 | John Baliol |  |
SCENE III.
—Castle in Galloway.Enter Lady Donagill and Lady Marjory Cuming.
LADY DONAGILL.
This peevish wind, that puffs so sharp from th'east,
Has blown into our western nook to-day
Strange rumours, that cause tingle both my ears:
Ere I was well awake this morn, there stood
Beneath my casement, in the dusk of dawn,
An obscure half-distinguishable form,
That cry'd aloud, Wake, Lady Donagill!
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That stood between high royalty and thee!
And I have heard it rattled from the tongues
Of gypsies and tale-telling vagabonds
All day who have caress'd my castle-gate,
That stirring news, rejoicing to our house,
Come marching merrily from yon dull east.
LADY MARJORY CUMING.
It is the idle wind that generates
Upon the clouds such babbled vanities,
And fly-blows all the rotten public ear
With shapeless maggots of absurd reports;
Trust them not, sister; were there sooth in them,
They'd not been carry'd by the courier wind,
Sir John had borne them on his trustier lip.
LADY DONAGILL.
Ay, but it haps oftimes that the dull crowd,
Inexplicably sensitive, do catch
The coming issues of yet-lab'ring fate.
I will not trust them; yet my aug'ring heart
Belies me much if they be fabulous.
Enter Sir John Cuming.
SIR JOHN.
Ha, spouse, bonjour! my Lady Donagill
Brisk up—now spread your peacock feathers wide;
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Though but a breath, was as a brazen wall
To barricade our house from royalty:
She's dead—and all our hopes are now alive!
LADY DONAGILL.
Marg'ret of Norway dead! What mighty issues
For me, and my De Baliol, and yourself,
Hang on these short and soon-announced news!
Ah! the poor lady dead?—Pray, did she die
A-bed at home, or hammock'd in your ship?—
I grieve for Marg'ret, for men say she was
A goodly, promising, kind-hearted girl;—
And yet th'inheritors of crowns will die,
And to their kinsfolk leave their heritage.—
Where, where art thou, my John De Baliol?—
These news affect thee;—I will bless thee with them.—
Sir John, Sir John, excuse a mother's zeal.
[Exit Lady Donagill.
LADY MARJORY CUMING.
To Baliol only do these news pertain?
Husband, has not the Cuming name also
A spice of blessed royalty within it?
I think it sounds and syllables as well
As your De Baliol; and some poor nine months
Make up my sister's vain priority;—
A poor nine months, a particle of time!
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In a long life it is not worth the naming;
Pity such preference, Sir John, should hang
Upon a trifle.
SIR JOHN CUMING.
Yea, 'tis pity, dame,
You are not older; I'd have liked to see
Some dozen or two of excellent hoar hairs
Up bristling on your head their privilege
Of primogeniture o'er sister Donagill,
Whose cheeks and tresses would to God they were
All sleek and golden with the light of youth,
Confounding you with useless victory!
Then had I pick'd a pretty diadem
Out of the rubbish of your hoary hairs.
LADY MARJORY CUMING.
Talk not, dear Cuming, of what might have been;
We have enow realities, whereon
To rear our claims, which if but weak disjoin'd,
Yet clasp'd and interwov'n with one another,
Will give and gather strength unmatchable;
Like two fair trees that on the upland's height,
By interlacing their united boughs,
Shoot up the taller to affront the wind,
And overtop their brethren of the wood
By their conjunction.
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Good, my dame, thou meanest—
LADY MARJORY CUMING.
I mean that Huntington's rich blood is in me,
Arousing me to shout unto the world
That I do heir it not unconsciously;—
I mean, that I am also link'd to blood
That has been sluiced out from the royal stream,
From Fergus floating downwards to our days.
Does Cuming now forget his ancestry
From Donald Bane? I've heard him boast of it
Vain-gloriously at table, 'mong his guests,
When no need was, sith pretty Marg'ret liv'd;
Now that there's need, sith pretty Marg'ret's dead,
'Twill vantage him to rake and furbish up
That time-obscured lineage, whereby he
May fortify with superadded claim
What may be slender in his lady's title.
SIR JOHN CUMING.
True—Donald Bane, whom Malcolm's bastard son
Ejected from his throne for eighteen months,
Compelling him to roam the western isles,
And feed on unboil'd limpets from the rocks,
Till he with brib'd Macpendir bounded out
From his Æbudan hiding-place, and slew
The Bastard at Monteith, and, crown'd again,
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He left a daughter, Bethok, who did leave
A daughter, Hexild, who did leave a son,
Who left—
LADY MARJORY CUMING.
Hold, Cuming, hold, I know it all,
Trunk, scion, branch, and bud in your huge tree
Of boasted pedigree; the priest we hear
On Sunday's in our Abbey, does not know
So well his pater-noster's six petitions,
As I your five descents from Donald White:
'Twill do, Sir John; but blab it not henceforth
In mine, so much as in your country's ears;
Convince the people, and march off for Scoon.
SIR JOHN CUMING.
My nephew most, your elder sister's son,
I fear, this Baliol lad, who'll try to scrape
A preference from his mother's eldership.
LADY MARJORY CUMING.
Mark, if De Bruce will mince or hesitate,
Because his mother is a younger birth,
T'erect his claims o'er sister Donagill,
And me, the children of the elder daughter.
If he forbear, thou may'st; if he set up
Against his cousins of the senior branch,
Thou may'st with equal confidence obtrude
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Their competitions with upheaped claims.
SIR JOHN CUMING.
We must admonish, then, and rouse our friends.
LADY MARJORY CUMING.
Ay, let Monteith, and Mar, and Buchan, now
Be stirred up to royalise their name,
And push it up to grandeur.
SIR JOHN CUMING.
This resolved,
We must, as caution dictates, instantly
Make preparation for our going hence:
One castle cannot in its bounded walls
Contain th'unbounded and ambitious souls
Of royalty's twin-candidates.
LADY MARJORY CUMING.
Yea, such
In the same hall can't elbow one another;
They must expatiate, and have room to jar
Abroad from territorial bound to bound,
Like meteors in free sky.
SIR JOHN CUMING.
Let us then
Make ready, and be bustling for the business;—
Hands must not sleep, if heads affect a crown.
[Exeunt.
| John Baliol | |