University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

—Cliffs—with the Shore in the Distance—A Ship in the Offing.
Enter Edward and Marian, hand in hand.
Edw.
Look blithe, my pretty Marian! The true heart
Should ne'er be a misgiving one!—My girl,
My gentle girl, look blithe—Didst ever see
So fair a day?—There's scarce a cloud in sight!
The breeze is just the one our vessel likes;
Jib, spanker, all will draw! Tight-water boat,
Stanch crew, bold captain,—Marian, what's to fear?

Mari.
Absence, that gives to lovers taste of death,
And long protracted makes them wish for death,
So wearisome to bear! When last you left,
So long you stay'd,—life, from a precious gift,
Became a load, methought I could lay down,
Nor deem it loss, but gain!—my constant thought,
How time still broke his promise, day by day,
To bring thee back to me. Oh! of the sighs
I have heaved in an hour I could have found a wind,
Had I the cunning to make store of them,
Would cause thy ship to heel! There have I sat,
From coming in to going out of light,
Perch'd, like a lonely beacon, on the cliff,
Watching for thee;—and if I saw a speck,
I thought thee there; and, when it pass'd away,
I felt the pangs of parting o'er again!—
How long wilt be away?

Edw.
A month.

Mari.
Say two!
I'll make my mind up to two months—and then,
If thou return'st before the time, thou know'st
It will be usury of happiness!
Thou'lt stay two months!—Two months is a long time!

Edw.
I tell thee but a month!

Mari.
I'll not believe it;
For, if I should, and thou beyond shouldst stay,
Each hour beyond will be another month!
So, for my two months, I may pine two-score!
Nay, for two months I will not look for thee!

Edw.
And then we marry!

Mari.
So my father says.

Edw.
O Marian, when thou'rt mine!

Mari.
Thou wilt not go
Again to sea.

Edw.
No, girl!—Another trip,
We are rich enough! How love hath made us wise!
When boy and girl, we talk'd as man and wife;
And 'gan to hoard 'gainst days of housekeeping.
Our first small venture—what a heap it brought!
Its value more than ten times doubled! 'Twas
That Heaven did bless it!—Marian, that's the luck!
And since that lucky day, whate'er we've tried
Has thriven with us still.

Mari.
Thank Heaven, it has.

Edw.
Ay!—And the saint who taught me, on her knee,
“No life so happy as an honest one!”—
Thy mother!—Thy dear mother, Marian.—

Mari.
She loved thee!

Edw.
Yes!—What were a wrecker's gains
Compared to ours? To think that they're our own!
None to dispute them with us!—No, not e'en
A dead man's bones! I have kept my watch, on deck,
In a gale, the billows higher than our cliffs;
That, looking from their tops, you wonder'd how
The vessel could go down, and rise again;
While, as she heel'd until her yard-arms duck'd.
You thought each moment shrowd and brace would crack,
And every mast at once go overboard!—
Thus have I kept my watch; and then I've found
The best of treasures was a conscience, clear!
And with my venture in my chest below,
Would not have changed that slanting, creaking deck,
To take the wrecker's station on the shore,
With wind and wave at work, and breaking up
A fast and rich galleon! Marian,
Why dost thou hang thy head?

Mari.
My father is
A wrecker.

Edw.
So was mine, my Marian.
What then? We're not the children of their trade!
Pass but another month—Well, I'll say two—
And change of state shall bring us change of scene!
We'll quit these haunts, and ply some inland calling!
Why turn'st thou pale, my girl? What frightens thee?
I only see Black Norris—Fear'st thou him?

Mari.
Yes!—No!—I fear, yet know not cause to fear—
No just cause!—Yet—Thank Heaven he's gone again!

Edw.
He dared offend thee once, but paid the forfeit;
And durst not offer wrong to thee again!
Hast other cause to fear him, Marian?

Mari.
When last you were at sea, the weary nights
Thy mother and thy Marian beguiled,
As ever in thy absence they were wont,
With talk of thee; and growing sad with that,
Old tales of marvel, from her ample store,
The kindly dame would tell—Peace to her spirit!—
I shall not have her now to comfort me!

Edw.
Don't speak of that! Go on.

Mari.
One dreary night,
A wrecker was the story—banish'd son,
And worse than banish'd father! that watching was
A vessel fast upon the Goodwin Sands—

Edw.
I know!—The body of a man was wash'd
Ashore. The wrecker fell to rifling it,
But life was in the body.

Mari.
That's the tale.
The wrecker heard him groan—so, conscience-wrung,
The wretch confess'd—and to secure his prey,
Destroy'd what Heaven had bade the tempest spare;
Stopp'd with his hands the holy breath of life,
And watching, for assurance that the work
Of foulest sin was done, by the wild glare
Of the lightning, which, that moment, rent the clouds,
And lighted up the ghastly scene of blood,
Beheld the feature of his banish'd boy,
On his own beach, by his own father murder'd.

Edw.
But what hath this to do with him, the sight
Of whom recall'd the tale?

Mari.
His father is
A convict, serving in a distant land.
His term of shame, almost expired; for crime
Done on the storm-strewn shore.

Edw.
I know he is.

Mari.
I mused on them, as by thy mother's hearth
I sat; which soon, methought, began to spread
Into our bay—a furious tempest on,—
Men, women, children watching here and there,
On the look-out for some unlucky barque,
Its wrath might catch, and strand upon the shore!
There was the lightning, and the thunder, and
The rain and wind, and rattling shingles, as
The billows, mountain high, came tumbling in,
And there stood Norris, on that reef of his.

Edw.
Go on, as 'twere a real tale thou told'st,
Thou fixest me, with eagerness to hear.

Mari.
Then came a vessel—a huge hulk—without
A single mast left standing!—Such a one
Was wreck'd upon the coast three winters gone,
When thou wast far at sea—I witness'd it.

Edw.
Well; but the ship you fancied?

Mari.
Long she heaved,
And sank, and reel'd, until at last she struck
Right on the wrecker's reef; where soon she went
To pieces.—Then, the body of a man
Was wash'd on shore, and Norris sprang upon it;
But life, as in the story I had heard,
Was in it still; and Norris took that life!
He stabb'd the shipwreck'd man—and lo! it was
His father!—In my sleep I dream'd, that night
The self-same thing. And often, since, in sleep,
Ay, and in waking too, have seen't again—
Have seen the bay, the tempest, and the ship
The body floating in, and Norris there,
Rifling it of its life—the body of
His father! Strange things have been thought of him;
And never look I on that scowling man,
But with the thought, I see a murderer!—
But thou art going, and I talk of him!
I know not wherefore, but I never felt
So sad before at parting!

Edw.
Fear'st for me?

Mari.
No!—Thou art good—Hast trust in Heaven—implorest
Its mercy night and morn! 'Twill show it thee!
Thou'lt find it 'mid the tempest—near the shoal
Off the lee-shore!—or, if thy vessel strike,
Or founder, surer than the sea-bird's wing,
The sea-bird, it will float thee 'bove the wave,
And bear thee to thy native cliff again!
I have no fears for thee!—I think—I know
Thou wilt come back to me! Thou hast no fears?

Edw.
None, Marian!

Mari.
But thou hast!—I'm sure thou hast!
I see a trouble in thy face!—I do!
Thou fear'st for something!—What is it?

Edw.
I would
Thou hadst not told me of Black Norris.

Mari.
Why?
See'st aught in what I told thee?—Dost thou think
My dream bodes ill?—that something's sure to come?
Think'st thou there's aught in dreams? Don't answer me!
I don't believe there is!

Edw.
There is not, girl!

Mari.
Why wish, then, what thou didst?

Edw.
He gives thee pain.

Mari.
I will not see him again! I nothing see
When thou'rt away. The sun, the earth, the sea—
All things without are gone—I have no eye,
No ear—except within—within, where, only,
Then, can I see and hear thee!—where I'm with thee
At sea—ashore—and oft in hardest strait
Of peril—where I'm always close to thee,
With superhuman power to bear thee through,
In spite of wildest danger! There's the gun!

Edw.
Farewell!—

Mari.
I'll see thee to the beach!—I will—
Ay, to the water's edge! That I could go
Along with thee!—The waves might rise and roar,
I would not hear or see them!—Come!

Edw.
Nay, here
We'll part—my messmates, girl, will laugh at thee.

Mari.
Let them! What! lose a minute—with an age
To come, of absence—I, that would brave the sea
To go with thee, heed those its surges toss!
I'll go with thee e'en to the water's edge!
And then mine eyes shall go along with thee!
And when thou leavest them, and they give o'er,
My thoughts—my heart—my soul—which water, land,
Air, nothing 'neath the sun can tear thee from!

[They go out.