University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

—One of the Dungeons of the Sea-tower of Beaton's Castle.
Captain Strang
discovered sitting on the ground, his dress and person unclean and squalid, as from long confinement.
So here I'm stranded, honest Captain Strang,
Here grounded, cast ashore a total wreck;
Although a decent fellow, one whose heart's
Each timber is as sound as British oak;
Here am I buried, bound, and bottled up
In this abominable Tophet-hole,
This rotten pump-sink of your Card'nal Beaton;
Where darkness, damp and stench between them fight,
Which most t'annoy my body's every sense.
I wish to God some land-lubber aloft
Would clap his pump down to this castle's keel,
And pump me out into the sea, my element!
There should I wash me clean again, and shine
A jovial shipmaster as I was wont,
When bounding in my proud brig all the way
From Frith of Forth to noble Rotterdam.
Here am I vilely used, as if I'd been
A graceless Turk that knelt to old Mahoun,
And not a church-attending Christian man.
I have no hammock where to swing at night;
I have no biscuit to rejoice my teeth;
I have no gin to vivify my heart;
I am a woe-begone and weary wight,
Dying, I dread me, too; for this my lean
Sunk belly's clung with famine to my back;
My weary back has lost its uprightness;
My poor legs tingle with the rheumatism;
My dungeon'd eyes scarce see—yon little mouse,
My fellow-pris'ner, that comes creeping out
To dine on the sole-leather of my shoe:
Good morning, mouse, thou'rt welcome to your meal—
Thou'rt now my mate; and when Sir Caldcleuch comes
With his cold water and his bit of bannock,
(The devil take him and his ugly face,
But leave his water and his bit of bannock,)
I'll give you then a feast, we'll mess together;
We'll govern in the hold here, you and I;
Let Card'nal and his crew command aloft,
And mount the slipp'ry ladder of the shrouds.
Yet, 'tis most villainous hard, that I should thus
Be cubb'd and cramp'd up here with crawling mice,
Merely for fost'ring, as they call it, heresy,
By ferrying, in my sinless vessel, o'er
Some dozen books and godly tractates writ
In crabbed Latin or fair mother-tongue,
'Gainst Card'nal and his grim good friend the devil.
It is a blackguard shame for any church
To punish honest men like me for heresy!
I am no heretic—I ne'er damn'd the Pope;
I ne'er encouraged damning in my ship,
Except the damming salt sea-water out.
Yet here I stink and rot, a rich perfume—
A very posy in your Card'nal's nose!
God help me!—But here comes my hemlock friend,
I know him by the clatt'ring of his keys;
What brings him now? 'Tis not yet bannock-time.

Enter Robin Caldcleuch, with Mrs Strang and Beatrice Strang following him.
CALDCLEUCH.

Good den to ye, honest man! I houp ye're sittin dry
and warm on your pickle saft strae—It's a seat for a king,
let alane a Pittenweem skipper! I've brought you at my
back here twa weel-kent auld friends. You're awing me a
pint o'gin for this forgatherin, the neist time your brig
sails to Schiedam, whilk'll happen when the king's arrow's
ta'en aff her, if that'll ever happen. See now your wife
and bairn!

CAPTAIN STRANG.
My wife! my daughter!
[They embrace each other.
God in his gracious goodness bless you both!
I little thought, when last time we did part,
To meet you here—

MRS STRANG.
My husband! O my husband!
Thus to be couched on a truss of straw!
Alas, I thought not when I last busk'd up
My bed with the new Holland sheets you brought
Last time our vessel sail'd to Rotterdam,
That such should be the change, this, this the meeting!

CAPTAIN STRANG.
Weep not, my dear! God wills not we should weep;
I never yet caused man to shed a tear;
When honest men have wept, I've dried their tears
With comforts and with kindnesses and love;
No cause have I to weep—though when I think
Of you and of my family in tears,
I must e'en weep—God pardons that I weep!

BEATRICE.
O father, be of comfort! He who sent
His angel down to ope the prison-doors
Of Paul and Silas, as I oft have read
To you on Sabbath evenings by the fire,
Will in his own good season grant relief,
And send you gladden'd from this house of tears.
He disappoints not those who trust in him,
Rewarding well their confidence with joys
Proportion'd to their trials, well endured.
Father and mother! then wipe off your tears;
Let me embrace you, father, and kiss off
These honourable sorrows from your cheeks;
Woes me! it is not fit that you should be
Thus—thus—so sordid.—But I'll tend you here;
I'll be your handmaid—I will minister
To you in food, in raiment, and in prayer,
In reading from the holy Testaments—

CALDCLEUCH.

He's had eneugh o'that sort o'readin already. Nae sic
readin's tolerate here in my lord's castle.

BEATRICE.

—If this good man that holds the keys permit.

CALDCLEUCH.

A discreet young woman, 'pon my conscience, and her
face nae the warst part o'her, as mine is o'me—I'd ance
a sweeter sort o'a countenence, but sin' I was set to keep
this sea-tower, it's become transmogrify'd, I kenna how,
from hinney to hemlock. The poor students o'St Leonard's
use to say that the Cardinal bapteezed me wi' his
ain holy water, into this sour-lookin', mortclaith-bodin'
countenance. It's a place, say they, for ravens to nestle
on, for vipers to crawl on, for jadrals, taeds, puddocks, an'

cormorants to jump an' mak their daffin on. Awa wi' their
college-clavers! Lassie, what's your wull?

BEATRICE.
O sir, if you'll allow me here to tend
My father in this house of misery,
I will reward you very bounteously;
God will reward you too, who to St Paul's
Converted jailor gave a heart renew'd,
And made him taste strange joys he never knew,
Believing and baptized with all his house.

CALDCLEUCH.

Na, na, lass, nane o'your deceivin' words for me! I'se
no lose my post o'Cardinal's head-turnkey for the bonniest
lass in Fife. I'm a man o'some integrity—I tak nae
bribes, like your bishops and vicars, that'll pray ony dead
man's soul out o'purgatory for sax shillings, an' curse a
livin' man's intil't for a plack—I'm a man o'conscience.
Ye'se no steal wi' your pauky prayers thae good keys out
o'Robin's auld hand.—But quick, hae done, hae done—
your time's out.

MRS STRANG.
O little knows this stony-hearted man
How dear to me this passing interview!
Else he would grudge not this poor span of time.
O husband, I am grieved for your sake;
Sad terrors vex me for your precious life.
There is a cloud of mischief in the sky,
Ready to drop its hail on some poor head;
Nor know I well if yours shall be secure.

CALDCLEUCH.

That I dinna ken neither—There are faggots gatherin',
sticks splittin', coals drivin', stakes rammin', gun-powther
pokes crammin', a'about the Castle and Priory puffin'
an' blawin' wi' business. The auld smith, Thamas Cairns,
that lives i'the Heukster's Wynd, has been bringin' out
his biggest brawest bellowses—it took three men to lift
them—they're a'lyin' ready i'the Castle Wynd yonder;
and there's a pile o'sticks an' coals that'll roast a'the
skippers in Pittenweem, forbye Anster and Cellardyke.
Now, a'this wark is no done for naebody and naething—
heretics maun burn—it's a law i'the kirk—they that will
to Cupar maun to Cupar.

MRS STRANG.
Oh do not, with your croakings raven-like,
Increase to an intolerable load
Those fears with which already I'm oppress'd;
I pray thee comfort me with better omens,
If thou must speak.

CALDCLEUCH.

Honest woman, mine office is no ane o'comfort, but
born out of the very bowels of misery and discomfort. Indeed,
folk say that on the night I cam into the world, four
black craws cam down my father's lum, an' sat cockin' an'
croakin', ane on ilka bedpost—sae you see, e'en from the
womb, I'm but an ill-omen'd man.

MRS STRANG.
May heaven avert, and throw back on your face,
Their proper resting-place, these gloomy threatenings!

CALDCLEUCH.

Dinna say it's me, madam—I never flang a heretic i'
the fire—the Pope does that; I'm but the iron tangs
wherewi' he grips the poor bodies. Mair attour, if folks
will read thae new-fangled Bibles an' Testaments, an' bring
ship-laeds o'the devil's books frae Flanders, their ain skins
maun e'en suffer for't. Lord Cardinal's no a man to play
wi' i'that sort—he does a'his things wi' a birr, frae his
highest spiritualities down to his laighest carnalities, as
the poor students speak.

BEATRICE.
I'll go myself, dear father, to the man
That holds dominion of this prison-house.
I will put off a blushing maiden's fear,
And clothe me in assumed confidence.
I will beseech him by a daughter's love,
A mother's tears, and all the charities
That are bound up within a fleshly heart,
That he may loose thee to our loves again,
And bless us by his kind benevolence.

CALDCLEUCH.

An' what'll you mak o'that? See what John Roger
the black friar's auld mither made o'her fleechin' an' intercedin'
for her douce son Preachin' Johnnie? I left him
at night here, in this very room, at his prayers, as vive and
as hale as ever he was in his life; an' neist mornin' afore
day-break, there was he, honest man, lyin' a'his length a
cauld corp amang the round stanes at the bottom o'the
Castle. It was a cauld, snifterin' mornin', about the back
end o'February—I scraped the caller snaw aff him, an'
happit him weel up in his braw, spleet-new flannen winding-sheet,
a cozie bield for a dead man, whare he lies snug an'

warm till this day. Some said his craig was as blue as a
blawort, as gin a bit string had been casten ower't; but its
no my business to inspeck dead corps. At ony rate, I
had nae hand in that pye, whaever beuk it; I make it aye a
pount never to fash my thumb about ither folk's business.

CAPTAIN STRANG.
Out with your murd'rous stories and your tales
That smell of horror and of hemlock, like
Your face, whose copied likeness would make out
A bugbear, to scare even fell Death withal!

CALDCLEUCH.

Grip you weel till't then, my man, for aiblins ere the
morn pass you'll need some scar-crow to frighten aff the
grim carl wi' the scythe. But he'll no come to you, as I
expeck, wi' a scythe, but wi' a het-burnin' low i'the ae
hand, an' Thamas Cairns's big bellowses i'the other—an' its
a'ane whether a man be reduced to ashes in ten minutes,
tied to a wood stake and brander'd like a beef-stake, or
moulders awa for ten years in a cauld grave beside worms
an' ettercaps, its a'ae upshot—ashes, ashes are the finish.
But hae done, hae done—The quarter o'an hour's out by
my sand-glass—let's awa, the door's open.

BEATRICE.
Good night, my father; and the peace of heaven
Rest on your heart, to keep its sorrows down,
Till a kind Providence remove them all!

MRS STRANG.
Husband, farewell! May God administer
Sweet comforts unto you, and to myself!

CAPTAIN STRANG.
Good night, dear wife and daughter!—
[Exeunt Cald. Mrs Strang, and Beatrice.
They are gone;
And I am left in solitude again,
To eat my spirits up in misery.
Alas, alas! I've stood both waves and winds
On ship-board, when my vessel labour'd sore,
And reel'd beneath the ocean's buffetings;
But for this piteous tempest of the soul
I am unfit. I cannot bear it out
As strong men do, who have no tenderness.
But I confide my sorrows, and my life,
To Him, who in his hand holds human souls,
And heals the sorrows of the innocent.
On Him I'll rest and pillow my sad heart,
Expecting, patient, in this gloomy cell,
The brightness of his glad deliverance!

Curtain drops.