PRICE SIXPENCE NET JOHN PALMER Over the Hills 1 SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD. LIBRARY ONIVWitlTY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIC*v J . Sidgwick ? Jackson's Series of One-Act Plays THE LITTLE STONE HOUSE ... By GEORGE CALDERON, Author of The fountain, &c. MISS TASSEY By ELIZABETH BAKER, Author of Chains, The Price of Thomas Scott, Sec. OVER THE HILLS By JOHN PALMER. OVER THE HILLS OVER THE HILLS (PRODUCED IN 1912) Robert Wilde - EDMUND GWENN. Helen Wilde - HILDA TREVELYAN. ,, .. n fC. M. HALLARD. Martin Durrani - { ^ XT , ^THOMAS N. WEGUELIN. Maidservant - MINNIE TERRY. OVER THE HILLS A COMEDY IN ONE ACT. BY JOHN PALMER LONDON: SIDGWICK f JACKSON, LTD. 3 ADAM STREET, ADELPHI. MCMXIV. Copyright, 1914, by Sidywick and Jackson, Ltd. CHARACTERS ROBERT WILDE. HELEN (his wife}. MARTIN DURRANT. A MAIDSERVANT. Scene Dining-room of Mr. Robert Wildes desirable residence in Finchley. The curtain descends for a moment of the play to mark the lapse of several hours. OVER THE HILLS It is a wild night outside, but the dining-room is entirely weatherproof. There is a blazing fire, and MRS. WILDE stitches comfortably beside it. Her work-basket is within reach on a small oak table. On the other side of this table is the most comfortable chair in the room ; but MR. WILDE is not sitting within it. He is obviously restless. At one moment he stands at the back of the stage, looking out into the night round the edge of the Venetian blind. Then with a fierce light in his eyes he paces forward down the length of the room and back to the window. When he faces the audience, he passes the fire and his wife and the comfortable chairs on his right. Except for MR. WILDE, it is a picture of rest- fulness. The best house coal from the local agent is burning in the grate. The carpets are genuine Persian, and the furniture is old oak. The folding table (real Jacobean) is pushed back to the wall away from the fire, leaving a noble space in the centre of the room. Along this wall is an oak dresser, obviously a genuine antique. 9 10 OVER THE HILLS It is a room which, we are sure, would be the pride of MR. and MRS. WILDE if they were a really home-loving couple. Of MRS. WILDE there can be no doubt. She definitely lias settled down a placid, sensible, humorous woman of about thirty-five. MR. WILDE is forty ; but he has about him a wild, romantic air of the man who has not yet put away childish things. But he is getting stout, and we can only with diffi- cidty imagine him outside the house, instead of being in, on a night like this. MRS. WILDE watches him pacing the carpet with the air of one who is used to this kind of thing. Obviously his restlessness, so far as she is concerned, is of no importance. SHE is very patient, but at last it begins rather to get on her nerves, and she thinks she ought to say some- thing. HELEN. You're uncommonly restless to-night, dear. ROBERT (coming dramatically from the window}. Restless ! ( With emotion) Listen to the wind ! HELEN (matter-of-fact}. It does make itself heard. ROBERT (uplifted). It sings in the branches of the old elm like a paean. HELEN. A what? ROBERT (annoyed at being pulled up). A paean. HELEN. What is a paean ? OVER THE HILLS 11 ROBERT. A paean, my dear, is a song of triumph. From the Greek. (HK resumes his march.) HELEN (after a pause). I do wish you'd settle down to something, Robert. You give me the fidgets. ROBERT (wildly addressing the ceiling). The Fid- gits ! I give her the fidgits ! (HE stands again at the window and looks out.) HELEN (after a further pause) . Is it still raining, Robert ? ROBERT (with ecstasy). Raining? The wind is driving from over the hills like a great sail. The clouds are scudding across the moon ; and, as the light comes and goes, I get glimpses of drenched fields, and trees flinging spray from their branches. The leaves come scattering down. I hear the wind shouting to the old elm, and the old elm, fling- ing off its weight of years, shouts back to the wind. (HELEN has obviously heard this kind of thing very frequently. She is profoundly un- impressed. ) HELEN (matter -off act). I suppose you know about the hen-house ? ROBERT (disgusted). The hen-house ? HELEN. The old elm, flinging off its weight of years, has made a hole in the hen-house. I always told you that that tree would have to be lopped. It 12 OVER THE HILLS isn't safe. Suppose, when the branch fell, Maggie had been feeding the hens. We are not insured against workmen's compensation. Luckily, no one was killed except the new Orpington, who was sitting at the time. ROBERT. And because a sitting hen has been killed you would lop that grand old tree. Have you no sense of beauty ? HELEN. As you please, my dear ; I don't care so very much about the poultry. But you will insist on having your eggs absolutely new-laid. (Pause.) We've had a dreadful day. Maggie had to chase those wretched birds for nearly half an hour in the pouring rain. They were out all over the place. ROBERT (significantly). Ah, even the hens! (HELEN surveys him, cheerfully resigned to another outburst.) They, too, are set free, and may seek the waste places. HELEN. Now, my dear, you are talking nonsense. The hens were frightened. Very naturally. ROBERT. I'm afraid, Helen, you have a literal mind. HELEN. No one could be poetical about hens. Not even the Poet Laureate. ROBERT (with dignity). We will not argue about it. (HE again marches to and fro Jor a while, then suddenly stops.) ROBERT (with exasperation) . How you can sit there like that, Helen, beats me altogether ! OVER THE HILLS 13 HELEN (placidly}. It is very comfortable. ROBERT (sardonically}. Exactly. Very comfortable. And that is a very nice piece of old oak (indicating the dresser). And you are sitting on a stuffed chair. And the carpet is from Persia. (He snorts.} HELEN. Won't you come and sit by the fire ? It would be nice if you would read me something. ROBERT (in appalling- tones). Sit by the fire! With the wind calling ! Is it possible ? (HELEN puts down her sewing, rises, and adjusts a cushion on the chair by the fire ; she pats it invitingly.} HELEN. For my sake, Robert. (ROBERT, who likes to be comfortable, makes a show of resistance, but, yielding, at last permits himself to sink luxuriously down. HELEN again stitches by the fire.} ROBERT (mournfully}. The rooted elm may play with the wind and rain ; but the man who is a house- holder shall stop his ears like Ulysses when the Sirens sang. (HE stretches lazily for a book of poems on the table, beside the work-basket. It is Henley s " Hawthorn and Lavender." He 'peacefully turns the leaves, and begins dreamily to read some verses.} ROBERT. Since those we love and those we hate, With all things mean and all things great, Pass in a desperate disarray Over the hills and far away, 14 OVER THE HILLS It must be, dear, that late or soon, Out of the ken of the watching moon, We shall abscond with yesterday Over the hills and far away. ROBERT (stretching" his legs yet more comfortably to the fire). Those verses fill me with a restless longing to take once again the mystic road, the road of all who are born to wander. (Rearranging the cushion comfortably behind his head.) The comfort of this room comes to be a torture of the soul. The wind calls, and the four walls drop away ; the light is quenched ; the fire dies. (He stretches his hand com- fortably to the blaze.) The long road stretches before, and the wind meets me from over the hills. Once again I feel the sting of rain. Then it is, in the breath of the storm, one pities the slow, warm people stretched lazily before the hearth, droning away the time. HELEN faaning over the table). Let me take your book, dear. That's right. Now you are quite com- fortable. ROBERT (who is now thoroughly happy). How hate- ful it is to lie easefully and inert, a figure at which gods may point the finger ! Is life to be no more than comfort ? HELEN. You are quite right about this room, Robert. Ifs the only really comfortable room in the house when the wind is in the north-west. ROBERT (starting up). I suppose you think that's clever. OVER THE HILLS 15 HELEN (innocently] . Now what have I said ? ROBERT. Just as I am pointing out to you that comfort does not matter, that it is abominable, you suggest that I am sitting in the dining-room because it is the most comfortable room in the house. HELEN (mildly}. You suggested we should sit here. ROBERT (angrily lifting himself out of the chair). Not for myself. I sometimes think of you. HELEN. Very sweet of you, Robert ! (She rises and rearranges the cushion for him.) ROBERT (irritably seizing the cushion from her}. Not there ! That's where I like to have it. (HELEN returns to her work.) ROBERT (dreamily). Those lines of Henley bring back to me the days when I was a wanderer with Martin. It was his favourite poem. HELEN. Martin Durrant ? ROBERT. Yes, Martin Durrant. There, if you like, was a man. HELEN. A very restless and unsatisfactory creature, from all accounts. ROBERT. Martin was a born vagabond. Many's the trail we have followed over land and sea. (HE springs up, stirred by his reminiscences, and looks out of the window.) (Turning' into the room) These were the nights we loved best. A night like this we would take a bee-line over the country. How wet we would get ! How gloriously wet ! 16 OVER THE HILLS HELEN. Very enjoyable, no doubt. So is a mustard bath and Benger's food. ROBERT (with a shout of scorn) . Oh ! How can you understand ? Have you ever defied the wind in his fury ? Have you ever mocked the rain ? HELEN. I have not. ROBERT. To think that I am standing here upon a carpet from Persia, sheltered by the four walls of a room, when the wind is calling ! (Settling himself again by the fire.) If Martin be within the limits of this storm, he is out with the wind to-night, following the old, old trail. Over the hills. (HE closes his eyes luxuriously. There is a knock at the front door.) HELEN. Robert, that was a knock. Who can it be at this time of night ? ROBERT. Are you sure it was a knock ? HELEN. Better go and see who it is. Maggie may not have heard. ROBERT (horrified). Go to the door on a night like this! (Another knock.) HELEN. Possibly ifs the wind calling. I'm not at home. MAGGIE announces MR. DURRANT. THEY wait for a moment ; then the door opens and MARTIN DURRANT appears, shown in by MAGGIE. HE stands on the threshold, a romantic figure which succeeds in being all that MR. WILDE is now unable to be. OVER THE HILLS 17 He has removed his coat ; but his boots are wet, and his hair hangs limp on his forehead. He looks at ROBERT in the chair, and from him to HELEN. MAGGIE takes his coat and hat and goes out.) ROBERT (springing up] . Martin ! MARTIN. Well, Robert ? ROBERT (awkzvardly}. Helen. er . . . this is Martin Durrant. Er . . . my wife. MARTIN (bowing to Helen, obviously a little stunned). How do you do ? (Looking at ROBERT) I ... I did not know. Congratulations ! HELEN (very self-possessed, not leaving her sewing). We were just talking of you, Mr. Durrant. You are the man who used to be so fond of getting wet. MARTIN. I am still fond of it. I have walked all the way from Charing Cross, simply to enjoy the rain. I arrived this morning from Tripoli. HELEN (pulling in another chair). Er . . . won't you sit down ? (THEY sit. An awkward pause.) ROBERT. Would you like some whisky something hot? MARTIN. No, thank you. (Another awkward pause.) HELEN (suddenly rising). It's time for me to go. MARTIN (rising). Please don't let me drive you away. HELEN. Nonsense ! You two are old friends. You didn't expect to see me here, and you had no 2 18 OVER THE HILLS time to pretend you were delighted. The situation is extremely awkward. MARTIN. I hope you will come back, Mrs. Wilde. HELEN (briefly}. Yes. Robert will be wanting his Benger's food. [Exit HELEN. SHE closes the door. MARTIN. Benger's food ? Robert, this is serious. To find you married is not so bad. It might happen to anybody. But what is Benger's food ? ROBERT (huffily}. I take it to please my wife. MARTIN. Is it as bad as that? When did it happen ? ROBERT. As soon as I got back from that Pacific trip. MARTIN. About seven years ago. Quite settled down. ROBERT (changing the subject}. What have you been doing ? MARTIN. What am I always doing? I've been round the world another three times or so. (HE springs up and critically surveys the room.) ROBERT. How did you find me out? MARTIN. I called immediately at the club. Peters told me the address. He was quite sad about it. " Finchley, sir,"" he said ; " he has taken a desirable residence." "But Finchley," I objected, "is a suburb. 11 " Yes, sir,"" said Peters ; " I'm afraid Mr. Wilde is not the man he was." You and Peters always agreed about suburbs places to settle down in. OVER THE HILLS 19 ROBERT (savagely). Peters might have told you I was married. MARTIN. Peters never did like to inflict pain. (MARTIN has been wandering round the room during these remarks, with the eyes of a connoisseur.) MARTIN. You're pretty snug in here. ROBERT ( flattered and delighted) . It is a comfort- able room, don't you think ? MARTIN (before the dresser). That's a nice piece of old oak. ROBERT (leaping up to show off his possessions). Isn't it? Look at the legs. Stuart, running into Queen Anne. It is a collector's piece. Shows the transition. MARTIN. A comfortable room, a comfortable wife, comfortable old oak. How did it happen ? ROBERT (testily). It's very well to scoff. But there is something in having a place of your own. MARTIN. A place of your own ! Really, Robert, you forget the first principles of our system. This room at the present moment is as much mine as yours. I can feel the fire. I can enjoy all you have. And in a few moments I can leave it. Then the wind and the rain is mine. All I touch belongs as much to me as to the people who have bought it, and insured it against fire and burglary. More. For me it is pure enjoyment. For them it is money spent, anxiety, and imprisonment. ROBERT (irritably). I know all about that. Any- one, to hear you talk, would think I was a comfort- ably married man. MARTIN (looking round). It certainly looks like it. ROBERT (striding to the window and indicating the elements with a magnificent gesture). Do you imagine I am deaf to all that ? Do you imagine I prefer to be as I am ? MARTIN (grinning). Over the hills eh ? ROBERT. If only you knew how restless I have been to-night ! MARTIN (looking fixedly at ROBERT'S armchair). I noticed you quite carefully when I came in. Robert, you have changed ! I am sure that at the present moment you are thinking more about my dirty boots on the carpet than anything else. (ROBERT looks hastily away from MARTIN'S boots, and walks solemnly towards him.} ROBERT (putting his hand on MARTIN'S shoulder}. If only you knew! I have suffered. (Overcoming his emotion) However, tell me about yourself. (THEY prepare to settle down.} ROBERT (as MARTIN is about to sit on ROBERT'S chair). No, not there. This one is more comfortable. (HE pulls forward HELEN'S chair.) MARTIN (settling down luxuriously). Thanks. ROBERT (drawing cigars from his pocket). Have a cigarette ? MARTIN. Thanks, I prefer a pipe. (THEY both make themselves comfortable.} ROBERT. Now, where have you been exactly ? OVER THE HILLS 21 MARTIN. Well (puff}> there's not much to tell (puff)- I've been mostly (puff] on the old tracks, chiefly in the East. (He breaks off\ to look fondly at his steaming boots.) You know, Robert, the best of being a vagabond is that you may always be con- scientiously comfortable whenever you have the chance. The golden rule is, to take everything as it comes. Fve another ten miles to-night. Meantime, this is very agreeble. (Sighs contentedly.) ROBERT. Yes, but MARTIN. How do you think I came up to town this morning ? ROBERT. How ? MARTIN. I came in the Golliwog. I have bought her. Couldn't resist it. I have come in her from Tripoli. ROBERT (with excitement) . Then she's in London ? MARTIN. She is. The times we have had in that smelly old boat ! You remember the smell (sniff's delightedly}. Lascars, oil, tar, and bilge. That smell always takes me back to the night when we found that island of ours in the Pacific. I was there the other day. The hut is still standing. But the tinned stuff was all bad. ROBERT. When did you buy the Golliwog 1 ? MARTIN. A month ago. Came across her on the coast of Africa. Bought her and kept on the old dirty crew. Came straight up to tell you. Thought perhaps you'd like to start off with me to-morrow. But your wanderings are over, Robert, my boy. 22 OVER THE HILLS ROBERT (rising excitedly). Where are you going ? MARTIN. Haven't an idea. I thought of just sailing out, turning round three times with my eyes shut, and going off in a straight line. ROBERT. Are you stocked ? MARTIN. The Lascars are seeing to that now. I'm going on to the cottage at Elstree to-night to pick up one or two books. I'm off to-morrow on the fall of the tide. ROBERT (hoarsely). Don't, Martin. I can't bear it. MARTIN. Why not come ? ROBERT. How can I come ? MARTIN. Come for a short spin a holiday. ROBERT (more hoarsely). I daren't. MARTIN. Is your wife so terrible ? ROBERT. It isn't that. I'm afraid of myself. (Dreamily) Once I set my face to the sea, I could never come back. It would be over the hills never to return. MARTIN (cheerfully). I'll guarantee to get you back. ROBERT (dismally). What would be the use of it? Could I have the old sense of freedom ? It would be merely travelling. There is nothing in that. It is the feeling of perfect freedom which is so glorious each day a law to itself. That feeling can never come to me again. OVER THE HILLS 23 Enter Helen. ROBERT. Besides, how can I leave my wife ? Even for a day. It would break her heart. HELEN (coming forward] . Robert is a born travel- ler. He has the gift of exaggeration. ROBERT (tragically). Helen ! You have heard everything. HELEN. Everything, Robert. ROBERT (smitten with remorse). How can you forgive me ? HELEN (brie/It/). The point is you would like a holiday. Have one. (MARTIN gives up his chair to HELEN.) MARTIN (twinkling 1 with mischief; he takes HELEN'S view of ROBERT as a wanderer). I was just suggesting, Mrs. Wilde, that Robert should sail with me to- morrow morning. A short holiday would do him good. HELEN (stitching again). I agree. Robert is out of sorts. MARTIN (settling by thejire). Worse. He's getting stout. HELEN. When would you like Robert to be ready ? MARTIN. I am going over to my cottage at Elstree to-night, and sailing on the morning tide. Robert can start with me now, or join me at Tilbury. HELEN (matter - of -fact). Which is it to be, Robert ? ROBERT (horrorstruck) . Helen ! 24 OVER THE HILLS HELEN. Well, dear ? ROBERT (wildly}. You do not understand. Do not send me away. HELEN. Robert, I wish you to take a holiday. ROBERT (hoarsely}. Do not send me away. (In a hollow voice') You do not know what you are doing. I may never return. HELEN (quite unmoved). I should not like you to cut your holiday short, dear. ROBERT. Helen ! HELEN. If at the end of a week you wish to come back, let me know. I should, of course, like to be at home. If after a few days you feel like a month of it, you must write and tell me. ROBERT. But what will you do ? HELEN. There are many things to do. There is the store cupboard. ROBERT (to the chandelier}. The store cupboard ! HELEN. Pickles, my dear. Maggie tells me we are getting very low. You know you like them home-made. Of course, if you think of staying away for good, I won't make such a large quantity. ROBERT. Helen, this is not a jest. I am in deadly earnest. I tell you, if I leave this house to-night, I may never return. MARTIN (with great enjoyment}. Then, that's de- cided, Mrs. Wilde? HELEN. Yes, Mr. Durrant. ROBERT (wildly). Helen ! Try to realize that vou are sending me away for ever. OVER THE HILLS 25 HELEN (mournfully). Robert, you must obey the call of your nature. ROBERT. Can you live your life alone? Think that these walls may never again be my home and yours our home. {He choices.) (HELEN remains placid as ever, and ROBERT loses his temper.) ROBERT (with heat). Martin, I will meet you to- morrow at Tilbury. HELEN (sharply). You certainly will not, Robert. ROBERT (derisively). Ah, you come to your senses now ! It is too late. (HELEN puts down her stitching, and rises sphinx-like and rings the bell.) ROBERT (uneasily) . What are you going to do ? HELEN. I am sending for your boots, Robert. ROBERT (more uneasily). My boots ? (HELEN crosses to the window, which she opens a little. The wind is heard howling out- side.) HELEN. Do you hear that, Robert ? The wind calling. ROBERT (still more uneasy). You don't mean HELEN. Over the hills, Robert. Over the hills to Elstree. MARTIN (delightedly). Twelve miles, Robert, through the wind, and the rain, and the falling leaves eh ? How wet we shall get how gloriously wet ! 26 OVER THE HILLS Enter MAGGIE. HELEN. Please bring the master's thickest pair of boots, Maggie. The master has to go out. MAGGIE. Yes, in'm. [Exit MAGGIE. ROBERT (thoroughly alarmed). But this is impos- sible. I've got to pack all my things. HELEN. I will send your things down to the boat by messenger. ROBERT. It is unnecessary. HELEN (very, very solemn). Robert, I decided that when the call came to you, as it has come to-night, I would not stand in your way. I know what you are feeling to-night how the comfort and warmth of this room tortures your soul. Another night beneath this roof would stifle you. Your heart is beating for the open road. You shall go now, Robert in the rain that you love. Over the hills. MARTIN (unable to restrain himself). Ha ! ha ! ha ! HELEN (severely). What is the matter with you, Mr. Durrant? MARTIN (solemnly). I am laughing for pure joy of the road, Mrs. Wilde. You have given me back my friend. The trust is sacred. Enter MAGGIE with the boots. Amid a dead silence she places them by the fender. They are the centre of interest for all four. HELEN. Bring Mr. Dun-ant's overcoat, please, Maggie. OVER THE HILLS 27 MAGGIE. Yes, m'm. [Exit MAGGIE. HELEN (indicating boots}. Now, Robert. ROBERT (with sombre intensity). I warn you, Helen, once I put on those boots, no power on earth will be able to restore the happiness of this home. MARTIN (lifting the boots). A fine stout pair of boots, Robert. A credit to the cobbler that made them. HELEN. Chiropodist, Mr. Durrant. MARTIN. Eh? HELEN. Chiropodist, not cobbler. Robert suffers with his feet. ROBERT (outraged). Give me those boots, Martin. (Pulling them violently on) My conscience is clear. (HE laces the boots in silence. The wind is heard howling outside. He rises, looks blackly at HELEN, and leaves the room for his coat. HELEN stitches on with a happy smile. MARTIN looks ever more delighted.) Enter MAGGIE with MARTIN'S coat, which she helps him to put on. ROBERT (reappearing with his coat on). Now then, Martin. MARTIN. Ready. HELEN. Robert, you're not going out like that. (SiiE rises indignantly.) 28 OVER THE HILLS ROBERT. Eh ? HELEN. You haven't got your comforter ! ROBERT (laughing harshly]. Those days are done with, Helen! Dead. No more comforters. This is good-bye. Martin ! HELEN (kissing him like A mother}. Good-bye, dear. MARTIN. Good-bye, Mrs. Wilde. [ROBERT leaves the room. HELEN. Good-bye, Mr. Durrant. ROBERT (calling from the hall). Martin ! MARTIN (at the door, significantly). Don't wait up too long. HELEN (composedly). I shall wait up long enough, Mr. Durrant. (HE goes out. MAGGIE follows to see them off. Shortly after the door bangs. HELEX goes to the iclndoiv and listens to the rain. SHE closes it, smiling a little grimly. SHE comes forward and rings the bell for MAGGIE, then settles down to her stitching by the fire. The clock strikes nine.) MAGGIE enters. HELEN. Maggie, you needn't wait up for me to- night. MAGGIE. Yes, m'm. HELEN. Please make up the kitchen fire before you go to bed. The master has gone out for a walk, and will probably want a hot bath when he gets back. MAGGIE. Yes, m'm. HELEN. You might put a tin of (Dolman's mustard in the bathroom a large tin. MAGGIE. Yes, nVm. HELEN. And bring the whisky in here, please, with the small kettle. MAGGIE. Yes, m"m. (MAGGIE goes out. HELEN continues to stitch peacefully, with an occasional smile flickering- over her face. The CURTAIN descends to mark the lapse of several hours. The CURTAIN ow rising discovers HELEN sitting in her chair by tfiejire. The kettle is on the hob; the whisky is beside the work- basket. ROBERT'S slippers are in the fender. The clock strikes twelve. There is a tapping at the window. HELEN puts away her work, and goes to see if it is really Robert. Finding it is, she admits him through the window. He staggers stiffly in, streaming with water and groan- ing with aches and pains. SHE removes his coat, sits him in his chair, and begins to undo his boots.) ROBERT. I can do that, Helen. (SHE withdraws to watch ROBERT unlace his boots with stiff" fingers. HE gets them off, puts on his slippers, stretches his feet to the fire, and leans back, lost to the world with fatigue. HELEN mixes some hot whisky.) 30 OVER THE HILLS HELEN. Here ! Drink this. ROBEET. Eh ? HELEN. Drink this. (HE drinks, recovers some of his brains, and looks at her, glass in hand.) ROBERT. Hot whisky! Slippers! (Tears in his voice) Don't say you expected me. HELEN (soothingly). I thought it possible you might come back. (ROBERT drinks some more whisky, and feels it doing- him good. HE recovers enough to say judiciously :) ROBERT. Tm not sure whether I like it or whether I don't like it. I'm glad of the whisky. But to be expected ! (Plumping down the glass) How dare you expect me ? HELEN (evasively). Ifssucha. dreadful night over the hills. ROBERT (with a fearful cry) . The hills ! Ugh ! Ugh ! Ugh ! Never mention them to me again. HELEN. Tell me about it. (Gives him some more whisky.) ROBERT. Horrible ! (Drinks.) Soaked to the skin in five minutes. Every mile like ten. With a head wind howling past like a fury. (Drinks.) Now and then I heard noises from Martin. Martin was singing. Singing. (Drinks.) I had pains in my back, in my legs all over. At last I stuck told Martin I wouldn't budge on any farther. HELEN. What did he say ? OVER THE HILLS 31 ROBERT. He stood in the road, dripping wet ; and he laughed. I left him. (Drinks.) I left him in the awful rain trying to light his pipe. Helen, take me to bed. HELEN. You must get between the blankets, dear. There's a hot bath ready, and be sure to put in all the mustard. ROBERT (hysterical with fatigue, returning warmth, and the whisky) . Ha ! ha ! ha ! Martin ! Ha ! ha ! St-still out there. Over the h-h-h-h ills. (HELEN smiles sweetly at ROBERT, but the smile is enigmatic. She opens the door into the hall and turns out the light in the room. SHE and ROBERT now stand in a glow from the passage.) ROBERT (pulling himself together). Eh ! Funny, isn't it ? Martin out there. Even you can see the humour of that. HELEN (leading him off"). Yes, dear. CURTAIN. BILLING AND BOUTS, LTD., PRINTERS, OUILDFORD A DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF MODERN PLAYS I ON THE READING OF PLAYS " It is a tribute to the literary quality of our modern plays chat so many of them gain rather than lose in the printed page." Globe. "A drama issued in book -form, and furnished with that brisk commentary on the text which Mr. Bernard Shaw set the fashion of supplying, takes on something of the character of a novel, and has the advantage of being very much shorter." Athenaeum. " As soon as the imagination has been trained to ' see ' the characters, to ' hear ' their talk, to create their surroundings quickly from a hint or two about scenery, to realise the workings of their minds with the aid of stage directions then reading plays gives more pleasure than reading novels. There is no padding. No arid wastes of descriptive twaddle delay the action. No tiresome moralising by the author insults the intelligent reader, who is quite well able to draw conclusions for himself. Anyone who is accustomed to reading good plays finds the average novel slow and heavy with a burden of unnecessary words." Daily Mail. PUBLISHED BY SIDGWICK Gf JACKSON, LTD. 3 ADAM STREET, LONDON, W.C. GRANVILLE BARKER " Mr. Barker . . . takes no joy in the game of sticking pins into convention. He outrages convention when he wishes to ; but he only wishes to because it gets in the way of the greater things that are his real subject. The desire to shock has no place in Mr. Barker's published work ; the desire to teach has a great place. And Mr. Barker stands at the head of a movement that, in English drama, is undoubtedly new." Times Literary Supplement, Oct. 7, 1909. " His plays are among the few that are worth seeing and among the still fewer that are worth reading, and reading seriously and more than once." Morning Post, Sept. 27, 1909. " A remarkable talent lies here ; perhaps a very great one. Mr. Barker's literary faculty is in itself unusual. He is a serious and highly competent workman, he writes no dull or weak lines ; he can be both allusive and direct, and now and then he approaches Ibsen's power of imparting to prose the incomparable emotional effect of poetry." Nation, Sept. 1 8, 1909. " Whatever Mr. Granville Barker does on a stage, or behind it, is a matter for both respect and delight. One has to respect, too, what he writes ; for he will take none of the cheap and nasty ways to a kind of success ; he tries for fine things, his ideas are liberal, his circumstantial observation of a scene is very close, and his nicety of characterisation . . . borders on the marvellous, like the discrimination of expert wool-sorters and tea-tasters." Manchester Guardian. " Le theatre est avant tout pour lui un moyen de combat." Revue Germanique, 1912. GRANVILLE BARKE'R THE VOYSEY INHERITANCE This play deals with the moral problems that present them- selves to Edward Voysey, when he learns that the solicitor's business which he inherits from his father is based on a system of misappropriation of trust funds. He seeks justifica- tion for his attempt to put matters straight, and his actions are criticised from various points of view by the other members of his family. Finally he is reconciled to the distasteful task by the encouragement of his cousin Alice Maitland. " An amazingly vivid, grimly humorous picture of a prosperous mid- Victorian English family; it is merciless and intensely comic. . . . Moreover, it has a delicate, sub- dued strain of love -interest, with a pleasantly pathetic flavour." Westminster Gazette. " The play represents one of the very best specimens of the modern English dramatic school. It is thoughtful, it is serious, it is interesting, it is dramatic ; it touches real problems, and gives us real personages." W. L. Courtney in the Daily Telegraph. Eighth Impression. Cloth, zs. net ; Paper, \s. 6d. net. Also in " Three Plays,''' with " The Marrying of Anne Leete" and " Waste" Cloth, 5/. net. * All Plays in this list, unless otherwise described, are published in Crown octavo, 7^ x 5 inches. GRANVILLE BARKER WASTE "enforces with a certain sombre power" (says the Church Family News), "and without pandering to pruriency, the teaching so often ignored, so bitterly resented, so surely true, that the wages of sin is death." The story, put briefly, shows how the career of Henry Trebell, a rising young politician, is ruined by his momentary intrigue with an attractive but empty-headed married woman. She refuses to face the scandal that is in prospect, and dies as the result of her attempt to destroy Trebell's child. Trebell, with his political career cut short, finds nothing left to live for, and commits suicide. " To have read Waste twice through carefully is to recog- nise it as a fine intellectual achievement subtle, profound, interesting, just. ... It is packed with subjects, and with original thought about those subjects." Times. " This play is a superb tragedy, relentless, pitiful, veracious." Daily Chronicle. " A reading of it confirms our opinion that in it we have one of the notable plays of modern times." Athenceum. " It is full of ideas, it is rich in knowledge of life. Its one sex phase, to which doubtless objection was taken, makes for purity and anti-sensualism as much as the most verbally correct of modern comic operas or musical comedies may make for the opposite." C. K. S. in the Sphere. Eighth Impression. Cloth, ^s. net ; Paper, is. 6a. net. Also in " Three Plays" with " The Marrying of Ann Leete " and " The Voysey Inheritance." Cloth, $s. net. GRANVILLE BARKER THE MADRAS HOUSE "The unifying principle of the play," Mr. Max Beerbohm said in the Saturday Review, " is that the theme throughout is the present and future of woman woman regarded from various standpoints, moral, aesthetic, economic, and so on." Constantine Madras, once a man-milliner of Bond Street, has turned Mahommedan. His brother-in-law, Henry Huxtable, has six unmarried daughters at home in Denmark Hill, and a large drapery establishment where the living-in system has produced suspicion of a scandal. Another view is presented by Eustace Perrin State, a sentimental American business-man who has come to negotiate for the purchase of the Madras House. Philip and Jessica Madras, with their friend Major Thomas, also contribute to the debate. " You can read The Madras House at your leisure, dip into it here and there, turn a tit-bit over lovingly on the palate . . . and the result is, in our experience, a round of pleasure. . . . That priceless companion the sentimental American capitalist, Mr. State . . . 'has never read the Koran an oversight [he makes a mental note~\.' . . . The Madras House is so good in print that everybody should make a mental note to read it, like Mr. State with the Koran." Times. " The play has a cornucopious flow of ideas ; it has wit, pungency, surprisingness, relevance to modern life, and perfect freedom from stupidities of every kind ; and it gives you the feeling of contact with an uncommon, eager, luminous mind." Manchester Guardian. "Tous ceux qui s'interessent aux mceurs veritables de 1'Angleterre devront lire la piece de Mr. Granville Barker." Mercure de France. Third Impression. Cloth, 2s. net ; Paper, is. 6d. net. GRANVILLE BARKER THE MARRYING OF ANN LEETE is set in the eighteenth century. The play shows how Ann, on the verge of contracting a marriage of convenience with Lord John Carp, revolts from the decadence of her family and deliberately marries a healthy young gardener. "We've all been in too great a hurry to be civilised," she says to her husband ; " I mean to go back ... I was afraid to live . . . and now I am content." "Delicate, sensuous, half-modish, half-poetic." Nation. " As a piece of literature it is splendid ; its language is full of point and wit, and the scenes and costumes help to conjure up the idea of a picture by Watteau." Court Journal. Fourth Impression. Cloth, 2s. net ; Paper, is. 6d. net. Note.} THREE PLAYS By GRANVILLE BARKER includes Cloth, 5/. net. (Postage, d.) Also a Special Edition, limited to 50 copies, signed by the Author, extra bound in three volumes, in a case, 2 is. net per set. (Postage, 6d.} H O U S M A N B A R K E R PRUNELLA or Love in a Dutch Garden By LAURENCE HOUSMAN and GRANVILLE BARKER tells how Pierrot saw Prunella through the hedge of her aunts' formal garden, and crept through to her, bringing romance (as she thought) ; how he wooed her and carried her off through the window of her room down a ladder of dreams ; how he deserted her thereafter, and left her desolate ; and finally how she found him again when everything seemed to have turned against her. " A very charming love-tale, which works slowly to a climax of great and touching beauty." Dally News. " This exquisite little fantasy is not the least of the addi- tions to our dramatic literature which we owe to the Court Theatre enterprise. It reads as charmingly as it acted, and that is saying much. It is full of quaint invention, humour, irony, and pathos." Tribune. Pott 4/0, with frontispiece by Laurence Housman and music of " Pierrot' s Serenade " (which can be obtained separately, is. 6d. net), decorated cloth, 51. net. Seventh Impression. Theatre Edition, Paper, is. net. BARKER S CRN ITZLER ANATOL A Sequence of Dialogues By ARTHUR SCHNITZLER, paraphrased for the English Stage by GRANVILLE BARKER. CONTENTS (I) Ask no Questions and you'll hear no Stories (II) A Christmas Present (III) An Episode (IV) Keepsakes (V) A Farewell Supper (VI) Dying Pangs (VII) The Wedding Morning. Anatol is an amorous but inconstant bachelor of Vienna ; his friend Max is another, but more philosophical and phlegmatic. Anatol appears in all the Dialogues, Max in five of them ; but there is a different lady in each of the seven, and with them as foils Anatol shows himself by turns sentimental, jealous, disillusioned, self-critical, absurdly vain, and incurably volatile. " He makes a fine art of his love- affairs, and carefully diagnoses the sensations they produce." "Anatol is a bad lot, but the dialogues in which he figures are little masterpieces of polished, glittering lucidity and point. . . . Mr. Granville Barker has certainly made excellent English of them." Manchester Guardian. Third Impression. Cloth, ^s. net; Paper, is. 6d. net. JOHN MASEFIELD THE TRAGEDY OF POMPEY THE GREAT ARGUMENT. In the years 50 and 49 B.C., Cneius Pompeius Magnus, the head of the patrician party, contested with C. Julius Caesar, the popular leader, for supreme power in the State. Their jealousy led to the trouble of the Civil War, in which, after many battles, Cneius Pompeius Magnus was miserably killed. ACT I. The determination of Pompeius to fight with his rival, then marching upon Rome. ACT II. The triumph of Pompey's generalship at Dyrrachium. His overthrow by the generals of his staff. His defeat at Pharsalia. ACT III. The death of that great ruler on the seashore of Pelusium in Egypt. " In this Roman tragedy, while we admire its closely knit structure, dramatic effectiveness, and atmosphere of reality . . . the warmth and colour of the diction are the most notable things. . . . He knows the art of phrasing ; he has the instinct for and by them." Atheticeum. " Fine, nervous, dramatic English. Words which eat into the soul, which have a meaning, which are revelatory of character. A fine virility about the whole play and its conception. An altogether admirable piece of writing which fully justifies Mr. Masefield's real literary distinction." Observer. " He has written a great tragedy. . . . The dialogue is written in strong, simple, and nervous prose, flashing with poetic insight, significance, and suggestion. The characters are intensely alive, the situations are handled by a master hand, and the whole play is pregnant with that high and solemn pathos which is the gift of the born writer of tragedies." Morning Post. Third Impression. Cloth, $s. 6d. net ; Paper, \s. 6d. net. A2 GITHA SOWERBY RUTHERFORD & SON The real hero or villain of this play is literally "Rutherford & Son," i.e. the firm established by the lifelong labour of John Rutherford. To this idol in his old age he sacrifices every- thing ; he robs his son of a trade-secret to maintain the Works, and to maintain the firm's dignity he drives from his house his daughter and his trusted head-man, who are secret lovers. Opposed and hated by his children, he is at last driven to bargain with his daughter-in-law for control of the grandson who is to carry on the business ; and " Rutherford's " emerges triumphant. " Miss Sowerby's Rutherford and Son is the best first play since Chains of Miss Elizabeth Baker. . . . Her play is exactly like Chains in the complete subordination of everything to a persistent main theme. Both plays are the work of an aesthetic puritan." Saturday Review. "Literary enough to make excellent reading." Daily Express. "It is a finely constructed play and a remarkable first work." Catholic Herald. " I have read few good acting plays which are so con- secutive and satisfactory to read." T. P.'s Weekly. Second Impression. Cloth, is. 6d. net ; Paper, is. 6d. net. 10 ELIZABETH BAKER CHAINS This play, originally produced by the Play Actors' Society, and subsequently one of the successes of the Frohman Repertory Theatre, deals with the life of London clerks and their families. Miss Baker's hero, Charlie Wilson, struggles to emancipate himself from his narrow life ; and is on the point of emigrating to the Colonies when he finds that he is going to become a father. Such are the "chains" that tie him to his life at home. " It is not often that the theatre in England sets one thinking ; still less often does it open up an imperial horizon. But the play called Chains, at the Repertory Theatre, does both." Daily Mail. "It is just the sort of play that one likes to buy and read, for it is real and alive, and a play full of ideas." Daily Mail. Third Impression. Cloth, is. 6d. net ; Paper, is. net. THE PRICE OF THOMAS SCOTT This play, written with all the intimate knowledge of her characters that is to be expected of the author of Chains, shows the struggles of a draper, with a failing business and a growing son, against the temptation to sell his shop to a purchaser who intends to convert it into a dancing-hall. Thomas Scott is a devout chapel-goer and a Puritan, and realises that he cannot serve both God and Mammon. Cloth, 2s. net ; Paper, is. 6d. net. II LAURENCE HOUSMAN PAINS AND PENALTIES: The Defence of Queen Caroline This play has been described by the Lord Chamberlain in. the course of refusing to license its performance as dealing with " a sad historical episode of comparatively recent date in the life of an unhappy lady." Mr. Housman, in in- troducing his defence of Queen Caroline, Consort of George IV., points out that the " unhappy lady " has been dead for ninety years, during which period her memory has rested under a cloud which the main drift of his play is calculated to remove. " This play has been censored. It is a play by a poet and artist. And it goes very deeply and hauntingly into the heart. The note that it sounds is the note of Justice, and he would indeed be either a fearful or a fawning reader who could find aught to object to in it." Observer. Cloth, 3J. 6d. net; Paper, is. 6d. net. THE CHINESE LANTERN A fantastic play in a quaint Chinese setting, telling how Tikipu, the drudge of an art-school, tried to learn how to paint, and was taken away into a magic picture of Wiowani for three years. Meanwhile the little slave-girl Mee-Mee faithfully awaits his return, which occurs just as she has given up hope and is about to poison herself to avoid a forced marriage with Yunglangtsi, a gross body with a grocer's soul. Mee-Mee and Tikipu run away together. Pott 4/0, Cloth, 3/. 6d. net. 12 GILBERT CANNAN FOUR PLAYS James and John: Miles Dixon : Mary's Wedding: and A Short Way with Authors James and John describes with true pathos the home-coming of a convict father who has served his sentence for embezzle- ment and the way in which he is received by his family. Miles Dixon and Mary's Wedding are two dialect dramas of Westmoreland folk, the former of a tramp-poet wooing a married woman by night, the latter of a girl who failed to redeem her lover from his drunkard's habits. A Short Way with Authors is a brilliant satirical farce directed against the methods and mannerisms of the popular actor- manager. " Miles Dixon is the only play we know in which a writer has shown himself strong enough to train upon Synge and yet be all the more fully himself after it. ... It is one of the most deeply moving of all modern plays." Manchester Guardian. " No one who reads discriminatingly the collection of short plays . . . can fail to recognise in three of the four not only poetic conception but also the language and treatment of poetry. The exception is just a little joke dashed off in high spirits." Sunday Times. " These plays contain the best work he has yet given to the public." Scotsman. Cloth, is, 6d. net. EDWARD GARNETT THE TRIAL OF JEANNE D'ARC follows with some exactitude the actual course, in historical outline, of the trial of Jeanne d'Arc for heresy in January- May 1431. " It is a powerful presentment of a situation charged with dramatic interest ; the reproduction of an atmosphere of political and ecclesiastical chicane, of hypocrisy, trickery, and brutality, involving the solitary figure of the Maid. It presents the concentrated essence of the public life of the fifteenth century an age of a decadent and sophistical Church, and an equally decadent militarism, finding their contrast in the earlier religious ideal personified in Jeanne."- Pall Mall Gazette. " The play can be read with continual interest and frequent admiration in the study." English Review. " Mr. Garnett has succeeded in reproducing the historical atmosphere in no slight measure. Certainly, also, he has not failed to reveal much of the extraordinary psychological interest of the trial." Westminster Gazette. C/otb, 3/. 6