open to the garden. Sir Pierce Thorne, Robert Murdock, Carteret, Mrs. Murdock, and Amanda discovered seated at a table covered with fruit and flowers, the remains of a rich repast.
MRS. MURDOCK.
Your three friends, Robert, who see fit to mulct us
Thus of their company, without excuse,
Have won a place of honour in our thoughts,
Which might have failed them had they shown their faces.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I think not, mother. Drayton—that's the poet—
Is one of those whose presence would be felt
If met with in the dark. I do not say
The shock of such a personality
Is always pleasant, mind you. That depends
On right relation.

MRS. MURDOCK.
An electric eel?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Not that. This fellow would not bend or budge
For man or mountain. He's a thunder-cloud,
That sits and weighs on you, then blazes forth,
And scathes you, as with lightning.

MRS. MURDOCK.
Your relation
With Mr. Drayton would not seem the right one.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I hate his Jovian airs, but take some pleasure
In picking up and tossing back his bolts,
As if I thought them plums.

AMANDA.
Fair game; and yet
Such clouds are needed in our social sky;
They change the stagnant air. If Social Science
Could only find their law!

MRS. MURDOCK.
Yes, rule the hour
Of their appearance, and compel them to it.

SIR PIERCE.
The rules that serve their betters, should be made
To serve for them. One law for Peers and Poets,—
No demagogue could ask for more. These artists—

MRS. MURDOCK.
Are outlaws; they defy the world's police.
Amanda peels a peach, and offers you
The sunny side.

SIR PIERCE.
And sunnier for her smile.

[They bow.
AMANDA.
Well, you have urged on us some sense of loss
In Mr. Drayton; but the boy and girl
You wished mamma to see and take to heart,—
Confess that by their absence they have gained
Consideration.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
No, I can confess
To no such heresy. Wynne is a youth
Who shakes you out his heart, as children shake
Their laps of buttercups; and he has eyes,
Dark, lingering eyes, just such as women love,—
I leave him to them gladly; but for her,
His sister, Winifred, I think her eyes
Might almost win a woman to forget
The wrong they did her own.

AMANDA.
Wonderful eyes.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Yes, truly wonderful!

MRS. MURDOCK.
[rising.]
Well, all the same—
Her eyes not being at hand to look me down—
She might have told us in a civil word
That she withheld their light.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
That was my fault.
Miss Wynne—

MRS. MURDOCK.
We'll hear your plea when we return,
Booted and bonnetted. Amanda, come.

[Exit Mrs. Murdock and Amanda. Carteret, having opened the door for them, saunters moodily from the window into the garden.
SIR PIERCE.
Did you say Wynne?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Yes, I said Wynne, Sir Pierce;
The name is Welsh. I need not tell you that.

SIR PIERCE.
No, truly. Welshmen have not many names,
And this one heads the list. My place in Flintshire
Is called Wynhavod, and was once the seat
Of some of them. I bought it for a song.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
A song that was a threnody to them.

SIR PIERCE.
Aye, aye, I think it was. I got the homestead
And some few hundred acres, as I say,
For nothing nearly; paid the mortgage off,
And bought up all the land that used of old
To go with it. Three parishes it covered,
And had not been in one man's hand before,
For near two hundred years. That was a chance,
Seemly, and safe, and seasonable. There,
You have my motto,—it is worth a thought,—
My fortune and repute are based on it.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
A good foundation, doubtless,—deep and broad [Aside]

(as Hell),and safe, I take it, in proportion. [To Sir P.]

And truly it were well it should be so,
For this young dove-eyed Wynne, son of that colonel,
Who lost for him his dwindled heritage,
Is eager as a hawk to find a flaw
In any deed or title which might give him
The hope, that with a life of patient drudging,
He, having scraped enough to buy the purchase,
May wring it back from you.

SIR PIERCE.
The boy is mad. Re-enter Mrs. Murdock and Amanda.

'Twas likely, since he had a fool for father.

MRS. MURDOCK.
[To Robert.]
Now say, my son, what was this fault of yours
Which seemed to me Miss Wynne's?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Miss Wynne is shy,—
Shy as the wild Welsh ponies of her hills—

MRS. MURDOCK.
So shied at us? Misdoubting we were tame.

SIR PIERCE.
The girl is country-bred, there are good houses
About Wynhavod, but their indigence—

ROBERT MURDOCK.
No, not at all; I said Miss Wynne was shy,
As shy as are the ponies of her hills;
I might have said as shy as nightingales,
That seek out quiet haunts to fill with song.
But still it strikes me, if she were that bird
She'd sing oblivious of our listening ears.
I've seen her take her way amid the throng
Of London streets, as if St. Paul's were Snowdon,
As unconstrained by the rude gaze of men
As is a mountain brook.

MRS. MURDOCK.
I wonder whether,
In hearing you speak thus, it perhaps might strike her
That you grew lyrical.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Bitterly.]
I hardly think so.

MRS. MURDOCK.
Now speak, I pray, in your accustomed prose,
And let us know, at last, why we must blame
You for her failure.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Well, I thought it best,
She being—

AMANDA.
Wild, not shy—

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Wild, if you like,—
To try to get the noose of an engagement
Over her head, before she was aware;
So bade her brother, who is in our bank,
To hasten back to Fulham, tell his sister
That they were looked for here, then take the boat,
And so—

MRS. MURDOCK.
Still scheming, Robert. [To Sir P.]
'Tis a pity
The door to fortune was not closed to him,
He would so soon have found some magic word
To cozen it. In years—too long ago—
When he was little and when I was young,
I used to hide his physic in a fig,
And, seemingly impartial, give another,
Undoctored, to his sister. How it happened,
We never could make out; but while we watched,
Amanda got the pill.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
And suffered doubly,
For she grew sick, as I grew well. So much
For justice—not poetical! But pray,
Discount my mother's story; 'tis her way
Of boasting of my parts.

SIR PIERCE.
She has a right;
You get them in direct descent from her.

[Bows to Mrs. M.
ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside.]
She did me, though. scant justice; one so keen
To guard his life from what it loathed would show
His finished art in grappling what he loved.

MRS. MURDOCK.
[Aside to Amanda.]
I owe Sir Pierce's compliment to you.
You leave the lead to me, and quite forget
The game is won by tricks. Look to your cards.

Enter Waiter, with a telegram.
ROBERT MURDOCK.
A telegraphic message—from the Wynnes,
[Reading.
‘From Wynne to Murdock.’ Pithy! ‘We regret
The shortness of your summons, which prevents
Our forced refusal reaching you, to spare
Expectancy.’ A very dainty note
To send by wire. But seventeen words in all,
Bearing her stamp as if they had been signed.

AMANDA.
Miss Wynne regrets the shortness of your bidding;
Not that she cannot answer it.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
How keen!
You read between these telegraphic lines.

AMANDA.
Not keen at all. I quite believe you now,
This lady is not shy as—starlings are.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Rising.]
By Jove, no; cool as one of Juno's peacocks!

SIR PIERCE.
[Rising.]
I grieve to be the one to give the signal,
But if we would not drive into the night
We should be gone. My horses champ their bits.

MRS. MURDOCK.
[Rising.]
Make short farewells, you know Sir Pierce respects
The feelings of his horses.

AMANDA.
When such dear ones!

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I'll see you to the carriage. [To Mrs. M.]
Tell my father
His absence made our cup of sorrows full.
Carteret and I will dream away an hour
Here on the terrace, then return by rail. [Exeunt all.


Re-enter Robert Murdock, and Carteret, from the garden.
ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Taking up a peach, cutting, and throwing it down.]
[Aside.]
Soh, she ‘regrets the shortness of my summons;’
This girl's slight foot is on my neck; but patience! [To Carteret.]

How stands the game betwixt you and your foes,
The Israelites? Have they quite spoiled you?

CARTERET.
Quite.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Shutting the window.]
What devilry is up now with those birds?
One cannot hear one's voice; they cry one down.

CARTERET.
And so they may, for me. I know of nothing
That you or I am like to say worth half
The fuss they make.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside.]
Young beggar, he is sulky;
Since I denied him help to keep him floating
Until those cormorants had picked him clean,
He thinks there's nothing to be got from me.
What does your father say?

CARTERET.
His vocables
Are mostly interjections; he does little
On my behalf but groan and shake his head.
He had a stroke last April.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Who, Sir Digby?

CARTERET.
Sir Digby.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Have you told him that you kept
Those dealings with the Jews unknown to him,
When he believed he'd set you free, and found
A stool for your repentance in our bank?

CARTERET.
Not I.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I gave you that advice.

CARTERET.
You did.
Perhaps I might have thought more of your present,
If it had cost you more.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Aha! that's likely.
The world's a mart, and we, its chapmen, know
That what we get for nought is nothing worth;
All serviceable stock is kept for sale.
Now, if one day you did me—counter-service—
I,—should not be behind-hand with the price.

CARTERET.
What do you mean?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I scarcely know, as yet.
I only feel that life is out of tune
For me, as well as you; if of our fault,
It may be that our fault can set it right.

CARTERET.
If good should come to me of my own earning.
It must be by default. I hate the collar,
And like the trace as little as the whip.
This life is only jolly through misdoing.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Vices are savage masters, though, and nature
An unrelenting usher. [Aside.]
Humph! a man
Might tempt this tender youth, and hardly fear
To find a cloven hoof beneath his stocking!

CARTERET.
Nature has got her price; she may be bought.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Bought off, perhaps; but only for a time;
She's down upon the drunkard in the end,
Whether he's soaked in beer or Burgundy;
And so with all the rest. [Aside.]

I think I'll sound him.

CARTERET.
It isn't beer and Burgundy that make
The odds to us, but Beaune and Chambertin,—
Their better cellarage, and sunnier seasons;
Malt, eaten or drunk, is only fit for pigs.
I say you fellows that are born to banks
And mines and such like, have the pull on us
Poor beggars who inherit worn-out names;
The poisons you may entertain your lives with
Kill slowly. How can yours be out of tune?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
There is a poison that can fire the blood,—
You, perhaps, may never learn it, but I have;
No pleasant vice, that you may buy of higher
Or lower quality, as suits your means,
But something elemental that breaks out,
That strikes you down, and robs you of your reason,—
A lurking venom that one face alone,
Of all that throng the paths of men, has power
To vitalise for you, while not the gold
Of all the mines that ever probed the earth
Can buy its antidote. Carteret, I love—
As if the whole world held one woman only.

CARTERET.
You love? The devil! Why not marry, then,
Your case being—so especial?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
That, by Heaven,
I will; but you must help me. Only help me,
As I will tell you how, and I will start you
As free a Gentile as if every Jew
Were gone to meet the eldest-born of Egypt.

CARTERET.
Well, tell me what you want.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I must explain. [Aside.]

This thing is just as hard to clothe in speech
As it must be to dress an ugly woman! [To C.]

You know the lady; it is she who failed
Our party here to-day.

CARTERET.
Miss Wynne?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
The same.

CARTERET.
What more is there to do but just to ask her?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I'm not faint-hearted; but—

CARTERET.
You're given to shy
At objects overbright. You should wear blinkers.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
An ass's head might serve; so under cover
A fool might bray into Titania's face.
Still,—‘naked’to your ‘langhter’as you see me,
I've got fair change from women as a rule;
But this one—Have you read the ‘Faerie Queene?’

CARTERET.
No.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Then you can't well tell what you might feel,
On meeting Britomart in any skin
But that of Arthegal. If I'm to win,
'Twill be by strategy.

CARTERET.
This love would seem
All on one side,—a sort of a—moral cripple.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
May be. If so, in these æsthetic days,
Fine art, not luck or strength, may serve the turn
Of men who know their minds as I know mine,
In winning what they lust for.

CARTERET.
There may be
The devil to pay for that—

ROBERT MURDOCK.
The devil a doit.
Good—bad—Mere relatives! What's true on earth—
A shabby lump of clay, not even a sphere
But for the sea which puts a gloss on it—
Helps it to make a figure and to shine;—
I say what's true on earth may well be false
In Sirius; so then, not ‘true’ and ‘false,’
Adept and bungler are the terms which
mark
Our quality as men. Adepts are vessels
Of honour—good alembics, that can stand
The furnace, whatsoever broth they cook.

CARTERET.
Save me from fire!

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Ah,—you're a half-baked pipkin,
Good for the dust-heap! All the world is cumbered
With such cracked pottery,—the non-successes
Of Chance. Your breeding should have served you better.

CARTERET.
Not worth a curse! What are you driving at?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Rising, and speaking, as to himself.]
Only success succeeds. Pah! shall I suffer
My will, however come by, still the highest
Of all the forces, streams, or counter-streams,
Of what I call my life, to own constraint
Of blind, unmeaning elements, or worse,
Of some inherent hate which skill might conquer?
Not I.

CARTERET.
What is to do?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Look here; this pair,
The sister, and the brother whom you know
As well as I do, live their two young lives
With but one thought between them, which is this,—
To win that old owls' nest they call Wynhavod
Back from Sir Pierce.

CARTERET.
It seems you don't want me;
Her price is settled.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Once I thought that, too;
But no, she knows—or she is less than woman—
And I'm mistaken if she be not more,—
That I would help her as no other could,
Knowing Sir Pierce; the day that saw her mine
Should see Wynhavod hers, and free to give it
In transfer to her brother. I have tried
All this upon her—just by inference—
And never won a smile to give me hope.

CARTERET.
What could I do, old fellow, when that fails?
Give me my cue.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Her armour is her pride;
Help me to break that down, and I shall win her.

CARTERET.
I shouldn't mind her armour, if you'll warrant
That she is not inside it. Just you bring me
To where it is.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Her pride is in her brother.

CARTERET.
Well?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Now, if he should seem, mind, only seem,—
And that but for a time,—to have disgraced
Himself and her, and I stepped in to ransom
Their lives of all the consequences, then—
I see my way.

CARTERET.
You see your way? The devil!
I don't see mine.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
You shall, though; now, look here.
To-morrow you and Wynne will both be sent for
To take a parcel to the post. My father
Is safe to give it him. It will contain
Six thousand pounds in notes, and be addressed
To Cass and Co., New York. I want that parcel.

CARTERET.
[Rising.]
You mean me—

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Yes.

CARTERET.
Me, to—

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I do.

CARTERET.
But how?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
A hundred ways. The simplest thing might be
To ask it of him,—say you have some pocket
Safer than that wherein he has bestowed it;
You know your ways together, and his habits—

CARTERET.
I will not touch it! All the world to one,
Suspicion—

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Hush! Suspicion, man, will fall
On no one in the end, and, for the time,
Will only light on Wynne. Give me that parcel;
I'll find sure means to have it traced to him.
The cover shall be found in his possession;
The notes I'll take from it, and see to forward
To Cass and Co., under my father's hand.
We'll blow a storm up that shall make us feel
Like demi-gods a day or two, and then—
We'll blow it out; and you will find yourself
Sailing before the wind, glorious and free!
For me, if all go well—and I'll so shape it,
So trim and order, that by Jove it shall—
No woman's watery will should baulk a man's!—
I would not change with any god of Greece!
Come, let us have another weed out there,
And settle the conditions. [Exeunt Robert Murdock and Carteret by a door into the garden.


Enter Norman Drayton, accompanied by a Waiter.
WAITER.
The gentlemen were here a while ago;
'Tis likely, Sir, they've stept into the garden.

NORMAN.
Most likely. Here, a line upon my card
Will tell them all I came to let them know. [Reading as he writes.]

An unexpected complication made it
Impossible for me to keep my pledge;
Pray credit me with reason which, if stated,
Would win my pardon. [Aside.]

Had I sent him this
When first I found my father was his guest,
My writing might have told my father more
Than this will tell to Murdock. [To Waiter.]

Give this card
To Mr. Robert Murdock. [Aside.]
She was here;
I wonder where she sat,—was this her place?
I should have known it by the roses' token—
The sweetness of the air where she has been.
Here it is close, as if conspiracy
Had shut the door upon it. Damask rose-leaves
Shed on the cloth.
[Gathers the leaves into his hand, then throws them down.
She would not so have crushed them.

WAITER.
[Aside, setting table straight.]
He wears a deal of hair upon his face;
He's dropped those crumbs o'roses, but may chance on
A something better suited to his mind.
I'll pin my eye upon him.

SIR PIERCE.
[Without.]
I shall find them
Either upon the table, or beneath it,—
A pair of double eye-glasses.

NORMAN.
That voice!
My father's! [Retreats to window.


Enter Sir Pierce and another Waiter.
SIR PIERCE.
We had nearly got to Sheen
Before I missed them. I remember now,
I used them,—yes, in looking at a couple
Of boats upon the river. Where was that?
I stood before this window.
[Advances abruptly to window where Norman is standing.
Who is this?
Norman? Yes,—no. Allow me, Sir, a moment,
A likeness struck me,— [Lays hold of Norman's arm]
and it strikes me still.
Your name—

NORMAN.
Is Drayton.

SIR PIERCE.
No, two years and that
Wild growth of beard have not so changed my son.
Your name is Thorne. [To Waiter.]

Leave us, and shut the door.

NORMAN.
My name is Thorne, I am your son, I wish
This meeting had been spared to both of us,
But since our paths have crossed in our despite—

SIR PIERCE.
In your despite, Sir; it has been my dream
Early, and late, to cross this path of yours.
You've been in Germany,—at Göttingen—

NORMAN.
I left a year ago.

SIR PIERCE.
Since when I lost
All sight and sound of you. 'Tis a brave thing,
A fine, new-fangled form of wickedness,—
Something to suit the temper of the age—
This casting off a father by a son!

NORMAN.
You put it so. I do not cast you off;
It is not you I shun, if you would own
My right to live my life in such a fashion,—
So to possess my soul—

SIR PIERCE.
Who wants your soul?
Keep it, and make what use you will of it;
Let it rejoice in idleness, or put it
To any dainty work that suits its highness.
I want a son—without a soul, or with one,—
To bear the burthen of the heritage
I've toiled so hard to win, that I have lost
The power to reap the harvest. It is little
That fathers of our day are taught to look for,
But so much—just so much—I thought the frailest
Of youthful spirits of the modern type
Might grant us!

NORMAN.
I entreat you, Sir, to leave
This question where we buried it when last
We parted. There's no sting in sarcasm
Shall make me drag it forth, and urge again
Reasons—

SIR PIERCE.
That showed your mind unsettled—

NORMAN.
Reasons
Whose roots have borne live branches, ripened fruit.
I see you well? I must be gone. I pray you,
No word of this to Murdock. This discretion
Is all that I may ever ask of you.

[Going.
SIR PIERCE.
[Detaining him.]
Stop, stop,—by heaven, are you a king, to choose
Your subjects of discourse, and to cut short
The audience when you will? Stop, boy, and solve me
A riddle that has tasked me day and night:
What meaning lies beyond that foolish feint,
That vain pretence of scorning money, earned,
As money has been earned, and will be earned,
By men who sway the counsels of the State,—
Men who are honoured of their Queen and country,
Great Brewers who have proved their worth and strength,—
Who turned the scale of—

NORMAN.
Sir, what can it profit
To seek for answer, where there is no tongue
By man invented which could make the thoughts
Of one of us the other's? For my motives,
I showed them once in naked truth, when what
Was natural to me, to you seemed monstrous.

SIR PIERCE.
Monstrous! I think so. Scorn a princely fortune,
Because it has been built up by your father,—
Made legally, not levied in black-mail
By some forgotten ancestor!

NORMAN.
Forgotten,
That says unknown, and covers all the case.

SIR PIERCE.
Refuse to take the place that has been made you
Before the world! Your labour is not asked
To keep this great machine of fortune going;
Your part is just to sit at ease, and swallow
The ripest of the fruits, and that in company
Of men who are the nation's prop, good Churchmen,
Good citizens, good subjects,—men who kneel
As humbly in their Churches' services
As if they never kissed a royal hand.

NORMAN.
Ah,—men who scorn not coming from St.James's,
The courts of the house I think they call the Lord's!

SIR PIERCE.
The thing is clearly madness, moon-struck madness!
Decline to take your part in the good things
Your fate provides, with worthy gentlemen
Who shine as magistrates—

NORMAN.
And make the crimes
They sit in judgment on—

SIR PIERCE.
Whose names are seen
To head the lists of charity with sums
To beggar German Princes!

NORMAN.
All too little
To ransom any smallest soul of them
From its appropriate hell.

SIR PIERCE.
Sir, you blaspheme.
I thought it only pride that set you up
Above your father's fortune; but it seems
Some devilish possession. You said Drayton!
You style yourself a Poet!

NORMAN.
No, in truth.
Some that agree to call themselves the ‘world’
Agree to call me by the name. One day
I may not blush to answer to it, now—

SIR PIERCE.
Mad! mad!—I thought it. Hah! poor fool! Poor father!
An only son, who might have had the world
Grovelling before him on bare knees. A Poet!!

NORMAN.
Well, damn me by the name, and let me go.
I told you, Sir, that language means for us
Eternal discord; that the same words stand
For contraries in our vocabulary.

SIR PIERCE.
Then try to clear your wits.
I say, once more,
Do you refuse to lead the life befitting
A gentleman?

NORMAN.
Yes, as you use the title.

SIR PIERCE.
You will not deign to spend the yearly income
Allotted to your use?

NORMAN.
I will not spend it.

SIR PIERCE.
Nor take the fortune, nor support the duties
That would be yours upon your father's death?

NORMAN.
The one would be a burthen, and the other
A mockery.

SIR PIERCE.
You choose to be a beggar,—
So be it, then; go, I have heard enough.
That I who ever strove for some high goal
Should have a son so dead to all ambition!
What did you do at College?

NORMAN.
[Bitterly.]
Only read.

SIR PIERCE.
Yes read,—read books; I sent you to learn men.

NORMAN.
Say noble-men.

SIR PIERCE.
Well, noblemen; are men
The worse for being noble?

NORMAN.
Let me go, Sir.
I grieve that you should have a son who answers
So little to your hopes. When I took honours
I thought, and had some pleasure in the thought,
Your pride would be contented; I was wrong,
I did not know its quality; it seems
We cannot give or take one from the other.
Let us not part in bitterness; you hold
All that you asked of life. For me, no power
Shall make me drag your growing load of wealth,
Or try to roll it on my upward way,—

SIR PIERCE.
Boy, you have made of it a stone to crush me;
Such heirless wealth is—

NORMAN.
Sir, would you but drop it,
Divided, it might lighten tons of care.

SIR PIERCE.
He's mad,—he's moonstruck—

NORMAN.
Merely sane, my father,
As you are not. Oh, could you once behold
The thing that is, the spoils that are your pride—
Spoils tempted from the feeble clutch of fools,
Or reeking with the sweat of wasted labour—
Would rise before you as a pyramid,
A huge, unprofitable pyramid
Of copper, built with pennies of the poor.
I say the pile so got must crush the getter
Beneath its weight of blasted lives, its hopes
Of human progress baffled. All the shame
And tears of tempted weakness, all the sorrow,
Disease, and crime transmitted to the race
In blood and bone must hold in bond the souls
Of those who raise such monuments of woe.
I would not have my spirit lie entombed
In such a mausoleum, though it held
The treasure of the Pharaohs.

SIR PIERCE.
Boy, no more!
You rave; those words are but the sickly fume
Born of an idle brain. I did the work
Which leaves you free to scoff and vapour here.
A pyramid, you call it; be it so;
I built it; go and match it, if you can;
Make it without my aid, and use what stuff
And tools you will. I say go build your fortune,
And learn what work is with my curse upon it!

Robert Murdock and Carteret appear at the garden door.
NORMAN.
I go. My mother knew the time to die.

SIR PIERCE.
Your mother, yes; her grave, her very grave
Will fall to aliens, and my bones to boot.
Begone!

NORMAN.
I dare not, Sir,—I see you are—

SIR PIERCE.
Sick, but of you. Leave me in peace, I say,—
Alone.

NORMAN.
Farewell. [Aside.]
There's other help at hand,
Since mine offends him.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[At the door.]
Soh; I scented somewhat
Of mystery. [Pointing after Norman.]
Sir Pierce's wandering son.

CARTERET.
Heir to a heap of money.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
And,—Wynhavod!

CARTERET
Sir Pierce has cut him off.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
He has, to-day.

SIR PIERCE.
[Rising confused and seeking vaguely on the ground.]
I've lost,—I've lost—

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Coming forward.]
These ‘clearers,’ as I think, Sir.

SIR PIERCE.
Ah yes, these glasses; I forgot the glasses.
Thank ye, I'm glad of them; they've done good service.
But still this fog—this burning sense of loss—
Ah yes; gone, gone! Good evening, gentlemen.

[Exit Sir Pierce, slowly and feebly.
ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Watching him.]
Dispatch, dispatch! he's ill, and may repent him.
This poet, who would cross my path of love,
Shows dangerous. To work, and leave the fool
No time for chance to conjure to his profit.

ACT II.

Scene I.—

An upper room in a rather dilapidated old house, brightened by growing flowers, and tokens of feminine presence and occupation. A large bow-window overlooking the Thames at Fulham. The walls painted with frescoes from the Niebel- ungen Lied. On one side a mirror in an antique frame. Winifred Wynne discovered writing at a table covered with MS.
Enter Jenny Owen knitting a stocking.
JENNY.
Name o' goodness! How you can, Miss Wynny!
Scratching that paper all the blessed day!

WINIFRED.
[ Wearily.]
Yes, Jenny,—all the day since nine o'clock.

JENNY.
I like to see a lady doing nothing;
It's what they're made for, but there's many ways
O' doing it.

WINIFRED.
Well, I only know this one.
Our troubles came before my education
Was fairly finished. I'm but half a lady.

JENNY.
You half a lady! Where's the whole ones then?
A Wynne, and of Wynhavod, though she rose
At five o' the morn and made the bed she'd slept on,
Would be a better lady, still, than many
Of those who lay till noon!

WINIFRED.
You dear old Jenny!
I'll vary my diversions with a walk
To-morrow,—not to-day. My lazy ladyship
Is bent on filling four more of these pages,
Before I go to bed. You know I am subject
To idle whims like this.

JENNY.
Yes, quality
Is full of flimsy-whimsies.

[Knitting fiercely.
WINIFRED.
I wonder where
The piles of stockings that you knit all go to?

JENNY.
'Deed, and Miss Wynny, we've six feet between us.

WINIFRED.
We might have sixty, Jenny; yes, we might,—
We might be centipedes, to wear them all.
You knit as hard and harder than I write.

JENNY.
Work isn't much more hard than play, Miss Wynny. [Aside.]

They neither o' them note that all the fowls
I buy have got four wings, and legs to match.
They eat one with the usual number, then,
How should they know what's hidden in a pie?
Giblets I say, and they're as green as geese.

WINIFRED.
[Looking at the clock, covering her writing, and arranging the room.]
Is it so late? Mostyn will soon be here;
He will be weary, for his writing, Jenny,
Is more than play-work, and the air to day
Must weigh like lead in golden Lombard Street.
How good it is that we can see the sun
Doubled upon the river, and can feel
The breezes cooled in passing over it!
I love this river-road, this water high-way.
I fear you miss your mountains?

JENNY.
'Deed, Miss Wynny,
I've got too much to do to heed such trifles.

WINIFRED.
So much the better; but our lodging here,—
It was no trifling piece of luck which got us
Cheap quarters in this dear old house, and friends,
Great geniuses, to paint the mouldy walls
With frescoes that can bring the glow of Venice
Into a chamber looking on the Thames.

JENNY.
It was not done by geniuses, Miss Wynny,
But all by Mr. Drayton, and I reckon
A gold-ground paper would have done as well.
But here comes Master Mostyn, and I'm wasting
My time along o' you. One sloth makes many. [Exit Jenny.
Enter Mostyn Wynne.


MOSTYN.
I bring you evil news; our holiday
Will be no holiday; we shall not spend it
With Drayton on the river,—shall not float
At noon upon the shadow of the shade
Of Clieveden Woods, or—

WINIFRED.
Mostyn, what is this?
You startle me. Some sudden thing has chanced
To overturn a plan we made—

MOSTYN.
I know
A plan we made before the leaves were green.
It is a sudden thing, or a slow thing
Come suddenly to light. I must be off,—
Yes, to Wynhavod by the earliest train;
It leaves at eight.

WINIFRED.
Off to Wynhavod? You?

MOSTYN.
Yes, I. Who else but I have the poor souls
Who suffer there to look to? Had you heard
What I have heard—

WINIFRED.
From whom?

MOSTYN.
From Robert Murdock.
Had you heard half, I think your tenderer heart
Would have found swifter means to get to them.
I leave—

WINIFRED.
You leave me in the dark! Say, first,
What is this thing beyond the wrong we know of?

MOSTYN.
This: that our foster-brother, Owen Owen,
Has fallen into the pit that has been dug
For him, and all of them, by their devourer,—
Him who slays bodies and lays snares for souls
At every corner of the land he wrung
From helpless hands of orphans,—yours and mine;—
Poor lad! poor Owen! they have got him under;
Temptation had too many stations for him;
His blood was poisoned with their devil's-drink,
And now, a prison offers him State cure
For ills the State promotes.

WINIFRED.
What has he done?

MOSTYN.
Bodily hurt to some one,—nothing much,—
A blow delivered in a drunken fray,
Where all was give and take. But in his case
A sentence means destruction; it means hurling
A man from the incline where they have lured him
Over the rampart to the pit of Hell.
Now, you will see, good sister, where my place is.
No one can plead so well on his behalf
The character he bore so long, and no one—

WINIFRED.
Oh, Mostyn, you must save him! Our poor Jenny!

MOSTYN.
No word of this to her, until we tell her
Her son is free, and sobered by his fright.
This journey will take something from our hoard,
That niggards such as we are loth to spare.
I must not make those poor, proud eyes that love us,
Too shamed and sorry by my altered state.

WINIFRED.
Nay, we are richer than I thought. These last
Six months have not been lean ones. You are weary
Of figures, or you should have proof of it.

MOSTYN.
Weary of figures in the Banking-books;
But like cures like.

WINIFRED.
Well, then, a gentle dose.
See here! Our capital demands three figures
To write it. If the first is but a unit—
A bachelor we'll call it—still, the second
Is growing, and will soon be marriageable.
In ten years' time—

MOSTYN.
I shall be thirty-two;
You thirty, with the brightest of the gold
Faded from out your hair.

WINIFRED.
I shall have coined it.
Let us not count our losses, but our gains.
You will be ten times more a man than now;
Wynhavod will be ours—or, rather, yours.
Then you must marry.

MOSTYN.
Yes.

WINIFRED.
You are the only
Heir of our line. You are the one sole vessel
That holds the treasure of our house's hope.

MOSTYN.
Yes, we have had a legacy of pride,
And little else.

WINIFRED.
We'll get high interest on it;
It was our mother's portion. In good truth,
There is as much humility as pride
In looking past your individual life,
Backwards and forwards, thinking of yourself
But as a link which binds the past and future,
And glorying that the chain has been so long,
Because the links that hold, are stout and true.

MOSTYN.
A grave the depth of half the world were shallow,
To hide the wretch who broke it in dishonour.

WINIFRED.
Dishonour! Do not breathe of it; the air
So stirred, is pestilent.

MOSTYN.
[Regarding her.]
Why, what is this?

WINIFRED.
It is that there are words which stand for things
So past my bearing, that I'd liefer hear
An oath rapped out, than have them said in whisper.
This chain is safe with us; it has, perchance,
Had brighter links, but none of purer metal.
Cherish yourself a little, for its sake;
This journey is too hurried.

MOSTYN.
I am not
So weak a link, but I can bear the shaking.
And then for me there needs no cherishing;
‘Wynnes have been never wanting to Wynhavod,
Since Pridain Blythen took it for his own.’
You know the distich.

WINIFRED.
Surely, and that other:
‘The day the stock of Gwyn ap Blythen fails,
Make the last bed of the last Prince of Wales.’
Historians and prophets—all are with us.

MOSTYN.
Historians and prophets have no word
To say for you, my sister; you had best
Look to yourself; you work too hard, I think;
One-half our capital is of your earning;
Those tomes that you translate—

WINIFRED.
Are heavy reading,
Which always is the case with easy writing.
You would not have me idle? Our old Jenny—
How shall we face her with her unknown sorrow?—
Knits as she goes, I think she knits in sleep,
She surely does in dreams; if all her knitting
Had gone to make one stocking, she could hide
The world within it. Do you know, she sells them
And buys us dainties, which she serves us up
In various disguises.

MOSTYN.
That must cease;
We cannot suffer it.

WINIFRED.
Indeed, we can.
She put in part and lot with us; she left
Her kith and kin and country for our sakes;
She knows that we would cherish her in age
And sickness. Shall we play at Providence—
We two, so young; take the great rôle,and keep it,
Denying her her humble part, the due
Of so much faithful service?

MOSTYN.
You are right;
We must not limit love—

WINIFRED.
For if we could,
The world would be dismembered. Here she comes.

Enter Jenny, announcing.
JENNY.
It's Mr. Drayton. [To Mostyn.]
Master Mostyn, dinner
Is ready in the lobby-room, for one.
Enter Norman. Mostyn and Norman converse in dumb-show.
Miss Wynny, will I bring tea here?

WINIFRED.
Yes, Jenny,
And Mostyn's dinner too; I'll promise you
Your Benjamin will get his mess unshared.

JENNY.
[Aside.]
A mess she makes of it! You'll have your will,
Miss Wynny; but such like was never seen,
Not even in the Colonel's time at home.
We should have locked the doors, and done as though
The house was empty, if the larder failed.

WINIFRED.
That's true, but Mr. Drayton dines somewhere,—
Somewhen,—I think.

JENNY.
[Aside.]
I see what food he lives on,
And where he gets it.

WINIFRED.
[ To Norman.]
You have heard the tidings?
Our midsummer day's dream has been a dream,
And so is ended.

NORMAN.
Yes, the infernal gods
Were struck with envy! One such perfect day
Could make a man immortal. If we bring
Forth little fruit, and die before our time,
It is that we are starved for lack of joy.

JENNY.
[Who has been laying the cloth.]
[Aside.]
If he was starved, he wouldn't talk so big.
I've laid a second cover, anyway.

[Exit Jenny.
WINIFRED.
[Lays her hand upon his arm, and draws him to the table, where all sit.]
We must not make this duty hard to Mostyn.

NORMAN.
I will not; you shall teach me to endure:
You need the rest, I only crave the bliss.

WINIFRED.
Mostyn has told you where he goes, and why?

NORMAN.
Only that he obeys a sudden call.

WINIFRED.
[To Mostyn.]
You have not told him—

MOSTYN.
[Motioning Winifred to silence.]
Only that I start
To-night, and that my business leaves no choice.

NORMAN.
[Aside, rising and sauntering towards the window.]
She should command me wholly, and she shall;
But why must she be nodded into silence?

WINIFRED.
[To Mostyn.]
May he not know?

MOSTYN.
'Twould give him pain.

WINIFRED.
Why so?

MOSTYN.
I may not tell you. Talk of other matters.
He'll follow where you lead.

WINIFRED.
[To Norman, who reseats himself.]
You still are eager,
Still constant in your study of the drama?

NORMAN.
I see these foreign fellows now and then.

WINIFRED.
That's what I mean; that gallant company
Of artists teach us something more than art;
They show us on the stage what may be wrought
By sympathy, and mutual help, and fairness;
In short, by human brotherhood. [Aside.]

Dead silence!
A poet in the dumps might sink a ship.

NORMAN.
They should have stopped at home, for none can teach
Or learn such things in London, where each man
Fears to be trampled in the crowd, and rends
His throat with cries to mark his whereabout.
Our life is lyrical, and not dramatic.
I own some pity for our money'd fools
Who throw their thousands in the mud, and struggle
To rise upon the heap, and thence proclaim
Their rescued individuality.
Their cry is human.

MOSTYN.
[To Winifred.]
Keep him on this tack,
And he will ask no questions.

WINIFRED.
[To Mostyn.]
You are strange. [To Norman.]

For all the scornful pity you bestow
Upon our age's lyric tendencies,
I know you think that now, as in the past,
The poetry that moves the world's deep heart
Must reach its ear as drama. You have said so.

NORMAN.
Yes, poetry has been a living voice,
Whenever it has been a living power.

MOSTYN.
It never will be that again. The world
Is old and fussy, and it wants to speak,
And does not want to hear.

NORMAN.
Has it revealed
Its age to you?

MOSTYN.
I judge it by its seeming.

NORMAN.
Oh noble judge! Oh excellent young man!
The world you reckon senile, is a phœnix,
That many a time has risen from its ashes,
And will again.

MOSTYN.
A poet's dream.

NORMAN.
Say flatly
A fool's,—men always club the two together.
Dreams are for money-grubbers, men who drive
Unwholesome trades which else would go unfollowed.
A poet's business is to see, not dream.

MOSTYN.
We know too much; the minds of men are dwarfed,
Brow-beaten by the growing mountain-ranges
Of fact that rise above us, and shut out
The light of Heaven. We are faint and hopeless,—
Degenerate,—like the men who mope about
The skirts of Chimborazo.

NORMAN.
Let them perish,—
Go hang or drown themselves, or just die out,
And yield their places to a hardier race!
The Alps and Andes crumble, and the Earth—
A pebble long abraded by the waves
Of Time—is wearing smooth; but the wide world
Of thought is plastic still, is young, is growing;
Is throwing up new continents to range,
Vast summits glorious to climb; our powers
Grow with the tasks they tackle; we are rising
With our surroundings. Honoured be our day,
For all the patient workers who cast up
Those mountains that you say obscure the Sun;
The time is not far off when daring spirits—
Poets to match those toilers in the dark—
Will stand upon their crowns, and shout the news,
The latest news from heaven, to the crowd
A waiting them below.

[Rises.
WINIFRED.
[Rising too.]
When that day comes,
The voice I hope to hear will be familiar.

NORMAN.
For in it you will find your own again.
You have not heard it yet; I have but dallied
Upon the fringes of the snow, and made
Toys of the flowers I found there. I might say
Had flapped some ineffectual wings of song,
If wings pertained to creatures of the fancy
So poor in essence, maugre cheap perfection
Of borrowed form, and surface iridescence.
These foreign growths that trail their limbless length
Over our pages, smooth, invertebrate,
Are of base order; they would lose no life
Nor anything of nobler form, bisected
Like earthworms by the spade. For all their grace
I hold them creeping things. I now ‘unpack’
My heart of ‘stuff’that might wax‘perilous,’
Hoping to find the world that lends its ear
To such, will hearken when a weightier theme
Is borne by me aloft. These lays of mine
Which men think fit to take into their mouths
As olives after meat, it's clear that no one
So much as dreams of in his bill of fare;
All know that souls are fed on stronger stuff.

WINIFRED.
Be just to beauty.

NORMAN.
Beauty but skin deep?
Beauty of borrowed pigments? What we want
Is nobler life within. Like happiness,
Beauty is found of those who seek it not.
It asks wide passage; is a dainty sprite
That baffles overmuch of observation;
And we, word-mongers, who would set it tasks,
Keep it the prisoner of our base self-love,
When most we think it ours are mostly mocked;
It passes out, and leaves our empty labours
Just dusted with the glory of its wings.

WINIFRED.
So jealous of pursuit? Is there no way
To win this Ariel's service?

NORMAN.
We may widen
The gates of life, the everlasting doors,—
That so the kingly spirit of Art may enter;
And beauty is his body of revelation.
We think we worship relics which bear witness
To such a presence in the Classic Past;
Vain boast! Our cult is mere idolatry;
Those forms to us are stocks and stones; if shells,
The life has left and shut the door for us.
We praise the work, but half deny the worker,
Seeing what cunning craft is ours unaided.
We praise the work, and in our hearts believing
Our better skill, we take it home, and—varnish!
Our priests of culture make their genuflexions
Before those deep sea cockles, but they win
Small grace of them. I too have knelt, and sought
Morning and night in reverent contemplation
Their secret of perfection. I have seen
That much of them in silent hours like these,
That never will I touch palate or pen
To follow with my humbler means the great ones
Who wrought these moulds which now are filled with sand,
Wanting the impulse of a living thought!
Pray, pardon this taxation of your time;
I keep you.

WINIFRED.
We are glad to be so kept.

MOSTYN.
I have to leave you, though, to throw together
The few effects I need. You'll still be here
In half-an-hour?

NORMAN.
Scarcely.

MOSTYN.
Then, farewell,
Until we meet again.

[Exit Mostyn.
NORMAN.
Farewell. [To Winifred.]
You saw
Too clearly how this disappointment touched me;
I thought to-morrow to have made a day
Of time eternal; to have drunk a draught
So deep, so plugged all senses with content,
That I should never thirst or hunger more.
The white swan-feathers drifting down the stream
Would not have been more aimless. I have lost
A day in heaven,—a day without a morrow.

WINIFRED.
Well for the day; how very poor and pale
It might have looked, beside your glowing picture!

NORMAN.
I have known days that kept their promise richly.

WINIFRED.
[Aside.]
The ground grows dangerous. [To Norman.]

I'll look you out
Those Tryads of our ancient Bards; you said
You wished to see them. They are here; I have
A page or two to finish; we can bear
Each other silent company; our friendship,
I think, is equal to the test.

[Puts the book into his hand, and pointing to a distant chair, seats herself at a writing-table.
NORMAN.
All tests!
I speak of mine. [Aside.]
And spoke too soon of friendship,
Which is a mask of love, her every breath,
Or but the air she stirs in passing near,
Could shatter, if I did not hold it firm.

WINIFRED.
[Aside, preparing to write.]
I never knew till now the intimate charm
Of comradeship like this; now, when I sit
Calmly at work, as if the man before me
Were such a household thing as Mostyn is.

NORMAN.
[Who has furtively drawn his chair to where he can see Winifred reflected in the mirror.]
She shines from out the mirror like a star,
And gazing thus unseen, I dare to pasture
My eyes upon her, and to breathe unheard
The hungry love that wastes my heart of flesh.
Fair Winifred! well named, since to possess you
Were in this world to win the peace of heaven;
And even thus to love you, barred of hope,
Is purifying pain. The heavens themselves
Are not so eloquent of light and law,
As this white soul that takes its radiant course
About an unknown centre, and withholds
My life, and others that attend on hers,
From drifting into darkness. Oh my love!
Yes, I will breathe my secret to her image,
She near, but all unwitting,—to her image,
Her sacred image in the golden frame,
Which shrines and cuts it off from me. Dear Saint!
I lay my heart and all its silent worship
Low at your feet; I may not offer it.
Would it could something serve you; its desires,
Subdued, should make a carpet for your tread,—
Should bend as rushes to your maiden will.
How calm she is; she does not feel the waves
That break so near her.
Winifred shades her eyes with her hands.
See, she veils her eyes,
To make a twilight for her thoughts, and leaves
The world eclipsed; me waiting in the dark.

WINIFRED.
[Still shading her face.]
I cannot write; I know not whence it comes;
The air has grown electrical, the charm
Of mute companionship becomes too keen;
At first, it seemed the odour of a flower
Breathed but in passing; now it penetrates,
Makes faint the sense as with the malediction
Of dying blossoms crushed by ruthless fingers.

NORMAN.
So near my love you seem, and are so far.
Could we but meet a moment,—not like sea
And shore, but like two waves brought face to face,
Bounding with equal impulse each towards each,
Mingling and breaking, mingling for a second,—
Oh God, a second of Thy æons of time!
Could we so meet as in some truer world,
Some world that knows of no constraint but love,
Meet, mingle, eye to eye, and heart to heart,
My life might fall to ruin as the wave,
Rounding itself, grown perfect, breaks and parts;—
One moment of pure being wherein our souls
Should orb themselves, I ask no more of time
But this, just this. [Norman rises; Winifred lets fall her hands, and their eyes encounter in the glass.
[Aloud.]

Oh Heaven, my love,—just this!

[Winifred rises, still gazing at Norman in the mirror. He turns, and faces her.
WINIFRED.
You called,—

NORMAN.
My love!—you answer to the name?

WINIFRED.
Oh, Norman.

NORMAN.
Ah, you answer!

WINIFRED.
[Turning.]
You compel me.

[They join each other. Norman drops on one knee.
NORMAN.
We are not dreaming? No, I hold your hand.
This is the solid earth we stand upon.
Oh, tell me what I dare not ask.

WINIFRED.
I—no!
[Norman springs towards her. She pushes him away.
I have not said the word, I dare not say it!
Pity me, and forget me,—I was mad.

NORMAN.
Not mad love, but I saw your soul unveiled,
And what it told me I can dare repeat.
You love me! But my love is such sheer flame
You cannot bear it, and you seek to hide
Yourself, as seraphs hide who stand wing-folded
Before the face of God.

WINIFRED.
Oh, Norman, help me!
I have undone myself; my life and love
Are not my own. I gave them long ago
As offerings to the living, and,—the dead
And from the dead we cannot take again.
But see how weak I am! I almost told
My love unasked.

NORMAN.
Now tell it at my prayer;
Come, crown me with my name upon your lips.

WINIFRED.
O Norman, could we dare to live a moment,—
Just one before we died to joy for ever!

NORMAN.
They cannot die to joy who live to love.

WINIFRED.
But we must die to love.

NORMAN.
When love is dead.

WINIFRED.
Oh, treacherous Love, that parts us; we have spoken
Words neither can forget.

NORMAN.
They will sustain us
Till our beleaguered souls have got release.
Such utter love as this of mine I think
Could send warm waves throughout the universe,
And thrill with happy life the slumbering germs
Of some unpeopled star. Oh, Winifred,
Say once, but once you love me!

WINIFRED.
Ah, no more!
Do not abuse the strength that makes me weak.
Help me against yourself.

NORMAN.
Alas! our doom
Has parted so our lives, there is no need.
Heaven lies before us, but we dare not enter.
We saw it in a glass, a wonderland,—
And turning found it here; but still the gate
Is guarded,—life's long labour lies without.
Our love flashed forth a moment and might make
Havoc where all was peace, but we will hide it—
Yes, hide it as the jealous earth its jewels;
I will not stir it, touch it with a word;
I'll pluck my eyes out, if their fires should vex you.
One cry broke forth as from another world,—
My love will never dare to speak again;
I am a nameless man—

WINIFRED.
You nameless?

NORMAN.
Yes,—
The name the world has noted is not mine.
The one that fell to me was overlaid
With such base coinage that—well, well, no more;
You would not blush for me—But no, not now;
It is enough that we are doubly parted.
To you I consecrate my life, my youth,
With all its stormy elements, its heat
Of blood and brain; all shall be tame before you;
You shall subdue them to your temperate will,
But do not banish me.

WINIFRED.
No, we will keep
True to ourselves, and all things still shall seem
As heretofore between us; we will meet,
And talk, and part as friends,—unmated helpmates.
But leave me now; I need to find my place
In life again; this gleam has blinded me,
But only for a moment; soon the path
Will show the clearer for it. Go, farewell.
[Norman half raises his arms, then lets them fall.
No, if you love me, leave me to myself;
I lay my first command upon you,—leave me.

[They look silently upon each other. Winifred extends her hand, which Norman takes sub-missively, and they part in silence. Exit Norman.
WINIFRED.
[Alone.]
Dear God, what is the value of the prize
For which I barter life,—my life and his?
A name, which lacking he can yet be nobler
Than kingly titles ever made a man.
A breath, a word from dying lips,—a wish
That may have perished ere the lips that spoke it.
For this I crucify true love,—love dear
As water to the desert wanderer,
Love rightful as the light of day, almost
As needful as the breath of heaven. How changed
My mind and thoughts! a sudden breeze of passion
Has blown upon my stagnant life, and lo!
It drifts from all its moorings. I must find
My purpose and myself. Help me, oh mother!

[Exit Winifred.
MOSTYN.
[Looking in at the door, after a pause.]
She is not here; you need not fear to meet her.
One word,—I hope this will not part true friends.

Re-enter Norman.
NORMAN.
As such, she suffers me; I had not dared
To ask for more; my love broke bounds unbidden.

MOSTYN.
You will forgive her, Drayton?

NORMAN.
Let me go!

MOSTYN.
Her pride-

NORMAN.
I did not ask its sacrifice;
Do not profane her; she is loftier far
Than thought of man could reach her, but by love.
I told her that there stood a bar betwixt us,
On my side, as on hers. Tell her no more;
I told you all long since, as I felt bound;
No need that she should mix me in her thought
With sufferings of the poor she loves so well
And usurpation.

MOSTYN.
She shall know no more.

NORMAN.
I go now.

-Exit Norman.
MOSTYN.
Good-bye, until we meet again.
I leave in half an hour, and have still
Some trifles to arrange.
[Goes to his own secretary, and writes hastily, then rises, whistling, and calling to his dog.
Gelert, old dog,
Where are you? At his post beside the river;
Watching as if for wolves. And Winifred?—
No one to wish me well upon my way.

[Exit Mostyn. Jenny, looking in at another door.
JENNY.
I heard him, Mr. Murdock, Not a second
Agone; he called to Gelert. I'll go and seek him.

Enter Robert Murdock and Carteret.
ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Looking furtively round the room.]
The Fates are with us; see, the coast is clear.
Now for all gifts of cunning,—hand, and eye.
Her writing-table, by the manuscript;
Then this is his, open,—I see, one key
Masters the whole. Soh, here I plant my seed.
[Opening the drawer, and placing the cover of the letter within it.
To Cass and Co., my father's hand, and dated.

CARTERET.
A Devil's crop will follow.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
No, a harvest,
Which I shall reap, and you glean after me.
Our bread will taste the sweeter for our toil.

CARTERET.
You keep the notes.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I keep the notes to forward,
When this has done my bidding; oh, no fear,
I'll clear the premises when all is finished.
One who respects his craft will hardly fail
To—

[Listening.
CARTERET.
Clean his tools?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
No, I'll not promise that.
But Wynne,—he does not come.

CARTERET.
We're here too long.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
He's making ready for his journey. See,
[Looking at frescoes.
Her portrait; it is Drayton's work; that fellow
Has caught her spirit or been caught of it.
Her beauty—and it is her very own
That frowns upon us in this vast Brunhilda—
Is awful as Medusa; it might slay
A man to look on her, if—

CARTERET.
What?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
No matter.
And yet this woman's perfect soul could melt,
Dissolve in love as wholly as the pearl
That made so rich the drink of Anthony!

CARTERET.
I hear—

[Both listening.
ROBERT MURDOCK.
Not her. It is but for a day
That this will damn him. It's a piece of work
Not meant to last,—a sort of skeleton key
To force her pride, and open me a door.
She'll follow him to Wales, to break the blow
As it descends on him—and all the surer
That she'll be made to think he's lying sick there.

CARTERET.
That's your infernal sketch, your crude design.
I wonder—

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Hah! I wonder, too, how first
This madness seized me. Now I cannot stem it.
It sweeps me onward; steady, I shall steer
My course upon it so I keep but cool.
She shall not find him, and,—she shall find me!

CARTERET.
You'll want your blinkers.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
True, but she'll be shorn
Of half her power, thus seeing herself in mine.
She does not know Festigniog; all that part
Is strange to her. She must believe him there.
I little thought, when taking that old place
Upon the banks of Cynfael, it would serve me
To fish for such a pearl! It's muddy work,
The trawling; but the haul is glorious!
I shall be proud of the exploit,—when ended.
Hush! there's a step! If hers, I cannot face her;
I could not meet her eye with these upon me.
Yes, it's her voice; take them,—she comes this way,—
Take them!

[Trying to force the notes upon Carteret.
CARTERET.
Not I.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Take them I say; I feel—
A felon.

CARTERET.
Tut! She cannot see through broadcloth.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
The churl! You will not? Then here goes. [Hastily rolling the notes in a paper that he takes from his pocket, and casting them from the window.
[Aside.]

That brings him
To heel again.

CARTERET.
[Aghast.]
What have you done!

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Just flung
The dirt away to cleanse my hand in case
It touches hers.

CARTERET.
You've flung those notes—where to?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Listening.]
Reprieved! Her voice grows less. Into the river!
Ha ha! You'd see me drown a man I think
With less compunction.

CARTERET.
Murdock, you are not safe
To go at large.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I'm safe to win the lady!
There's many a prince has spent as big a sum
In Roman candles, man, to celebrate
A lesser victory; I've done by water
What others do by fire. You look aghast.

CARTERET.
[Hurrying away.]
I'm off to have the river dragged.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Waste labour.
I've lodged that money safe as in the bank,
There, in that ivy; there has come no soul
To take or touch it. Hush, here's Mostyn Wynne.
Enter Mostyn.

MOSTYN.
I heard that you were here, but I am off
In,— [Looking at his watch]
just five minutes.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I looked in to tell you
You'll need to make no haste. Your place is filled,—
And for a week; I've made all straight for you.
I may be following close upon your heels.
Commend me to Miss Wynne; I will not stay.
You have [Looks round the room, and lets his eye dwell for a moment on Mostyn's secretary[
forgotten nothing?

MOSTYN.
Only this.

[Closes the lid of the secretary with a snap.
ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside, watching him from the door.]
He locks our hands together. She is mine!

ACT III.

Scene I.

A Garden on the banks of the Thames, at Fulham, behind the Wynnes' lodgings. Time, evening. Moon and starlight. A light in Winifred Wynne's window, of which the blind is drawn down. A man's voice heard, softly singing from on board a boat moored on the river.
VOICE.
Enter Robert Murdock, peering from behind a tree.
Enter Carteret.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Hush! he's still there; but going.

CARTERET.
All this while?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Yes, curse him. I have waited here in hiding,
Not daring to appear; his gloating eyes
Seem to absorb the world, and warn me off it.
At length we're quit of him.

CARTERET.
Yes, he is gone.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
It should be in this ivy, where I pitched it
Hearing her voice.

CARTERET.
Murdock, you baffle me;
You cast six thousand pounds as to the winds
Because you hear her tread; this is the madness
Of fear, not love.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Come, Carteret, classify
This thing hereafter; help me now to search.
I took good aim; it should have fallen here,
Within these leaves; to think that crack-brained minstrel
Should moor his boat beneath the sycamore
And scare us from our search.

CARTERET.
It is not here.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Not here?

CARTERET.
No, gone, clean gone.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Gone where?

CARTERET.
Who knows?—
Not I.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside.]
I think not. I have watched him closely. [Aloud.]

This is a complication.

CARTERET.
I should think so!
Six thousand pounds—

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Six thousand feathers, man!
They weigh no more with me; but some one may
Have lighted on it, who may make it known,
And so defeat my plan.

CARTERET.
Six thousand pounds!

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Have done with that! You will not fare the worse.
If this gets wind—But that by Heaven it shall not!
I will outdo the wind, by Jove, or turn it!
I want two days, no more. They can't make known
A thing by proclamation here in London.
What are you digging for?

CARTERET.
I was not digging.
What's now to do?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Well—carry out my purpose;
Get to Festigniog by to-morrow noon,
We two. Then send a wire word from thence
Which fetches her, with tidings that her brother
Is hiding there, and sick; she'll move at that.
Then, even should this paper have been found
By any in the house, and so confuse
The working of my sum, one-half would still
Hold good. I'll give her hospitality
To-morrow night, whether she will or no.
And it shall cost her dear, if dear she hold it
To take the hand I offer her. Her pride
Must drive her to capitulate; this ermine,
So dainty of her whiteness and fair fame,
Will take the plunge that rids it of the stain
Her strange night's lodging will have fixed on it.
I have her fast.

CARTERET.
Murdock, what is your hate,
If this you call your love?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Still classifying.
My love is such, that I would liefer drown her
Here in the Thames, than she should make the joy
Of that mad singer yonder.

CARTERET.
It has cost you
Six thousand pounds already.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Come away,
I will not count the cost, and you can not.
My man has got our baggage at the station.

CARTERET.
You've set your father on the trail?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I told you.

CARTERET.
Wheel within wheel; but are you sure of him?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
He cannot stop, when once you set him rolling.

CARTERET.
Then the bomb bursts on her at ten to-morrow?
I thought I saw it, then.

[Still looking for money.
ROBERT MURDOCK.
'Twas a mirage,
Bred of your impecuniosity.
But come away from this. Farewell, my lady!
Your light will shine elsewhere to-morrow night.
Hush, was not that a sound?

CARTERET.
Yes, on the water.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Drayton,—and he has seen me. Stand aside. [Carteret hides behind a tree.

Enter Norman, from the boat.

NORMAN.
Who's that in hiding there?
[Seizes him.
You shall not go.
What is your business here?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Lawful as yours is.

NORMAN.
Murdock?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside.]
Best satisfy him, he will else
Spoil all. [Aloud.]
I think our business is the same;
It is that light which lures me, Mr. Drayton,
As it lures you.

NORMAN.
Oh, Murdock, pardon me.
I did not know you; and I know you now
In a new character; —you, —love Miss Wynne?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
As you do, with no better hope; we burn
Our wings.

NORMAN.
The stars are too far off, and too
Beneficent; they light, and do not burn.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Excuse me, there; my wings, I fear, are frail.

NORMAN.
And does she know—your love?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Not of set speech.
Nor yours? [A pause.]
[Aside.]

I see; he does not answer that.

NORMAN.
Murdock, I am too poor; I could not help
The purpose of her life, and dare not hope
To hinder it. My views must also keep
Me clear of fortune, for if I could grasp it—
As who shall say I might not—wealth for me
Would mean pollution. If my hand could hold out
More than would lay Wynhavod at her feet,
How could I offer at a shrine so pure
A tainted sacrifice? But this to you
Is meaningless.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
A trifle dark, may be
Just from excess of light. But I am off
By train. I came to take my dumb farewell.
[Kisses his hand at the window.
I leave the watch to you.

[Exit Robert Murdock.
NORMAN.
[Alone.]
He says he loves her.
'Twere well for him, for you, my love, no matter.
Who questions what the sunbeams light upon?
The sun is never shamed. But I mistrust
The wolfish face of him. [Exit Norman, singing to himself.
Re-enter Carteret.


CARTERET.
[Groping.]
I thought I saw it,
Here as they stood together. 'Twas this flint.
[Flings it at the stem of a tree. A low whistle from Robert Murdock.
Coming! needs must, it is the Devil drives!

[Exit Carteret.—Norman's voice heard singing, grows fainter and fainter in the distance, as the scene closes.

Scene II.—

In the Garden, as before. Time, morning. Winifred and Jenny discovered. The former seated at a table, under a verandah, writing, while boats and barges come and go upon the river.
WINIFRED.
Well, Jenny, is that all?

JENNY.
You've said, Miss Wynny,
About the drink got in those lurking-places
Sir Pierce has set by every waterfall,
And mill, and mine, and quarry, and street-corner?

WINIFRED.
Yes, Jenny, I have given him your warning.

JENNY.
Then, give him just my blessing, and I'll put
A cross again it. Now, write ‘Owen Owen’
Upon the cover; now write ‘Dwygyfylchi,’—
Then ‘Conway,’—that will be shorthand, Miss Wynny,
For Dwygyfylchi. Will it find him?

WINIFRED.
Yes.

JENNY.
They're calling me.

[Exit Jenny.
WINIFRED.
[Alone, reading.]
‘Jail, Conway; ’dear old Jenny;
Shorthand, indeed; poor soul, she does not know
The long arm of the Law has hold of him!
Now I shall take these sheets to Mill and Grinder. [Folds up MS.

Re-enter Jenny.
I'll post your letter, Jenny, in my walk,
I promised you I'd walk—

JENNY.
Yes, in the fields
You said to-day; but there,—fine folks are fickle.

WINIFRED.
Yes.

JENNY.
What a sight o'paper you have spoiled;
Surely, Miss Wynny, it's your life you're writing?

WINIFRED.
No, Jenny, dear; I have no life to write.

JENNY.
The folks that have could never spare the time.
I've seen a deal o'life; but I must go
Pick those black-currants, or you'll have sore-throats
And won't have jelly; and the lavender,—
I must be tying that, or you'll have linen,
And naught to sweeten it! You'll see life too,
And life enough; it mostly comes with marriage.

WINIFRED.
Then it will never come for me.

JENNY.
That means
The right man has not come to offer it.

WINIFRED.
It means just this,—that if in days long hence,
When time has robbed me, as it robs the best,
I ever shall be free to give myself,
The gift will be too worthless for my granting.

JENNY.
Leave those that ask the gift to judge o'that.

WINIFRED.
No, I must go full-handed, or stand back
For ever.

JENNY.
There spoke pride, Miss Wynny. Yours
Will eat your heart out, ere 'tis done with you.

[Exit Jenny.
WINIFRED.
So let it. I shall need it all to hold
My purpose fast, and I will feed it well.
Yes, it shall eat my heart, this pride of mine,
If nothing less suffice. But I was wrong.
I have a life,—a life that overflows,
Whose tide is at the spring. The work is hard
That goes against its stream. But I have sworn,
If only to myself, still to myself;
And shall I hold that self, crowned with his love,
So poor a thing, that I break faith with it
Unblushingly, because it had no witness?
Nay, rather break my heart, if it be made
Of such slight stuff. But wherefore talk of breaking?
Both heart and faith will hold until this purpose,
Grown dear with sacrifice, is consummated,
And two young Wynnes have won back old Wynhavod. [Exit Winifred
Re-enter Jenny, with a tray and basin.


JENNY.
I'll pick the currants here, and watch the sun
At work upon the lavender. He gives
Such cheery help, and livens up old bones.
[Voice approaching from the water, singing words of song as before.
That's Mr. Drayton's voice; he takes no thought
More than the birds, but spends his life a-singing.
A little share of Master Mostyn's work
Would sort his rhymes with reason. Rhymes may jingle,—
They won't buy house or land; what's wanted here Is money.

Enter Norman at the garden gate.
NORMAN.
Your young lady is within?

JENNY.
No, Sir, she takes her morning exercise.

NORMAN.
And you her place the while.

JENNY.
No, Sir, I know
My own too well. That is Miss Wynny's chair.

NORMAN.
Of which she makes a throne. I called to tell her
A thing I chanced to see last night, but which
Is scarcely worth her hearing; I will write
A line and leave it; you will give it her. [Feels in his pocket for paper, and brings out a roll, of which he takes off the wrapper.
[Aside.]

I thought to show her I could keep my pledge,—
Present a placid surface, though the storm
Had stirred the depths so newly; it is well
The trial should stand over till to-morrow,—
Her empty place seems yet too full for me.

[Writes on the paper cover, having let fall the roll of notes.
JENNY.
Here is your money, Sir.

NORMAN
What money?

JENNY.
Notes,
A sight o'them; you dropped them from that paper.

NORMAN.
Notes in this paper?

JENNY.
In deed, an'truth they were, Sir.

NORMAN
One thousand pounds! two, four, six What is this!

JENNY.
A deal o' cash to carry in your pocket!

NORMAN.
[Speaking to himself.]
I think my father thinks my poverty
Is a blind beggar that will take all gifts
Absolved of gratitude. This comes from him;—
But how?

JENNY.
It's been in water.

NORMAN.
Hah, and here
Are dints of teeth—dog's teeth, I see. 'Twas Gelert,—
Yes, it was Gelert brought them to the boat.
He swam to me, this roll within his mouth;
And as I take each stick or straw he brings me,—
Feigning to prize it, just to pleasure him,
Because, poor brute, he pants to pleasure me,—
I put them here; so,—but for that, this treasure,
By whomsoever lost, would now be pulp,
Floating upon the Thames. [Meditating.]

Now, what to do?
A child astray,—we ask it where it dwells;
Good; to the Bank, where money is at home.
This for Miss Wynne. [Giving it to Jenny.
[Aside.]

For her in unknown cypher.

[Exit Norman.
JENNY.
Verses, again; he needs must sing on paper;
It wants no English to know rhyme from reason. [Door-bell rings. Exit Jenny into the house.


Re-enter Jenny, with Mr. Murdock and Sir Pierce Thorne.
JENNY.
If you've a mind to wait, it's pleasanter
Here in the garden. My young lady, Sir,
Is gone to take her airing; Mr. Mostyn
Is on a journey.

MR. MURDOCK.
Ha! Is on a journey?
D'ye know where to?

JENNY.
I think to his estates
In Wales, but all was done in such a hurry,
I scarce know where he is, or where I am.

MR. MURDOCK.
[Low, to Sir P. Thorne.]
A sudden evil impulse.

SIR PIERCE
His estates
In Wales,—if he could pocket them, perhaps!

MR. MURDOCK.
Yes, we will wait. Miss Wynne will not be long

JENNY.
No, Sir, for she's on foot,—by doctor's orders.
Gelert is with her. [Aside.]
He's not like to think
Gelert a dog. He'll take him for her footman.

[Exit Jenny into the house.
MR. MURDOCK
He would be off, of course, but we shall gather
Somewhat from her.

SIR PIERCE.
No doubt. I'll watch her closely.

MR. MURDOCK.
I count on that.

SIR PIERCE.
How came this thing to light?

MR. MURDOCK.
[Looking round, and speaking low.]
An accident,—an open drawer! the cover
Addressed to ‘Cass and Co.,’ lying within
My son,—no word of this. He left last night.
It was a shock,—an unexpected shock.
He could not face it,—they were friends of his;
But duty,—and besides, six thousand pounds!
He came to me—

[Pausing, and looking round.
SIR PIERCE.
He came to you?

MR. MURDOCK.
He came
And asked me, by the way, as it would seem,
If we had sent, within this day or two,
Remittances to Cass and Co., New York.
I said we had, but what of that. He turned,
And walked uneasily a pace or two;
Then summoned resolution, and came back
And asked—still loth to look me in the face—
By whom the parcel had been sent to post?
When I said Wynne had taken it, I knew
Some doubt was stirred; I saw him start; but still
I had hard work to worm it out of him,—
But I have dealt with men before to-day.

SIR PIERCE.
He knows your errand here?

MR. MURDOCK.
Oh, yes; he knows
All, to the hour; 'tis a large sum to lose.

SIR PIERCE.
Poor Wynne! A vain, mad boy; his folly soon
Has landed him in crime.

MR. MURDOCK.
His dream, I'm told,
Was to get back Wynhavod?

SIR PIERCE.
Yes, from me!

MR. MURDOCK.
It was that dream that tempted him.

SIR PIERCE.
Exactly. Six thousand pounds it cost me, farm and homestead;
It scarcely paid the mortgage,—but you see
The sum has fitted roundly in his dream.

MR. MURDOCK.
Yes, it is strange. He worked so hard; and how
Could he avail himself when all was done?

SIR PIERCE.
Mad, mad! all boys are mad, in these mad days.
I know it, to my cost; all mad, all moon-struck!

MR. MURDOCK.
I think my son is sane.

SIR PIERCE.
Yes, you are happy.

MR. MURDOCK.
Miss Wynne will soon be here. We must be firm.

SIR PIERCE.
You think she's in his secret?

MR. MURDOCK.
Would be, surely.

SIR PIERCE.
I wonder if she's clever as an actress?

MR. MURDOCK.
That's to be seen. I wish it were well over.
They say she's handsome.

SIR PIERCE.
Have you never seen her?

MR. MURDOCK.
Never.

SIR PIERCE.
Nor I.

MR. MURDOCK.
We must not let that weigh.

SIR PIERCE.
No,—straight to the point.

MR. MURDOCK.
Yes, yes, I'll tackle her,
You'll see. It's painful, so are many things!
It's better to be sudden,—to surprise her,—
Leave her no time for—Here she is.

Enter Winifred, by garden. Mr. Murdock and Sir Pierce both stand back.
BOTH.
[Bowing.]
Good morning.

WINIFRED.
[Regarding them.]
To whom have I the pleasure—?

MR. MURDOCK.
You will know
My name, if not myself—

WINIFRED.
Your name is—?

MR. MURDOCK.
Murdock.
My business here— Allow me to present
My friend, Sir Pierce; you know his name, too,—
Thorne.

WINIFRED.
I naturally know both names; your own,
Not only as a name, but as a power.

MR. MURDOCK.
Which I would always have you feel benign.

WINIFRED.
I have been satisfied to think it just.

MR. MURDOCK.
Untempered justice would be— But you know
I am not here to speak of abstract justice,
[Winifred bows.
Nor any generalities. I come—

WINIFRED.
You come?

MR. MURDOCK.
I need not tell you—

WINIFRED.
Pardon me.

MR. MURDOCK.
You know my errand?

WINIFRED.
No, not quite.

MR. MURDOCK.
You guess it?

WINIFRED.
I hardly feel it worth the while to guess,
Seeing that you are on the way to tell it.

MR. MURDOCK.
[To Sir Pierce.]
You try her, Thorne,—you have not spoken yet.

SIR PIERCE.
You're well aware that that mad boy I hear of
As being in Flintshire—tho' I doubt the fact—
Has gone—

WINIFRED.
Oh, tell me what you know of him!

SIR PIERCE.
We rather wished to hear what you might know.

WINIFRED.
Nothing, but that he did this grievous thing
Unwittingly, unthinking, overtaken—

MR. MURDOCK.
[Eagerly.]
You grant he did it?

WINIFRED.
He was not himself.

SIR PIERCE.
The law will hardly—

WINIFRED.
Oh, the law is cruel;
But you, Sir Pierce, who know him,—you, who hold
His fate within your hands—

SIR PIERCE.
You over-rate
My power; this foolish boy has done—has done—
What lays him open—

WINIFRED.
Yes, I know,—his sentence—
Could it be transportation?

MR. MURDOCK.
[Low, to Sir Pierce.]
She knows all.

WINIFRED.
[To Sir Pierce.]
But you will hear me plead for him, he was
My playmate when a child. No claim on you,
But such a claim on me as must excuse
My urgency; he is so young, has worked
So gallantly; he comes of such a stock,
So faithful, so devoted, and has been
A credit to his kin, until temptation
Undid him. Oh! Sir Pierce, you must forgive me,—
Temptation which he owes to you as owner
Of that which once was ours; you, who have brought
This evil on him, will not let it crush him;
Be for him, not against him, in this matter.
Have you a son?

SIR PIERCE.
And if I have, what then?

WINIFRED.
He might be far away from you, be left
Without your counsel, have to struggle singly
Against the world, and all that threatens youth;
This boy I call my brother was so left;
Think of your son as he might be, so lonely,
So friendless,—and so fallen.

SIR PIERCE.
Lucifer,
Who fell, was not so proud as is my son,
But he is firm, and hard as rock. I suffer.

WINIFRED
I have been indiscreet; my words were arrows
Aimed at a venture. You are moved, you feel,
And will have mercy.

SIR PIERCE.
Such a voice might move—

MR. MURDOCK.
[To Sir Pierce.]
Is this your firmness? [To Winifred.]

This is not a matter
For feeling, but for duty to dispose of.
Sir Pierce is my good friend, but I can heed
No counsel and no pleading in this case.
The offence is far too grave,—a breach of trust,—
A felony so daring—

WINIFRED.
Felony!

MR. MURDOCK.
Yes, felony, what else but felony?
The theft of such a sum—

WINIFRED.
Did you say theft

MR. MURDOCK.
I did say theft; had I said robbery,
Would that have made it better?

WINIFRED.
O poor Jenny!
Shame,—shame for her; the thought will be her death!

MR. MURDOCK.
What does this mean?

WINIFRED.
You'll let me break it to her?
Poor Jenny! poor, poor mother! she so proud,
So fond of him; you'll let me break it to her.

MR. MURDOCK.
Break what,—to whom?

SIR PIERCE.
She's mad, too, like the rest,
All mad together, boys and girls,—stark mad.

WINIFRED.
Being so poor, you think she will not feel
The sting of the disgrace; but she will feel it,
Will die of it, I fear. You'll let me tell her
As gently as such horror may be told?

MR. MURDOCK.
I cannot follow you. Who must be told?

WINIFRED.
The mother of this wretched boy. She knows
Nothing of what has happened. We ourselves
Believed him guilty but of some assault,—
A party in a drunken fray.

MR. MURDOCK.
There is
Confusion here. We speak of Mostyn Wynne,
Your brother.

[A pause.
WINIFRED.
What of him?

MR. MURDOCK.
[To Sir Pierce.]
I cannot tell her!
She does not know. There has been some mistake.

WINIFRED.
An accident! My brother! He is killed!
I see it in your faces!

MR. MURDOCK.
No, not killed.

WINIFRED.
But injured—maimed! Oh, let me go to him!

MR. MURDOCK.
Not maimed. No accident.

WINIFRED
You torture me!
Speak out!

MR. MURDOCK.
You thought him dead. He is not dead

WINIFRED.
Not dead,—not injured! What, then, is to tell
Or hear that needs such fencing?

MR. MURDOCK.
Nerve yourself;
A sum in notes committed to his charge—
A heavy sum—your brother has found means—

WINIFRED.
Found means! My brother—

MR. MURDOCK.
Pardon me the pang
I must inflict; the cover has been traced to—
Been seen in his possession,—he is gone;
He could not brave it out; the evidence
Is dead against him.

WINIFRED.
I am dull, I think;
Pray put your meaning into plainest words,—
As brutal as you will, but short and plain.

MR. MURDOCK.
If you must have it so, we think your brother
Has robbed the Bank of several thousand pounds,
And we are here to search for further proof.

WINIFRED.
I see it—Mostyn Wynne, then—is—the THIEF!

MR. MURDOCK.
The word is yours, not ours; but help!

SIR PIERCE.
Miss Wynne
Is fainting.

WINIFRED.
[Waving them off.]
No, no; stand away!

MR. MURDOCK and SIR PIERCE.
Help, help!
Enter Jenny, from within.

JENNY.
Dear heart! she's dead!

WINIFRED.
Not dead, nor like to die,
Having outlived the bludgeons of these men.
Take—take these keys; show them the house, the drawers,
His desk,—that opens it. These gentlemen
Are—are detectives, searchers.

JENNY.
[Aside.]
Aye, for those notes!
She does not know, and I had best be dumb.

[Exeunt Jenny, Mr.Murdock, and Sir Pierce, into the house.
WINIFRED.
[Alone.]
Theft, robbery! No,—we must punish this.
How will these wretches face me when they come
Shamed from their bootless search? What do they seek?
Can they believe a thief would leave his plunder
Behind him in his den? Oh, poverty,
We thought you had no sting; but insult, outrage,
These are your kin!

Re-enter Mr. Murdock, Sir Pierce, and Jenny.
Well, have you done,—so soon?
MR. MURDOCK.
Alas! it was not far to seek; this proof
Is damning.

WINIFRED.
[Seizes and examines the half-torn cover.]
Proof!

MR. MURDOCK.
Yes, proof; the proof we sought,
Forgotten in his haste; the slender clue
That binds together criminal and crime.
It seems a law of ill that it should leave
Some tell-tale on its track; the deepest plots
Have failed from some such—

WINIFRED.
Hah! it is a plot;
Whose plot, and to what end, remains to see,—
Some proof of that will not be far to find!
Now, if your work is done, I'll thank you, gentlemen,
To leave me, since my work should now begin.

MR. MURDOCK.
I beg you to believe, my dear young lady—

WINIFRED.
Nothing that you can show or say; my thoughts
Are busy; give them room, that they may work.

MR. MURDOCK.
We grieve—

SIR PIERCE.
Our hearts are wrung—

WINIFRED.
Comfort each other,
I have no time to hear or soothe your sorrows.
But if you pity me, you waste your pity;
If you would blacken him, waste villainy.
We Wynnes have been a fighting race; a blow
Aimed at our honour calls to active life
The spirits of the heroes of our line.
You see us two alone and poor, and think
That you may trample us. I tell you no;
A thousand voices call aloud in us,
Our hearts are quickened, and our hands are nerved
As by an unseen army; we have backers
That you know nothing of; the mire, the lies,
You cast at us defile your hands, but leave
Those spotless you insult, but cannot shame.

MR. MURDOCK.
We take our leave; you make our duty hard.

SIR PIERCE.
[Aside.]
I feel the felon. [To Winifred.]

Should you ever need—

WINIFRED.
No, never!
[Exit Mr. Murdock and Sir Pierce.
Jenny, these are stirring times.
Mostyn went yesterday, and now to-day
I needs must follow after; this is news
That, coming unawares, might,—stagger him.
Then, he has work in Wales he cannot leave
Unfinished, and we must confer together
While he is free! Who knows what they may dare
To do with him?—but only for a while.
Hah! we shall have reprisals.

JENNY.
[Aside.]
Shall I tell her?
Oh, Gelert, that I were but dumb like you!
I know not if to hold or loose my tongue.
Nay, I'll say naught, but try what this will say,
Here is a paper left by Mr.Drayton.

WINIFRED.
[Takes paper.]
I know that name; but none who live outside
The circle of my thought can live for me.
[Looking at paper.
He sang this at my window, not last night,—
No, ages long ago, when there were stars.
[Reading, with emotion.
‘Fair lamp, that shinest softly on the night,
Fair love, that mak'st for mine a track of light—’
[Lays down the paper.
No more; one day I gave away my heart;
Now, I must have it back, for I may need
To use it roughly, as we can our own;
Perhaps to give it to redeem our name.
We Wynnes can suffer any loss but honour,
As we can carry any load but shame.
Enter Servant, with telegram.
But what is this? A message, and from Wales.
[Reads hastily.
This news has been before me; he is sick—
No wonder—sick, and at Festigniog!
How comes he at Festigniog?

JENNY.
O the day!

WINIFRED.
There was some mystery—with—him I loved.
My brother would not tell him where he went.
That's nothing! Just a passing mist, no more,
Which Mostyn's truth looks through, and shines the whiter.
But he is sick, and at Festigniog,—
To-night I shall be at Festigniog too,
And well enough to make it ill for them
Who think to blight our hope and blot our fame.
There, Jenny, cease to wring your hands; I feel
The battle-fever on me. You must be
My henchman; come, and arm me for the fight.
You shall be Glaucé, I am Britomart,
My brother Satyrane; we'll overthrow
Liars and lies! I feel my courage rising
As flames from pitch! Now to Festigniog!—hah!
'Tis well this came to guide my course. Festigniog!

[Exeunt Winifred and Jenny.

ACT IV.

Scene I.—

Entrance Hall in Robert Murdock's Place, near Festigniog. A billiard table at the side, to the left of the spectator. An old carved oak cupboard or armoury to the right. Deeply embrasured window at the back of the stage, with a view of distant mountains and the drive winding through the grounds. A round table with books and papers.
Robert Murdock, Carteret, Cross, and Payne.
PAYNE.
Seventy to ninety-two,—the game's a hundred.
Now, Murdock, come; the balls are waiting you;
There's eight to make.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I see my way to make it;
If at a stroke, I'll count it for an omen.

CROSS.
Of what?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Taking deliberate aim.]
Of luck in fishing,—nothing more;
That lovely trout I've angled for so long,
If by a screw I touch the white ball there,
I'll land that trout to-morrow.

CARTERET.
Come, I say;
Your plots are too long hatching.

PAYNE.
Done, by Jove!

CROSS.
A pretty stroke,—a cannon off the red,
And both balls pocketed.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
The game is mine,
And so shall be the trout. You're near the bell,
Just touch it, will you?

[Carteret rings the bell.
PAYNE.
Now, for my revenge;
Come, Murdock, break the balls.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
No, not to-night:
I am content with fortune, and will rest
At one with her. Success is inspiration.

CROSS.
What mischief would you have it help you to?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
The capture of the trout I told you of.
Enter Servant, in answer to bell.
Tell Mrs. Price I want to speak with her.

PAYNE.
What, Hecate, your one-eyed housekeeper?

CARTERET.
One eye was one too many in her head
When with that one the purblind beldame chose
A swaggering young scamp to be her husband,
Who'll squeeze the money out of her for drink,
And leave her pocket shrunken as her skin.

CROSS.
Hush! here she comes.

PAYNE.
We'll leave you to your tryst. [Exeunt Carteret, Cross, and Payne.

Enter Mrs. Price.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Have you prepared the chamber for the lady

MRS. PRICE.
Aye, aye!

ROBERT MURDOCK.
The painted chamber?

MRS. PRICE.
Yes; your own.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
It is the best; I wish to do her honour.

MRS. PRICE.
Well, honour or dishonour, Sir, 'tis ready.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Good; and you've moved me to the room above?

MRS. PRICE.
Your man has moved your clothes there; 'tis a job
Not suited to my time of life. I've got
A mort o' twinges. What with the rheumatics
And—

ROBERT MURDOCK.
You would say your conscience. Now, look here;
I tell you, if that stings, it stings for nothing.
You're welcome to mount guard beside her door.
This lady seeks her brother at Festigniog;
He is not there. To spare her further trouble,
I give her lodging in her own despite.
She must not know to whom she is beholden.
You can keep counsel. Speech would not be silver
To you; but silence, look you, would be golden.
If you still doubt me, and still feel those twinges,
Take this,-a sovereign cure. Ha! ha!

[Gives money.
MRS. PRICE.
You make me laugh, Sir, with your pleasant ways.

Re-enter Servant.
SERVANT.
[To Mrs. Price.]
Tom Price is here.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Without the lady?

SERVANT.
Yes, Sir.
The lady's in the trap, Sir, at the gate. [To Mrs. Price.]

He wants to speak with you.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Well, bring him in.
Enter Tom Price.
Where is the lady?

TOM PRICE.
In a swound almost.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Where is she swooning?

TOM PRICE.
In the trap.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Where's that?

TOM PRICE.
Fast in a rut, the near hind-wheel nigh off.
I loosed the pin, Sir, all as you gave orders.
But had you seen the face of her when first
I told her what had chanced, I'm bound your honour
Would let her go her ways, where'er they led to.
Her brother's sick, and wants her.

MRS. PRICE.
You've been drinking,
Or wouldn't talk that way. You'll smart for this.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Fills a glass, and gives it to Tom.]
[Aside.]
An angler should not shrink from touching slime.
Here, take that, on the top of all the rest.

MRS. PRICE.
You make him harmless, but my way was better.
I should ha' sobered him with fright, and used him
To finish up the job.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Safe have, safe hold.
We're best to keep the babbler here, and send
Some stouter heart to fetch the lady in.
Go, Frost; and mind, we have no wheelwrights here;
This house is uninhabited, except
By you, and Tom, and Mrs. Price, who keep it;
Go, offer her its hospitality,
She'll take it, if you show her that her choice
Lies betwixt that and sleeping in the lane.
[Frost bows and exit.
Now, Carteret, those fellows must clear out;
Get them to go with you;—she's coming, man;
The smoking-room is distant; take them there;
All must be empty here, empty as air;
This house must seem the heritage of ghosts.

TOM PRICE.
[Maudlin, and almost weeping.]
You'll let me fix the wheel upon the trap,
Your honour? 'Twould ha' cut you to the heart
To see her wring her hands, and they so white,—
But whiter was her winsome face.

MRS. PRICE.
[Filling the glass.]
Drink, fool!
Drink to the whey-faced lady; you're in luck.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Yes, drown him wholly. He is dangerous;
And she must see him here, lest she misdoubt
The trap.

[Refills, and gives the glass.
TOM PRICE.
To you, Sir, and the pretty lady.
She looked a l-lily with the rain upon her,
The rain-drops sparkling in the rising moon.

MRS. PRICE.
Ah, see as many moons as there are stars;
We'll soak you soon in liquor till you're blind.
Moonlight, indeed! At night, all cats are grey.

TOM PRICE.
I'll drive you, lady, though I beg for it!

[Falls on the floor.
ROBERT MURDOCK.
His tongue is locked. Quick, now, and draw the cover
Over the table there. We're barely matched
With time.
[Watching Winifred approach from the window.
Soh, all is well, the gate now shuts
On her; she little dreams whereto her steps
Are leading her, or knows the god who guides them. [Exit Robert Murdock.


Enter Winifred, with Frost.
WINIFRED.
Festigniog still ten miles? Well, I can walk it.
Where now is he who drove me? I would give him
Three times his fare to put me on my way.

MRS. PRICE.
There lies Tom Price, my husband, pretty lady.

WINIFRED.
Asleep? Well, sleep is good, but it comes lightly,
It seems to him. You will not mind to wake him?

TOM PRICE.
[Half rising.]
Here, Miss, your servant. Fifty moons or none,
I'll shift to drive you. There's no man could speak you
No fairer now nor that.

[Falls back again.
WINIFRED.
What's this?

MRS. PRICE.
He's drunk.

TOM PRICE.
No, lively, lady! There's no man 'twixt this
And Conway knows this country-side so well,
Especially o' nights—

MRS. PRICE.
A thankless sot!
Maybe, in fifty years, my boy, they'll haul you
Out o' the bog, and show you, fresh as paint,
For money, when I'm not at hand to get it.

WINIFRED.
Oh, I am lost! [To Frost.]

You'll point me out the road?

FROST.
I am a stranger in these parts, young lady.

WINIFRED.
[To Mrs. Price.]
Well, you could tell the turnings I must take.

MRS. PRICE.
What, in the dark? Do you, too, want to pickle
Your white flesh in the bog? I'll tell you nought.
You'd best come dry yourself before the fire,
And take our food and lodging for the night;
We'll turn you out to-morrow.

WINIFRED.
I must go!
I have a brother at Festigniog, who
Is sick, and worse than sick, in grievous trouble;
He wants my help.

MRS. PRICE.
There'll come no help for him
Through you to-night. You'll get no nearer to him
By drowning. So, just take a dry night's rest,—
'Tis better than the river or the bog;
And in the morning early—

WINIFRED.
She is right;
The deepening night dispenses me of choice.
Poor wretch! you lie beneath our country's curse,
And cannot aid me. I will stay, good mother;
Thanks for the offer; I, in truth, am weary.
No; nothing but a bed whereon to rest,
And gather strength for better use to-morrow. [Exeunt Winifred and Mrs. Price into the chamber.
Enter Robert Murdock, stealthily, by opposite door.


ROBERT MURDOCK.
I have you in the pool, my dainty trout;
There will be work enough to angle you.
Strange, how the dark, old place seems sanctified,—
Yes, sanctified, no other word will serve,
But by her unseen presence; she has carried
Her strong, pure purpose through the hall, and purged
Thereby the air our breathing had made gross.
Well, her own atmosphere shall compass her;
She lies there safe as in her nest at Fulham,
While I, with baser means—so better matched with
This muddy ball, the earth—contrive her will.

Scene II.—

The same. Morning.
WINIFRED.
Nay, lay no cloth for me, I beg, but give me
A crust, and I will eat it by the way.

MRS. PRICE.
Na, na; sit down, and have a sup o' tea.

WINIFRED.
The sun is up, I must be off; already
I think I know the road; I have been out,
And tracked it from yon strawberry-covered hill.

MRS. PRICE.
Mad haste, mad waste; you'll no but lose your time,
Unguided.

WINIFRED.
There's a house, I think an inn,
A mile ahead. I'll steer for that, and thence
Make good my further course from point to point.
This [giving money]
for my lodging and all else, and thanks.

MRS. PRICE.
What, going without the crust? [Aside.]
Small hope o' catching
This bird with chaff, but I had best use lime,
If she's too lively. [Aloud.]
'Tis a good ten mile.

WINIFRED.
That's nought, I measure toil with morning strength,
And count the gain of it with morning hope.
So fare you well.

MRS. PRICE.
Stay, while I go fetch Tom.

WINIFRED.
No need.

VOICE.
[From adjoining room, heard through the half-open door.]
It was Miss Wynne, I say; I saw her.
Her face is memorable.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
You are reckless,
Or worse, to say so.

WINIFRED.
Who are they who speak,
It seems of me?

MRS. PRICE.
The gentlemen came back
Last evening, when you were a-bed.

WINIFRED.
Who came?

MRS. PRICE.
The gentlemen from London.

WINIFRED.
I was told
The house was tenantless. One voice of those
Seemed Mr. Murdock's. Can the house be his?

VOICE.
[Still without.]
I saw her;—well; I saw her leave your chamber
At early dawn. I swear it was Miss Wynne,
The fair recluse of Fulham. You deny it.
But later on, I met her on the hill;
She all as fresh, the fact as clear as dew.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Still without.]
Cross, you shall answer this.

CROSS.
[Still without.]
I think I have.
I said I saw a face, and whose it was;
What more I told was wrung from me. If you
Should doubt my senses, or your own, these others
Might ratify the tale of both. The lady
Is close at hand.

CARTERET.
Murdock, you give us leave?

[Omnes approach the open door.
ROBERT MURDOCK.
[With marked distinctness.]
I give you leave to prove this man—a liar!

CROSS.
This matter cannot end beneath your roof,
And shall not. I am off; you'll hear from me.

[Exit Cross.
ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Pausing at the door.]
Miss Wynne!!

PAYNE.
The lady of the hill—

CARTERET.
And of
The Painted Chamber.

PAYNE.
Clear as dew-drops, truly.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside.]
They beat my covert for me, but I hate
The hounds that harry her.

WINIFRED.
How came you here?

CARTERET.
The very question we would turn on you.

WINIFRED.
Which of you is the master of this house?
To him I would explain the accident
Which brought me here, unwitting as unwilling.

CARTERET.
Ha, ha! Come, Murdock, 'tis your cue; ‘unwilling.’
Miss Wynne is perfect in her part.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside]
The brute,
He overlearns all lessons. [Aloud.]
Go; no more!
Your shameless thoughts dishonour you.

[Walking the room as in great agitation.
WINIFRED.
What wrong?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
You kill me with the question. Ah!
You do not know, your high thoughts cannot stoop
To measure those of this low world of ours.

WINIFRED.
I think I must have fallen below the world,
In these last days. What do you mean? Speak out.
If I am still above the ground, I beg
Let me see daylight.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
It is this—. How tell her!—
Your lodgment here last night, seen, known of all
These idlers of the Clubs, interpreted
According to their knowledge of a world
Undreamt by you. Oh, pardon me, I show you
A wound you do not feel.

WINIFRED.
And scarce believe in;
A wound skin-deep, at most. I must be gone;
Last night's adventure has done worse for me
Than start vain fears; it lost me precious hours

ROBERT MURDOCK.
No; it has saved you some. I know your errand,
Seeing I know your mind. You seek your brother;
He is at Conway, thirty miles from hence,
Not at Festigniog, whither you were bound.

WINIFRED.
How can that be?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Believe me, it is so.

WINIFRED.
What meant that telegram sent from Festigniog?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
It meant— but who may tell the shifts, the turns,
Of one who flies from—

WINIFRED.
Let me hear the word.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
It is too bitter.

WINIFRED.
For your tongue, or thought?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Oh, for my tongue! My thought is barred all choice.

WINIFRED.
My tongue is not so dainty. You would say,
‘From justice.’

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Yes, from justice. It is cruel!

WINIFRED.
No; kind as love, and like it, cannot err!
He fly from justice, —he who at its call
Is gone to fight its battle now unaided!
Mostyn is pure, as I can be no more,
Pure even of knowledge of the foul abyss
The thoughts of men may sink to. When he knows it,
We will return and face them; they shall see
That if they force us to the brink of shame,
They cannot drag us over. But no more.
Now, tell me how to get to Conway, quick;
One word of sober sense a sober brain
May act on, would do good among these lies.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Alas, you must have patience, you are bound!
No train will leave for Conway these two hours.

WINIFRED.
I know the road I came, and go to wait it.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
This haste mends nothing now; what's done is done.
The shadow of the roof that you would fly from
Would rest upon you still. Hear me a moment:
The love you seemed to scorn has never spoken
Till now, when it can help you at your need.
It has not pleaded for the bliss it craved,
But now it asks to stand between the world—
The false, ill-judging world—and that fair fame
You hold more dear than life, more dear than love.
Accept my faithful service, and my means
Of making it availing. On one hand,
All evil chances wait you: a proud name
Dragged through the Law-Courts, which must mean at best—
I say at best—defeat of all your hopes.
But no, they were no hopes, they were but dreams,—
And vague as ignorance; my heart has bled
To watch you blunt the bright edge of your youth
Against the gold and iron that opposed
Your struggles. Now, the Dragon of the Law
Stands ready to consume your slow-won gains,
And blight as with a breath of pestilence
All fields of future effort. You have battled—
You nobly, Wynne too desperately—and failed;
So failed, that failure is the least of all
The ills that threaten you.

WINIFRED.
Enough, no more!

ROBERT MURDOCK.
A moment still I pray;—I am your slave,
Trust me to cut this coil, and do the work
For which my hands are better armed than yours.
I hold the golden key you would have toiled for
Through years of costly sacrifice. No, hear me,—
Let me but see the light of those fair eyes,
And with one bound I swear to lift you clear
Of shame and sorrow. If your name has suffered,
I offer one as high in men's esteem;
Take it, and with it love—that cannot speak—
It overweights my tongue; but take my name,
Take, bear it as my wife, and so uphold
The fame of yours.

WINIFRED.
I cannot answer you,
As one deserves who thinks he could bestow
So vast a boon; pray, pardon me for that;
First, to myself my need seems not so great,
And if it were, I'd go a beggar rather
Than use your name, upon the poor exchange
I have to offer on it.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Let me judge
The worth of what you have, and what I lack.

WINIFRED.
No, that must I. My answer is,—Farewell.
I stay too long,

ROBERT MURDOCK.
One word, one moment still.
Wise as you are, your wisdom is too young
To guide you safely in these unknown straits.
We'll call your brother true as you are true,—
I may not judge him; all this evidence
That thickens on him, coupled with his flight,
And the strange mystery of it, may be only
The work of Chance, that takes him for its foot-ball.
But be that as it may, men's minds are still
Governed by proof;—what, if he be condemned?
The thing my name would shield you from, would seem
The likelier by reflection.

WINIFRED.
Let me be.
You cannot tempt, and only torture me;
I will not say insult. I do not fear
Your world of shadows.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I must save you, then,
In spite of all; yes, even of yourself!

[Attempts to lay his hand upon her wrist.
WINIFRED.
You shall not. Hah!

ROBERT MURDOCK.
By heaven and earth, I will.

WINIFRED.
What will you?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Force you to accept the refuge
I offer you against the scorn of men.

WINIFRED.
I answer it with deeper scorn, and you,—
I dare you, as I scorn you, from the height,
Yes, of my trust in everlasting truth.
You have no faith in God or man, in Mostyn
Or me; the world itself is not so low,
But you blaspheme it; him you hold a thief;
And me a wanton to be bought with bribes,
Or a frail coward to succumb to threats
More cowardly—

ROBERT MURDOCK.
These blind strokes shall not serve you.
Think you if you were drowning, I would spare
To make you powerless to subvert my efforts
To rescue you?

WINIFRED.
You threaten force to keep me?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I will release you at a word.

WINIFRED.
What word?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Your promise to be mine;—to take my name.

WINIFRED.
Never, while I withstand to take your nature.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
You shall not rush on ruin—

WINIFRED.
Touch me not!
You will get nothing by your villainy.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Yes, I shall get the heart of my desire,—
The thing whereof the hope sustains my life,
Which I have wearied for in dreams and waking,
Have made my very end and goal of being,
Seeking in crooked paths and straight, since first
Your vision changed the aspect of the world,—
You I shall get.

WINIFRED.
No, nothing but the husk,
The empty shell of me; and if you crushed it
To dust within your grasp,—I should elude you—
Pass forth unspotted from your sin-stained hand.
Away! Help, help! Is there on earth no pity?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside.]
Her cry goes through me as a bird that struggles,
Unnerves the hand that holds it. [To her.]

Do not fear me;
I seek your good. I love you. I will make
No step more near than this, until you give me
The right.

WINIFRED.
Soh; hold to that, and let me go.
The space between us is impassable.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I cannot. Do not hate me for my love;
I offer more than now you care to take,—
A day will come when you will own its value:
For you a shield from slander, for your brother,
Guilty or wronged, protection from the law.
No, I must speak! my father would not press
This suit against the brother of my wife.
Take thought for him, your brother; for yourself,
You may be pitiless, but not of him.
Give me your hand on that,—for love of Mostyn,
For honour of your name, now doubly blasted,
And only so to be redeemed.

WINIFRED.
I will not!
Honour is not to be so lost or kept.
Hah! I have learnt by this how vain our pride,
How poor our strivings were. If I should bide
A year unrescued in this ogre's den,—
And as I think I shall not bide a day,—
My honour would be mine unto the end,
Undimmed, despite all stains upon the rag
Your world knows by the title. It may call me
Your paramour, your mistress, or your victim,—
By any name it knows, except your wife;—
That is a shame not death shall put on me!

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Retreating, and overcome.]
[Aside.]
My weapons cannot reach this Britomart;
She blasts me with her virtue at white heat;
I cower before her. I have sold my sword
And sword-craft to the devil, and—got cheated!

WINIFRED.
Let—let me go.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I cannot.

WINIFRED.
Let me go!

ROBERT MURDOCK.
I'll rather let my life.

WINIFRED.
You shall not stay me,
You dare not. Help! O help! It cannot be
That here are none but fiends.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside.]
With this high soul
I'll make the body try conclusions. [Aloud.]
Lady,
That door is fast: though you are safe within it
As in a shrine.

WINIFRED.
O God of heaven! Norman!
[Flies to the window, and tries wildly to open it. A figure is seen advancing from without.
Ha! Who is this? Himself;—he sees me;—help!
Help, help, I faint!

Enter Norman through the window, having staved in the glass. Winifred falls fainting into his arms.
NORMAN.
Lie safe, my love!

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside.]
Lost! Lost!
The pangs as of a thousand years of hell
Are in this moment.

NORMAN.
[To Winifred.]
I have tracked you, found you. [To Robert Murdock.]

You'll pay down all that life is worth for this.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Unlocking, and opening wide the door.]
You think to storm my house. Begone! No man
Bides here against my will.

NORMAN.
[Still supporting the fainting form of Winifred.]
No house in Britain
Holds out the law.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Advancing menacingly.]
Quit this, or harm will come!

NORMAN.
Stand off; if you but breathe on her you make
A step towards death.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Leave go; she is my charge;
This lady is my wife; your blundering fury
Has brought her to this pass.

NORMAN.
Villain, you lie.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
You, man of double names—Drayton or Thorne—
Shall prove that on your life.

[Opens the armoury, and hastily snatches a brace of pistols, one of which he endeavours to force upon Norman.
NORMAN.
[Taking the loaded weapon from Robert Murdock's hand, and flinging it down upon the table.]
You must be much a fool to count your life—
The wreck you've made of it—a match for mine!
Stakes should be equal. Cease this rant, and listen:
I have you fast within the devil's coil
You wove about these two. You know these notes?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside. Clutching the pistol that he still retains.]
I see that death must be my door of exit. [Aloud.]

How so?

NORMAN.
For having lately left your hands.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Am I a miser that I know the face
Of money that has past between my fingers?

NORMAN.
This is poor fencing. Oh my gentle love,
Is there no help for you in this foul den?

ROBERT MURDOCK.
What proof connects this crumpled trash with me

NORMAN.
Your name upon the paper it was wrapped in.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
A mere thief's trick; that roll was found—?

NORMAN.
Found where
Two knaves were seeking it one starlit night.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside.]
Farewell, fair world!

NORMAN.
No doubling will avail you.
Your struggles scarcely blunt contempt with pity.
She moves; come back to me, my life!

WINIFRED.
Where am I?
Ah, here!

NORMAN
Here, but with me.

WINIFRED.
Take me to Mostyn;
They're crushing out his life.

NORMAN.
No, he is well;
These lies have left him scatheless; see, there stands
The baffled schemer, tangled in the ruin
Of plots whose secret threads are all unwound.
His was the hand that—

[Norman bends over Winifred, and continues speaking in whispers.
ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside.]
Hah! those hated lips
That breathe into her ear what seems my shame;
They shall not live to print their kisses on her!
That dark trap-door of death shall launch us three
Together on the void.

[He moves stealthily towards the table, Norman continuing to whisper in Winifred's ear, and cautiously possesses himself of the pistol dropped by Norman.
NORMAN.
[Aloud, to Winifred.]
Now, that's yourself,
Your brave, strong, noble self again.

WINIFRED.
[Freeing herself from Norman's arms.]
Almost;
But oh! this bad new world!

[Tries to rise, and falls back.
NORMAN.
No love, not yet;
Rest here awhile.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside, taking unsteady aim.]
Ay, make your lover's heaven
Here in this house. I feel the fangs of furies!
Hold a moment.

[Dropping the weapon, and pressing his hand before his eyes.
WINIFRED.
Norman, I live again,
Though in a dream; how came—?

NORMAN.
Nay, love, not now.
All heaven and earth, the very beasts were with us.
Oh Winifred, I hold you!

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside, trying to take aim again.]
So, one ball
Will pierce the twain. What ague shakes me thus?

WINIFRED.
Let go, love; I can walk.

NORMAN.
Not so, sweetheart;
I'll carry you from out this poisoned air.
Jenny awaits our coming at Dolgelly.

WINIFRED.
Only your arm to stay me—

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside.]
How they mix
Their dying breaths. My hand still shakes; they get
A moment's grace ere this hot love of theirs,
Which is for me hell fire, shall be put out.
That covers her. If now my aim were sure,
That all-too-happy heart would cease to beat.
Fool, fool! I thought I loved her as a man;
This mist is womanish.

[His arm falls to his side.
[He drops the pistol into the pocket of his shootingcoat. Norman, and Winifred supported by his arm, move across the stage towards the door.
ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Advancing.]
A word before you part.

NORMAN.
No word can cross
The gulf between us; there is law for felons;
Fly it.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
A word, but not for you.
[Sinking on one knee before Winifred.
My crimes
Against you, lady, are too black for pardon.
I thought you proud, I find you great, too great
To come within the compass of my art.
Your eyes that deal out life and death have settled
My doom,—that matters little. Yet one word,
One word as from the grave that buries shame,
Folly and failure, passion, hate, and all things.
I loved you! Grant me grace to know—I loved you!
The web I wove to win you to myself
I would have so unwound—

NORMAN.
Vain fool to think
That having spent the best of all your strength
In compassing the villainy the first
Unlettered knave if gifted by the devil
Had done with likelier cunning, you might trust
To some hap-hazard opportunity
To build again the thing you had despoiled.
Destruction needs no god to set it going;
A child will crush a hecatomb of flies,—
No hand of man will ever fashion one;
Any beast's hoof will grind a shell to dust,—
Not all the world's creative souls restore
The builder, ground within the shell, to life;
Cellini's self could not so much as chisel
The involuted chambers of a house
Left empty by a snail. This is fool's work
That you have set your hand to.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
Have a care;
You little know how near you were to nothing
A moment since. I have not left you breath
To blow into my face. Fool's work you call it?
No; work to tax a man. The part you shared
With Gelert, was a dog's. I could have righted
More than I wronged.—

NORMAN.
Trickster! The part you bungled
Was mere destruction, and you boast your power
Of raising from the dust a man's good name,
A woman's honour, and her faith in men;—
Things easy to betray as life, and hard
Almost as life to re-instate—

WINIFRED.
Forbear!
No more I pray; this man lies at your mercy.
Enter hastily Mostyn with Tom Price.
Mostyn! My brother!

[Mostyn and Winifred fall into each other's arms.
ROBERT MURDOCK.
Soh, my house already
Is masterless; unwelcome guests may come
And go in it; they scent my death afar.

WINIFRED.
[To Mostyn:]
You still are young as when you left for Wales—
How long ago?

MOSTYN.
Two days.

WINIFRED.
Two lives!

MOSTYN.
And you
Are still your valiant self?

WINIFRED.
All, to a hair.

MOSTYN.
You, Norman, were before me here.

NORMAN.
No whit
Too soon.

WINIFRED.
[To Mostyn.]
What brought you?

TOM PRICE.
I, I fetched him, lady;
Ay, though I die for it.

MOSTYN.
True, he overheard
The talk of two conspirators, and journeyed
All night to bring you help.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside.]
They mouth me; this
Is death without its reverence.

WINIFRED.
Thanks, kind friend!
Mostyn, you know—how much of what has past?

MOSTYN.
All; from our faithful Jenny at Dolgelly,
Where Norman left her. Murdock, can you breathe
In such a company?

WINIFRED.
I pray no more;
Through him I now know, yes,—I now know shame.

ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Aside.]
I will endure. She shall not look on blood.

MOSTYN.
Norman, I did not think to see you here;
There's heavy news for you abroad in Conway:
Sir Pierce lies sick, and all his cry they say
Is for his son.

NORMAN.
My father! I must see him.

MOSTYN.
Our ways then lie together. Owen's trial
Comes off to-day at noon.

[To Winifred].
[Exeunt Norman, Mostyn, and Winifred.
ROBERT MURDOCK.
[Advancing to the window, and watching their figures as they grow less in the distance.]
So ends the game; I've played it ill, and lost.
There's nothing left to do but dout the candle;
After long agony, I now can die.
These foolish, soft, strange fancies that have held me
In lingering torment for her sake, were like
The wild bird's feathers in the bed, that keep
The dying wretch from shuffling off the flesh.
Nature, blind builder, what strange stuff you work
Into our consciousness; but Death is lord
Of all. Farewell, fair lady! One last look;—
The sun that sets for me, makes day for him;
No more of that,—my eyes shall hold her image
For death to seal within them; so I win
Of both at last, and so, fair world, farewell!

[Robert Murdock sinks upon a chair, and raises the pistol to his mouth. The discharge is heard as the curtain descends.

ACT V.

Scene I.

The great Hall of Wynhavod House. The walls hung with old portraits, arms, trophies of the chase, and a huge genealogical tree. A high oak chimney-piece, with dog-irons and deep chimney-corners beneath, and a settle on one side. The whole overlaid with articles of modern luxury and virtu. View of Welsh mountains and the sea from an oriel to the right.
Dafyth the Harper, leaning despondently over his harp, and two London Footmen discovered.
FIRST FOOTMAN.
Come, Taffy, strike!

DAFYTH.
Ah! Strike! I wish I could.

SECOND FOOTMAN.
Tune up; the master's coming.

DAFYTH.
Humph, his going
Wou'd seem more tunable. But we are sold,—
Sold to the Devil, you, my harp, and me,
And all the music in us.

[Strikes one melancholy chord, and pushes the harp aside.]
FIRST FOOTMAN.
How, now, Taffy?

DAFYTH.
Dafyth's my name, which, being interpreted,
Means David. We've been harpers, man and boy,
Since Wales became dry land, and Dwygifylchy
Rose from the flood.

SECOND FOOTMAN.
You chose a poor trade, Taffy.

DAFYTH.
Dafyth, I say! The name is well beknown;
One of my ancestors stood godfather
To Dafyth, King of Israel.

FIRST FOOTMAN.
Ho! ho!
He'll tell us 'twas the christening gift broke down
The fortunes o' the family! Hold hard.
[First Footman places himself beside the door, second Footman exit hastily. Dafyth strikes up ‘Of a noble race was Shenkin.’
Enter Sir Pierce Thorne in a wheeled chair, attended by Norman.

SIR PIERCE.
Last night I never thought to see again
These mountains, in their morning caps, or hear
The gossip of the waves upon the shore.
Now, not alone I hear and see, but each
Familiar thing strikes sharply on my sense,
As if that brief cessation of the wheels
Of life had brought new conscience of their motion.

NORMAN.
I'm glad they go so smoothly that their turning
Brings you new joy.

SIR PIERCE.
New hope, or short-lived joy;
I see my son beneath the roof I meant
That he should call his own, while I looked on;
Yes, and surprised some sorrow in his eyes
When mine reopened upon this side death,—
As loth to lose the father long denied.
That was a dawn of light I thought had set
Upon your mother's grave; boy, do not quench it;
It is the light which seems to gild the hills,—
It makes the music of those hollow waves.

NORMAN.
I would not quench it; it was grief to see you
So stricken, Sir; but calm yourself.

SIR PIERCE.
No calm!
Joy be my cure, since grief has been my bane.
You sent for Mostyn Wynne?

NORMAN.
Yes.

SIR PIERCE.
And his sister?

NORMAN.
Both, as you bade me.

SIR PIERCE.
They have suffered sorely
From evil chance, and will of wicked men;
And though they scape this pitfall, still the world
Is a bleak place for lambs so closely shorn.

NORMAN.
Yes, a bleak place.

SIR PIERCE.
She, Norman, in herself
Is such a gem, that she might almost dim
The jewels in a coronet; a peer,
A prince, might even get new lustre from her.
And, by my soul, the diamond can flash fire!

NORMAN.
You saw all that?

SIR PIERCE.
I would I had the setting
Of such a jewel!

NORMAN.
You would set it—how?

SIR PIERCE.
I'd make of it the crown of this—your home,
The casket whence it fell—

NORMAN.
No more, I pray you;
I must not hear such words. [Aside, in great agitation.]

Great God, forbid
This purest thing should tempt me to my fall!
I dare not tell him that my will holds firm
To keep my hands clean of his wealth.

SIR PIERCE.
[Aside.]
He stiffens
His back against me, but I've got a corner
Still in his heart; that's something for a father
In these hard times. Young dog, but he shall smart
A little longer yet.
[Norman returns.
This stroke has been
A warning of the hour that ends the day;
Nay, so you took it, and your pride was softened
So far that you vouchsafed to reassume
The name you dropped in scorn, accounting it
Too plain to bear the flourishes you thought
To add to that you grasped from out the air.

NORMAN.
I fear this warning, Sir, has left you where
It found in point of justice. You must know
Your name seemed not too poor, but far too rich,
Too cumbered with the spoils of ruined lives,
For me to bear it proudly. Let us turn
To kindlier subjects. Be content I bear it,
And bear it yet more humbly that I feel
Some shame in having dropped it.

SIR PIERCE.
Boy, stop there,
And gild it, if you can, with some choice metal
Will make it brighter in the world's esteem
Than gold has done. Tut, tut! you have a name
That stands for solid substance, not mere wind,
To offer to the woman that you love.

NORMAN.
You guess my secret, then?

SIR PIERCE.
I guess your secret,
Albeit no conjuror.

NORMAN.
Then feel for me.

SIR PIERCE.
I do, right joyfully. If you have won
Her love, your cup is fairly full I take it.

NORMAN.
Full, but of bitterness. I neither hope
To turn the current of her life, nor speed it.
She has a purpose which I may not further.
I have a call— No more of that; enough.
Our lives are doubly parted; they were rent
Asunder at the Lodge an hour ago;
They could not flow in sight of one another,
Unmingled and in peace, as we believed
When first we told our love. I must stand off,
And let her shape her course without me, while
I ‘dree my weird’ alone. Ah God I wonder,—
I wonder will she always so ‘dree’ hers?

[Walks off, overcome by emotion.
SIR PIERCE.
[Aside.]
He feels the prick; his joy will be the greater.
I play the fiend to his St. Anthony!
I'll back the boy to win,—ha, ha! my son,
Keen to foil fortune, as I was to court her!

NORMAN.
You'll spare me when she comes. I am too sore
To suffer more as yet, and could not meet her
Here in this house, where—

SIR PIERCE.
No, I cannot spare you;
I need your help to give the Wynnes Welsh welcome.
That this might savour of their former home
I've sent for Owen and his mother; he
Has been acquitted on the major count,
And had his fine discharged upon the minor.
They should be here.

NORMAN.
Well, just another tug;
It cannot draw more blood when hope is dead.

SIR PIERCE.
This woman's guile has cost her masters dear.
These Welsh will hide a fact as dogs hide bones,
For hiding's sake.

NORMAN.
Poor soul, she hid this, lacking
The faith to breast the tide of proof which seemed
To fix the crime on Mostyn. Gelert's ‘find’
To her seemed damning evidence, so might it
To me, had I not seen those ferrets hunting. [Norman retires up stage.
Enter Owen Owen and Jenny.


FIRST FOOTMAN.
[Announcing.]
Them parties as was ordered to appear.

JENNY.
Good day to you, Sir Pierce.

OWEN.
Your servant, Sir.
You'd speak with us?

SIR PIERCE.
I would, my man. This house
Will soon change hands, I think—

JENNY.
[Regarding him critically.]
Indeed, Sir Pierce,
You do look sadly; that a' can say for you.

SIR PIERCE.
Will soon change hands. My son is my successor.
I hope his looks and ways may suit ye better.
[Jenny slowly curtseys assent.
I thought to say before I went from hence,
To say to you, my man, that I,—a—regretted
Your drunken folly, more because I feared
I seemed to have some hand in your temptation.

JENNY.
An' sure I hope, Sir Pierce, that where you go
There won't be no temptation to build publics.

SIR PIERCE.
No. There, I think they stand too thick already.

JENNY.
The Lord ha' mercy, then, upon your soul!
We all must know that place, though loth to name it.

Footman.
[Announcing.]
Miss Wynne and Mr. Wynne.

SIR PIERCE.
Kind of you both
To serve a sick man's whim. My cheeks, fair lady,
Should show you some poor counterfeit of health,
Some faint resemblance to a blush, remembering
My part—

WINIFRED.
In what we'll drown too deep for speech.
So near to death should be not far from Lethe.

SIR PIERCE.
For me?

WINIFRED.
I mean for you. But you are better?

SIR PIERCE.
Still better for the pardon in your eyes.
See here, your honest servants are before you;
So much is changed, I thought these well-known faces
Would help my welcome.

MOSTYN.
Much is changed, but more
Remains the same.

SIR PIERCE.
Well, well, the chief improvements
Are yet to see.

MOSTYN.
We overlook them all,
The whole being so familiar.

SIR PIERCE.
[Aside.]
Overlook?
The money spent to make their shambling ruin
A home for Christian folk, they—overlook.

Enter a Footman, giving a card to Sir Pierce.
SIR PIERCE.
Ah! bid these ladies to my audience, too.

Enter Mrs. Murdock and Amanda.
MRS. MURDOCK.
We find you risen; the danger past; what joy!
I am Amanda's follower, no power
Could hold her when the messenger who came
To seek for Mr. Drayton at our house
Informed us of your illness.

AMANDA.
I had feared
You were alone—untended.

SIR PIERCE.
As I soon
Shall be, unless the pity that has granted
This angels' visit should extend itself.

[Sir Pierce beckons to footman, who removes his chair, and he retires up the stage followed by Mrs. Murdock, and speaking earnestly with Amanda. Dafyth quits his harp, and approaches Mostyn.
MOSTYN.
My brave old Dafyth.

[Gives his hand, which Dafyth takes with effusion.
DAFYTH.
Oh, the day, the day!

MOSTYN.
The day that we invoke will not be yet.
There's weary work betwixt us and the time
Our labour may avail to ransom all
The faithful souls who wait us. But you, Dafyth,
You look as full of favour—

DAFYTH.
'Tis their flesh-pots.
Ha! ha! To pass away the time, I spoil them,—
These cursed, low Egyptians; yes, I spoil them.
[Mostyn joins the group round Sir Pierce, and Dafyth returns to his harp.
Norman and Winifred coming forward.

NORMAN.
I see you once again, but have no heart
To greet you in this house, and dare not welcome;
Your kinsfolk in the past all seem to chide me
Here as my father's son.

WINIFRED.
We must go forward,
Our roots alone are in the past, all fruit
And flower is of the present. Let the dead
Bury the dead; no living soul is more
Than love and labour of his own can make him.
The fires of these last days have purged us two
Pure of some prejudice.

NORMAN.
Yet, love, I think
Your words are braver than your heart this moment.

WINIFRED.
They shall uplift my heart.

NORMAN.
To see you thus
Would still be joy, though death had seized on mine.

WINIFRED.
Love conquers death.

NORMAN.
But life can martyr love.
We hold our ways aloof—

WINIFRED.
Because our lives
Are dedicated.

NORMAN.
Even in this hour
Temptation has been giving me hot work.
One word might crown the hope of all our lives,
One wished-for word—

WINIFRED.
But never give it breath,
That way lies treason—

NORMAN.
To our nobler selves,
That cannot so be crowned; I know it all,
So fought and conquered, but am furious
Still with the strife. I could have placed you here,
Where need of you is rife, and love prevails
To make its labours fruitful.

WINIFRED.
Hush, no more;
We tried that ground, and found it could not bear us.
We shall find comfort in our faithful toil,
And you,—the wakening world is wanting you.
Our life—streams must not join, nor even flow
In sight of one another. But let be;—
We buried that,—let be.

NORMAN.
Farewell!

WINIFRED.
Farewell! [Aside.]

This final wrench uproots my heart.

MOSTYN.
Sir Pierce
Is waiting this long while for speech of you,
And grows impatient.

SIR PIERCE.
Bid them not cut short
Their talk for mine. We fathers have been taught
To bide our time in silence.

NORMAN.
We have spoken
Our last.

SIR PIERCE.
You say your last? 'Tis well, my son,
Now hear MY word. Draw round me all; and Norman,
Give me that parchment roll.

[Norman gives parchment. All stand round Sir Pierce's chair in silence.
NORMAN.
Your thought would seem
To speak me harder—

SIR PIERCE.
Ha! you would accept it?

NORMAN.
More gladly, if it spoke your love with hers.

SIR PIERCE.
Then, with her dying and my living love,
Take this. See here, her hand and deed, Wynhavod,
And all the land belonging thereunto,
Bought with her money, pure of any stain
From mine; her money and her father's, gathered
God knows from what foul quarries long ago,
But cleansed, maybe, by wholesome use. This parchment
Will tell no more.

NORMAN.
Wynhavod!

MOSTYN AND WINIFRED.
Ha, Wynhavod!

AMANDA.
You part with dear Wynhavod?

MRS. MURDOCK.
[Low to Amanda.]
No great loss.

OWEN.
They're pitching it about from hand to hand.

JENNY.
They say, when things are stirring, Wynnes must win.

SIR PIERCE.
Now all is said; both house and land are yours.
Miss Wynne is here, there's nothing left to do
But lay it at her feet.

NORMAN.
I lay it there.

[Norman lays the parchment on the ground before Winifred.
WINIFRED.
Such joy might kill! Wynhavod, and with you!

NORMAN.
This is the heaven prefigured in the glass;
We enter it together.

WINIFRED.
It is good
That we have days of youth to spread joy over,
Or such a press of it might well be mortal.
But see, your father!

SIR PIERCE.
No, the cure for grief
Has been administered a trifle freely,—
But—all goes well. I must remain your guest
A little while, before I go to make
Another home, and teach men to regret me
When I shall leave it.

WINIFRED.
Wherefore go from this?

SIR PIERCE.
No room for all our work, and new-born hope.
Behold my future wife!

NORMAN.
Miss Murdock?

SIR PIERCE.
Yes,
For kindly pity of my lonely state,
She takes me as she finds—

NORMAN.
It is a downpour
Of happiness all round.

WINIFRED.
But you, my brother,—
What part is left in all this joy for you?

NORMAN.
The part of Mostyn Wynne can soon be shown,
And if he be the man that I account him,
His portion will content him. Not this parchment,
Which formulates my mother's wish, nor any
Or every title that a man might bear,
Could make of me—my mind and better part
Being otherwhere—the owner of her gift
In such true sense as satisfies true hearts.
For you, good brother, loving thought and duty
Keep on Wynhavod an undying claim,—
I bid you to it as the native ground
Appointed for your labours. Here of old
Your fathers bled and sweated, and have made
The soil their own in many a hard-won fight.
You have been exiled from it, but no other
Has ever held it firmer in his love.
You could not plant an acorn on this coast,
But it would feed on dust akin to yours.
The cattle and the trees, the very stones
Make claim upon you; answer to their call.
As lord of land and sea, an honest man
Can be no more than steward of what he holds.
To me it is denied to be so much.
Come to my help, and do what I may not,
Bide here beneath this roof, the watchful guardian
Of all those interests which you hold so dear.
My wife and I will share them as we can,
And take our toll of benefit from that
Which overflows when justice says, ‘Enough.’

JENNY.
Wynnes will win home, whatever winds may blow!

JENNY, OWEN, AND DAFYTH.
Wynnes win! Hurrah! Wynhavod for the Wynnes!

MOSTYN.
Wynnes win good friends, and holding for another
Lands which they once let waste from out their grasp,
I win my share in them to nobler purpose,
And liker that of Wynnes who won it first,
Than those who boast of ownership where tenure
Implies no service; when young athletes use
The strength of feebler folk without return,
And grown men sport away their lives unblushing.
I am content to hold the land which Wynnes
Have won—and lost—alone by Love and Labour.