University of Virginia Library

ACT I

Time.—Summer of 1643, the first year of the war: noontide.
Scene.—Hall of Rushland House, the headquarters of the Puritan army in the Fenlands. On the left a flight of steps leading up to a turret chamber. A door on either side, on the right communicating outward, on the left inward. At the back, a door, flanked by recessed windows, opens on to terrace beyond, with foliage of poplars and alders, and a distant view of the fens. Various military officers are standing in silence, with bowed heads and folded hands, as in prayer, around a table covered with papers. Mardyke stands at the head of the table.
Mardyke.
[After a pause.]
Now, sirs, that we have sought the Lord in prayer,
Each one in silence, will we hear and judge,
Knowing ourselves His mortal instruments.
All we with clean hearts unto judgment come;
Yet in Thy sight no human heart is clean;
And if we punish others, we ourselves
Are ready to abide Thy punishment.
[They slowly seat themselves.
Read. Captain! Who is charged with mutiny,
With plunder or with harryings or with flame,
Making God's army of the Fenland mocked,
A hissing and abomination, yea,
A laughter sweet unto the Philistine,
And all our fire, our kindling, and our zeal,
As ashes fallen, and as the greyness of ashes?
Read!

Cotton.
[Rising with papers in his hand.]
There is nothing here of mutiny,
Nor here is any charged with drunken rage,
With plunder or with harryings or with flame
To make God's army of the Fenland mocked.
But one among us is of carnal crime
Loudly accused: 'tis charged against him here
That he by violence hath a maid undone.
[Murmurs.
His name Lieutenant Joyce: who on this cry
Arrested and close-guarded waits without.

Finch.
Is this already public in men's mouths,
So noised we cannot overpass it, sir?
If not, 'twere well to mingle policy
With zeal, and hush it for the larger good.

Marsh.
Publish it not, lest we be pointed at.
Such is our cause a little smirch undoes it,
By its own virtue the more vulnerable:
Greatness hath often by a whisper crashed.

Cotton.
The thing is public and the wayside talk;
The clucking housewife hath it, and the crone
Mumbles it sitting half-out in the sun.

Mardyke.
Public or no, I palter not with heaven.
The sin is sinned; and if we punish not,
Then stand we here partakers of the sin.

Crablove.
Doth Joyce deny this? Let us hear him speak.

[Mardyke motions to bring in Joyce.
Cotton.
Freely he hath confessed and bides the issue.

Enter Joyce, guarded
Mardyke.
Lieutenant, publicly you stand accused
Of a young maid's enforcement: what say you
In answer?

Joyce.
I make answer, “It is true.”

Mardyke.
None here can come between thee and thy God.
Yet in mid-madness didst thou not recall
That thou wert more than Joyce: an officer
In this our righteous warrings; that you brought
This holy host into derision? Speak.

Joyce.
Her face was close to me, and dimmed the world.
Yet have I fought, and in the front of all.
Shall one mad moment all those hours outweigh?
Who being human is for ever sure?

Mardyke.
[Rising].
God needs not thy polluted arm henceforth.
He asks not Captain, no, nor man-at-arms
Of heart unclean: thou shalt not fight for Him.
Take him away! thy punishment with us.
[Exit Joyce, guarded.
Now, sirs, he hath confessed, his sentence lies
With us

Finch.
You, sir, who fought with English Vere
At Heidelberg, at Mannheim and Ostend,
Where'er the persecuted faithful fell,
Whose fame still clings about the vines of France,
How dealt ye in those camps with carnal crime?

Mardyke.
Our cause, as now, required our spotlessness,
And we on grave occasion visited
Such sin with death!

Enter Ratcliffe, with letter
Ratcliffe.
A letter, sir, post-haste.

Mardyke.
[After glancing at letter.]
Summon your mistress and my sister here.
[Exit Ratcliffe.
This letter, sirs, concerns us all—I'll read.

[Animated murmurs.
Sirs, with my wife I must have speech forthwith,
And make such preparation as I may.
[The officers retire in eager discussion on to the terrace at back, and from time to time they are visible conversing together during the scene which follows. Meanwhile Miriam and Martha enter. Miriam stands submissively before Mardyke, who, intent on letter, does not observe her for a moment.
Mistress, you must prepare, and instantly,
For entertainment of Sir Hubert Lisle,
Sent hither to command our Fenland host.
Learn then what manner of man is he who comes;
One sprung to arms from England's chivalry,
Despising lure of courtier or of priest,
To fight the fight of freedom and of God;
In foreign battle nursed, yet not as we,
Stricken and bowed, but in his flush of strength.
Quickly provide, then! Stand thou by his chair
And bring with thine own hands the cup of welcome:
See he lack naught thou canst bestow.
[She turns to go.
But hither!
Miriam! Heed well that you displease him not
By silly gaud on bosom or in hair,
Lest he account thee light, a daughter of Gath.
I'll strip this chain from thee; these wanton beads,
Meshes of Satan, grind I into dust.
[He snatches chain roughly from her and tramples it under foot.
You, Martha, with a graver thought assist
My wife. Receive this guest as from the Lord!

[Exit Mardyke.
Miriam.
[Trembling.]
Am I not as that chain, trod underfoot,
Chidden and checked even more than when a child?

Martha.
My brother sternly broods, but loves you still.

Miriam.
Why, Martha, why could I not ever stay
His daughter? So my dying father left me
When side by side they fought at La Rochelle;
And as his daughter grew I up submiss;
Why must he then make me his wife?

Martha.
Perchance
To shelter you, and comfort his grey heart.

Miriam.
I am no wife to him, and the waked woman
Within me cries against the yoke and loathes it.

Martha.
Why to so loathed a marriage did you yield?

Miriam.
How could my orphanhood withstand his will?
Did I not owe him all, refuge and bread
And sheltering sustenance? Could I take all,
And then refuse that petty price, “myself,”
Sole price which he who gave so much, required?
Well I have paid to the full! He starves my soul,
He locks my spirit up and keeps the key.

Martha.
Is there some other then who?—

Miriam.
No one. No.
My misery is faithful to him.

Martha.
Child,
What is't you sigh for, whither would you fly?
I cannot understand.

Miriam.
Nor I myself;
And 'tis the very blindness of this beating
That makes of me a creature so unhappy,
And unto thee a plague.

Martha.
Never, my child.

Miriam.
O thou dear Martha, living without sin,
And reputably rusting to the grave,
Thou vacant house moated about by peace,
Thou shadow perfect, and thou blameless ghost,
I cannot feed my soul on “Thou shalt not.”
I'll fight 'gainst numbness, wrestle against rust.
There's the arch-foe of women! this doth kill us.
Not pain, nor secret arrow of the midnight
That quivers till the bird-song, ended faith,
Mortal surprise of marriage, nor the dawn
Of golden-vista'd children clouded quite,
Nor fallen loneliness where love hath been.
These, these are understood, wept o'er and sung.
But worse, O, worse the folding of the hands,
The human face left by the tide of life,
The worm already at the human heart.

Martha.
Sooner the worm than guilt within the heart.

Miriam.
No! I would rather drench my soul in sin
So I might feel this fire and grip this glory,
The colour and the bloom and the music of life.

Martha.
Miriam! no more I'll listen to you. Know
That He who gave us life ordained us law.

Miriam.
Law! And is law then but to bind and freeze?
By law the lightning spurts, and the earth quakes,
And the spring surges thro' a million buds;
And law is filled with rushings and with thunder.

Martha.
You must endure. Thy ancestors and mine
Went for their faith to torment and to fire.

Miriam.
Ah, for their faith! I hope my blood is theirs,
And I would splash the flames about my head
Gladly as in a bath for splendid death.
But for this life no life I was not born.

Martha.
When there shall come a child—

Miriam.
Ah, speak it not!
A child of him! I sicken, I quake at it;
My very flesh doth shiver. Think you I
Could squander upon any child of him
The brooding balm and wistful riches, all
The holy longing that on summer evens
Arises homeless in my silent heart?
Babes that we love we must have loved ere birth.

[Ratcliffe enters behind and beckons to the officers outside. As he passes Miriam, he picks up chain and gives it her. She gives him her hand, which he kisses. She smiles sadly on him. He goes out.
Martha.
See, they return. Come, then. Give me the keys!

Miriam.
Ah! might this tumult find at last a goal!

[Exeunt Martha and Miriam.
[Reënter slowly military officers, who seat themselves at the table. Lastly enter Mardyke. He sits at the head
Mardyke.
Do Thou, O Lord, direct aright our minds,
And our decision be unto Thy glory.
Your judgment, sirs, upon Lieutenant Joyce!
Shall we but cast him from us as unclean?
Or shall we punish carnal crime with death?

Finch.
Purge we our army of the sinner; yet
See we deter not by too fierce a doom
Others that waver still from taking sword.

Iron.
If outrage be not punished, the whole land
Rising in wrath, against us will take sword.

Cotton.
My voice also for death; when war begins,
Mercy at first is cruelty at last.

Marsh.
Break him, but leave him leisure to repent.

Crablove.
Enough we cast him straightway from among us.

Mardyke.
For death my voice; else everyone of us
Will into holy battle go unclean.

Finch.
[Rising.]
The vote is even!

Marsh.
What shall now decide?

[Trumpet heard.
Enter Ratcliffe, hurriedly
Ratcliffe.
Sir Hubert Lisle, sir, ridden furiously.

Mardyke.
[Rising.]
Lisle, our commander: his the casting vote.

[They all rise.
Finch.
On him alone the burden and the issue.

Enter Lisle, spurred, and spattered with mud. Mardyke advancing, Lisle takes him by the hand, and they stand looking at each other for an instant
Lisle.
God save you, sirs: what business of the camp
Presses; what labour from the Lord awaits me?

Mardyke.
[Motioning Lisle to head of table.]
This on the instant then: Lieutenant Joyce,
Of this God's army, charged with carnal crime
In that he hath enforced the innocent
And brought a young maid into public shame.
This he denies not. Now three voices here
Cry that we purge this holy host of him,
So satisfied; and three that he shall die.
With thee the casting vote. The Lord speak through thee.

Lisle.
[Rising.]
Sirs, in no common quarrel are we up,
Nor to a slight fray have we girded us,
But are embattled for dear liberty,
Dear liberty to righteousness affianced,
That each man on our English soil henceforth
Shall live his own life out beneath the sun,
Master of his own conscience, his own soul,
And answerable only to his God:
For this and no less thing rise we in arms;
For this the noble hath disdained his ease,
For this the gentleman forsworn his hearth,
For this the yeoman left his glebe unploughed,
For this doth brother clash with brother, friend
With friend, and father smiteth his own son:
For this have we preferred, rather than reap
A servile tilth, to trample the sown field
And springing pasture to incarnadine.
But vain the father's and the brother's blood,
Pasture ensanguined and abandoned hearth,
And worse than vain our liberty at last,
If we have builded it with hands defiled.
[Murmurs of admiration.
Therefore I show no mercy on this man.
Death! Let him die.

Mardyke.
Bring in Lieutenant Joyce.

Enter Joyce, guarded
Lisle.
Lieutenant, for the sake of that high cause
For which we are embattled, and which thou
Hast stained, I sentence thee forthwith to death.

Joyce.
Death!

Lisle.
To a soldier 'tis a little thing.

Joyce.
I do not count death as a little thing.
I cannot go out of the warm sunshine
Easily; yet I am a gentleman
And I can die.

Lisle.
Hast anything to say?

Joyce.
Thou who so lightly dealest death to me,
Be thou then very sure of thine own soul!

Lisle.
I fear not that; and less do I fear death.
[Lisle dismisses Joyce and guards.
[Drawing his sword.]
And judge me, Thou that sittest in Thy heaven,
As I have shown no mercy, show me none!
Deal Thou to me what I have dealt to him;
Nay, more; not the mere death that he shall die;
Strike at the heart, the hope, the home of me,
If ever a woman's beauty shall ensnare
My soul unto such sin as he hath sinned.

[Miriam has entered with wine and stands waiting. Lisle, lowering his sword, sees her before him and stands motionless.
Mardyke.
Sir Hubert Lisle, my wife! To her I leave you.

[Exit Mardyke and others. Miriam pours out wine and proffers Lisle the cup.
Lisle.
[Taking cup.]
Lady, I thank you, and must ask your pardon
For breaking in on you so suddenly
And so disordered—I would say—but you,
You are not of our country?

Miriam.
No, of France,
And I was born in the sun's lap—will you
Not rest awhile?

[She moves as if to conduct him.
Lisle.
[Hesitating.]
You are then of that land
Where flows the crimson wine that now I drink?
Is't not so?

Miriam.
Even so.

Lisle.
[Holding up the wine.]
And in such glory
Have you fared hither to us over sea.

Miriam.
Will you not rest?

[Again moving.]
Lisle.
[Going, then again hesitating.]
I thank you.

Miriam.
See—this way.

Lisle.
And you—how long since is it that you left
Your southern vines?

Miriam.
I came here as a child;
My father died at La Rochelle.

Lisle.
Alas!

Miriam.
Committing me to Colonel Mardyke's care,
Who was his comrade then.

Lisle.
And who is now
Your husband?

Miriam.
Yes. Your room, sir, eastward lies.

Lisle.
I will come with you—and these glimmering fens,
Do they not pall after the southern glow?

Miriam.
I am grown used to them.

Lisle.
And yet it seems
Strange in the drear fenland to light on you.

Miriam.
How still the air is: scarcely can one breathe.
A storm approaches— [Hesitating.]
Will this war soon end?

Lisle.
Not till we triumph—or—darker it grows.
This leads us to the garden? See how still
That poplar, conscious of some heavy fate!
That breathless alder!

Lisle.
Like to guilty souls
Against a coming judgment.

Miriam.
[Hesitating.]
Is there aught
Wherein I still can serve you?

Lisle.
[Coming toward her.]
No, I thank you.

Miriam.
I have made all ready—

[Hesitates.]
Lisle.
Every bird doth cower.

Miriam.
[Going, but returning.]
I have laid some books within your roo—you read
Much—so they say—I thought—how the air faints
As though beneath some suffocating clutch.

Lisle.
Darker and darker yet—what books are dear
To you?

Miriam.
Old histories.

Lisle.
That mandolin—
You touch it in the twilight?

Miriam.
Not with art.
How the air sighed then! Nearer comes the storm;
A moment and 'twill break above our heads.

Lisle.
[Coming close to her.]
Sweet after battle must thy music be.

[A sudden sound of musketry heard without.
Miriam.
What sound was that? That was no thunder-peal.

Lisle.
Lieutenant Joyce of this God's army, shot
By my command!

Miriam.
What crime hath he committed
That you take on you God's prerogative
Of death?

Lisle.
How can I name it to you! He
Hath sinned against a maid.

Miriam.
But such a doom!

Lisle.
No doom too harsh! In this our virgin cause
We of that sin must purify us—thus.

Lisle bows to Miriam, who goes off slowly and trembling. Lisle starts to follow her, but controls himself with effort. He goes slowly to back, and as he stands looking out, a low mutter of thunder is heard.