^SAINTS/ 
 
 I AND * I 
 
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 'SINNERS 
 
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 ' HENRY 3 
 / ARTHUR 
 Ik JONES A
 
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 LIBRARY 
 
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 ,
 
 SAINTS AND SINNERS
 
 SAINTS AND SINNERS 
 
 A NEW AND ORIGINAL DRAMA 
 OF 
 
 MODERN ENGLISH MIDDLE -CLASS LIFE 
 
 IN FIVE ACTS 
 BY 
 
 HENRY ARTHUR JONES 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'THE DANCING GIRL,' 'THE MIDDLEMAN,' ' JUDAH,' 
 AND ' WEALTH ' 
 
 iLontion 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 1891 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1891, 
 Bv HENRY ARTHUR JONES.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE passing of the American Copyright Bill is a fact 
 of the highest import for English playwrights and 
 for the future of the English drama, that is, if the 
 English drama has a future. It will indeed afford 
 an accurate gauge of any individual playwright's pre- 
 tensions, and of the general health and condition of 
 the national drama. Hitherto the publication of an 
 English play would have incurred the forfeiture of the 
 American stage-rights, in many cases a very serious 
 pecuniary loss. It would also have been attended 
 with a very grave artistic risk. The best American 
 managers those who are capable of doing justice 
 to the author in the production of a play would 
 naturally have refused to touch it unless their stage- 
 rights were protected. It would have been presented,
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 if at all, under the worst auspices, and with the 
 worst and most haphazard stage management and 
 surroundings. 
 
 Under these circumstances it is a question whether 
 the placing of a play in the hands of the reading 
 public would have compensated for its loss of influ- 
 ence in its legitimate sphere on the stage, and for the 
 discredit brought on the author by inadequate and 
 irresponsible production and performance. 
 
 Further, in the present uncertain relations of 
 English literature and the modern drama, an author 
 may be excused for having some doubts as to whether 
 the interests of either are to be served by the publica- 
 tion of plays whose perusal may only serve to show 
 how sharp is the division between them. The 
 American Copyright Bill removes these disabilities, 
 and makes it inexcusable to yield to these doubts. 
 If, from this time forward, a playwright does not 
 publish within a reasonable time after the theatrical 
 production of his piece, it will be an open con- 
 fession that his work was a thing of the theatre 
 merely, needing its garish artificial light and sur- 
 roundings, and not daring to face the calm air and 
 cold daylight of print. And further, if a custom 
 does not now arise in England, such as prevails
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 in France, of publishing successful plays, and if 
 a general reading public is not gradually drawn 
 round the drama, then it will be a sign that our stage 
 remains in the same state of intellectual paralysis 
 that has afflicted it all the century. Our drama will 
 continue to be a " Slough of Despond " in the wide 
 well-tilled field of English literature, an irreclaimable 
 bog wherein, as in John Bunyan's, " twenty thousand 
 cartloads of wholesome instructions" have been 
 thrown without improving the way. 
 
 But it will be urged that many successful plays will 
 not " read " at all, while in many others the passages 
 that charm us most in the study are those that bore 
 us most on the stage, and the passages that do not 
 strike us at all in reading sometimes come out in 
 letters of fire at the theatre. This brings me to 
 remark what it is one of the chief objects of this 
 preface to enforce and illustrate, namely, that there is 
 a certain very strong antagonism between the literary 
 and theatrical elements of a play. Very often this 
 antagonism is more apparent than real, very often it 
 is the just rebellion of the theatrical ass (I am speak- 
 ing quite figuratively) against carrying a load of 
 literary luggage that does not belong to him ; very 
 often it is his native friskiness refusing to carry any
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 literary luggage at all, that is, to drop metaphor, it 
 is the mere impatience of intellectual exertion in a 
 theatre on the part of both entertained and enter- 
 tainers. But whatever the cause of the quarrel, and 
 whatever the various and debatable circumstances 
 that may place the blame on the one side or the 
 other, there does exist this very palpable antagonism, 
 and jealousy, and desire of mastery between the two 
 elements, theatrical and literary, that make up a 
 play. So much so that on seeing some popular 
 plays one is tempted to exclaim, "The worst and 
 deadliest enemy of the English drama is the English 
 theatre." 
 
 It is not my province here to deal at length with 
 the relation between English literature and the 
 modern English drama, or rather with the want of 
 relation between them. I am only concerned to 
 establish the general rule, that the intellectual and 
 art values of any drama, its permanent influence and 
 renown, are in exact proportion to its literary qualities. 
 Shakespeare and Sheridan are popular playwrights 
 to-day, strictly on account of the enduring literary 
 qualities of their work. They have admirable stage- 
 craft as well, but this alone would not have rescued 
 them from oblivion. The French drama has been
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 operative intellectually and has commanded the 
 respect of the civilised world because its authors 
 have been men of letters, and because their works 
 have always been available and recognisable as pieces 
 of literature. There has been a definite literary 
 standard below which it was impossible for any 
 French dramatist of standing to sink. In England 
 there has been no literary standard, and no ready 
 means of marking the literary and intellectual position 
 of the modern drama. The most amazing master- 
 pieces of artificiality, extravagance, and theatricality 
 have been rapturously received by the great British 
 multitude without ever being examined as works of 
 literature or studies of life. Every great literary critic 
 of the age has contemptuously spoken of the modern 
 drama, or has more contemptuously ignored it. If any 
 little flame of authentic literary fire has arisen, it has 
 quickly flickered out in the inane air. Perhaps the 
 most accurate idea of the literary status of the modern 
 drama can be gained from the style and form of pre- 
 sentation of those plays which for necessary business 
 theatrical purposes it is considered advisable to print. 
 Nothing could better express the frank contempt of 
 the English theatre for English literature. In the 
 first of Mr. William Archer's volumes on the modern
 
 x PREFACE 
 
 theatre, English Dramatists of To-day, will be found 
 what will surely be a sociological curiosity of great 
 interest in another generation or two a transcript 
 of the most popular scene from the most popular and 
 money-making comedy of our time. At present it 
 is severely instructive reading. I shall doubtless be 
 called to account for sneering at what has brought 
 innocent delight to thousands. Innocent delight ! 
 Fireworks and Aunt Sally are innocent delights, and 
 there is no deadly sin in an exhibition of chromo- 
 lithographs. 
 
 Perhaps some of my remarks would be more 
 applicable to the theatre of ten or twenty years ago. 
 In quite recent days it may be gratefully acknowledged 
 that in London at least a new spirit is kindling our 
 audiences, and a new strong desire is openly expressed 
 that the modern drama should take its rightful position 
 as a national art in definite relation with literature 
 and the other arts, with an acknowledged intellectual 
 status and declared intellectual and artistic aims. 
 The piercing light of science has been sprung upon 
 us behind the scenes, and our worn-out old apparatus 
 of theatrical effect and situation looks half-ghastly 
 half-trumpery in that cold cruel beam. Ancient 
 and well-established purveyors of the old regulation
 
 PREFACE xi 
 
 theatrical fare are pathetically declaiming against the 
 fickleness of the public taste. Strange that this poor 
 docile good-natured public, which has always been 
 so comfortably conservative, should at last get a 
 glimmering in its head that the English drama is, 
 or should be, mainly and chiefly the art of repre- 
 senting English life, and not the art of sensational 
 and spectacular illusion, nor the art of building 
 up an ingenious Chinese puzzle of comic or thrill- 
 ing situations ! Strange ! What will become of the 
 British drama if this new idea should take root and 
 grow? 
 
 To return to the examination of the opposing 
 literary and theatrical elements in a play. The com- 
 parative intellectual and literary degradation of the 
 modern drama for two or three generations past is 
 due to the fact that plays have been chiefly considered 
 and exploited from their purely theatrical side, and 
 as a vehicle for exhibiting the powers and peculiarities 
 of an actor or a company. Now it is quite natural 
 and just that an actor should have the highest opinion 
 of his art, and that he should wish to subordinate the 
 purely literary element in a play. I do not mean 
 that he will wish to cut any literary speech that occurs 
 in his part, or that he will not like to win the praise
 
 rii PREFACE 
 
 that is bestowed upon a literary production. But 
 naturally and of necessity under our present system 
 those plays, and those parts of a play, will be exploited 
 which give the actor an immediate chance of dazzling 
 the public. And the play will be considered with 
 this chief end in view, of ministering to the popularity 
 of the actor, rather than with any idea of presenting 
 a perfect piece of literature and of restoring play- 
 writing to its lost dignity of a national literary art. It 
 will of course be said that this is the dramatist's 
 concern and not the actor's. Quite so, but it cannot 
 be anybody's concern while the playwright is the 
 actor's servant. The present system in England of 
 manufacturing plays to order and to exploit some 
 leading performer is quite sufficient to account for 
 the literary degradation of the modern drama and 
 for the just contempt with which it has been viewed 
 by the intellect of the nation during the last twenty- 
 five years. How is it possible that a writer can put 
 his best work into what does not spring spontaneously 
 from his heart and convictions? And a comparison 
 of the stages of England and France for the past 
 generation gives an exact answer to the questions 
 " What is the result of putting the theatrical elements 
 of a play in the first place ? " and " What is the result
 
 PREFACE xiii 
 
 of putting the literary elements in the first place?" 
 While it is highly significant that the recent adoption 
 by a leading French playwright of the English practice 
 of writing plays to order for a star performer has 
 marked a notable decline in the quality of his work. 
 And the effect on the audiences is also correspondent 
 and answerable. For the public is pliable and 
 teachable within very considerable limits, and by a 
 natural law it grows tolerant of and responsive to 
 the conditions imposed upon it. And further, it is 
 impossible for an actor who sees nightly audiences 
 deeply impressed and stirred by theatrical devices 
 not to suppose that these are the very essence of the 
 dramatic art. Finally, so many and so binding 
 and so perplexing are the necessary conventions and 
 limitations of playwriting, that the author watch- 
 ing his public closely and for dear life's sake being 
 obliged to keep in touch with them, becomes also 
 confused and is often led astray to mistake some 
 stale trick of the stage for a fundamental law of its 
 being. 
 
 Now the custom of publishing our plays at least offers 
 a chance of escape from some of these difficulties and 
 absurdities, if it does not open up a larger and higher 
 sphere for the dramatist. In dealing with this question
 
 xiv PREFACE 
 
 on a former occasion I omitted to distinguish between 
 the two kinds of success that a play should strive 
 to win. There is the immediate theatrical success, 
 which is largely due to acting, stage arrangement, and 
 management; and there is the more permanent and 
 worthy renown, which is literary and intellectual rather 
 than theatrical. Thus, while in the case of the School 
 for Scandal this higher renown belongs to Sheridan, 
 the theatrical success of any revival depends upon the 
 cast and stage management and other details entirely 
 belonging to the theatre. Now my contention is 
 that our present system tends to deny this higher 
 and permanent renown to the dramatist, tends to 
 keep his eyes off his great task and his great reward, 
 tends to docket him as a journeyman-assistant in the 
 cheaper and temporary theatrical success. When 
 one glances at our great Victorian literature, at its 
 conspicuous achievements in poetry, in fiction, in 
 history, in biography, in science, in criticism, it is 
 impossible to doubt that it might have been equally 
 triumphant in the domain of the English drama had 
 some stream of its great flood been by chance 
 diverted across that arid common. Perhaps if 
 one searches a little into causes, the intellectual 
 poverty of the drama of this century may be chiefly
 
 PREFACE xv 
 
 ascribed to the Puritan dread of the theatre, and to 
 those other reasons which have kept the English from 
 being a playgoing nation as a whole, and have also 
 kept any considerable portion of cultivated playgoers 
 from forming a body of sound dramatic opinion 
 amongst themselves. 
 
 But the prejudices that have kept the English 
 from being a playgoing nation are rapidly breaking 
 up, and more encouraging still, a body of carefully 
 discussed and examined dramatic opinion is being 
 gradually formed amongst the more advanced section 
 of playgoers. The intellectual ferment of the age 
 has reached the theatre and has begun to leaven it. 
 I have tried to indicate what appears to me one of 
 the great hindrances to our advance to a higher 
 level. While audiences are trained to regard the 
 theatrical elements of a play as the essence of 
 the matter, plays will succeed or fail mainly on 
 their theatrical merits, and at best we shall remain 
 in our present position. No very high literary or 
 intellectual average will be maintained because the 
 prizes are to be looked for in another direction, 
 and for other qualities. 
 
 Nothing that I have said must be held to imply 
 contempt of theatrical success, or disrespect of those
 
 xvi PREFACE 
 
 whose devotion to their own art naturally inclines 
 them to rank it in the highest place. And I am 
 very glad to acknowledge here my immense debt to 
 those who have been associated with me in the re- 
 presentation of my plays. It would be impossible 
 for me to appraise my indebtedness to them too 
 highly, or to give them too much credit for their 
 share in the measure of theatrical success that I have 
 obtained. 
 
 But I hope I shall not be misjudged or censured 
 if I continue to insist upon the comparative worthless- 
 ness of all mere theatrical success. The passing of 
 the American Copyright Bill will prove the mettle of 
 English playwrights. It will show whether we are 
 capable of seizing and holding our great legacy as the 
 inheritors of our Elizabethan forefathers, or whether 
 we are only fit to be the lackeys and underlings of 
 French farceurs, supine, effete, disabled, and im- 
 potently dallying with the great issues of human 
 life as with a child's box of wooden toy-men. 
 
 The English drama has a great chance to-day. 
 There is but one way of advancing or even of holding 
 our own, and that is by making the theatre a national 
 art with a definite literary and intellectual basis, dis- 
 dainful of all theatrical effect that will not submit to
 
 PREFACE xvii 
 
 take an auxiliary place. There are a dozen, a 
 hundred different ways of tumbling back into folly 
 and insincerity and theatricality. 
 
 We have amongst our dramatic critics more than 
 one man who may justly claim that he has done 
 more to advance the popularity and prosperity of 
 the theatre than any living author. And we have 
 many who love and honour the drama, and are 
 dissatisfied with its present condition. I am sure no 
 greater service can be done to the English drama 
 than for those who are our appointed judges to insist 
 that we shall no longer shelter ourselves behind the 
 illusions of the theatre, the talent, the passion, the 
 insight, and the personalities of our interpreters, but 
 that we shall reveal the true character of our own 
 work, and show whether it has any lasting vitality and 
 truth in it apart from its momentary apparition be- 
 hind the heated glare of the footlights. 
 
 II 
 
 I leave the general question of the advisability and 
 importance to the English stage of establishing a 
 custom of printing successful plays, and come to the
 
 xviii PREFACE 
 
 smaller matter of the individual play here given to 
 the public in its printed form for the first time. 
 
 After I had obtained a great financial success in 
 melodrama, and was temporarily in a position to 
 write a play to please myself rather than to suit the 
 exigencies of a theatrical manager, I gave many 
 months to the writing of Saints and Sinners. I 
 was not then very well acquainted with all the many 
 necessities of theatrical production, and the niceties 
 and peculiarities of audiences at particular theatres, 
 and I confidently reckoned upon as great a success 
 in my new venture as I had just obtained in what I 
 knew to be the cheaper and coarser art of melodrama. 
 But at the outset the piece was very dubiously re- 
 ceived, and the general impression obtained in 
 theatrical circles that I had only proved my incom- 
 petence to write plays away from the theatrical leading- 
 strings which had hitherto guided me. And before 
 I knew that the piece had settled into an assured 
 success, I had weakly sold myself to what the Satur- 
 day Review justly calls, " the dull devil of spectacular 
 melodrama." And I remained a bondslave for many 
 years. 
 
 I am conscious of very many defects in the play. 
 I wish I could ascribe them to the bad school in
 
 PREFACE xix 
 
 which any English playwright who began to learn 
 his art in 1870 was necessarily nurtured. And I 
 wish I had the time and will to remedy them. But 
 having once left a play I find it very difficult to re- 
 enter into its spirit, and it is almost impossible for 
 me to give additional vitality to characters that I 
 have once parted company with. And with more 
 important tasks pressing me, I do not think it would 
 be profitable for me to do more than I have done 
 during the last few days, namely, remove a few extra- 
 vagancies and touch up the dialogue where I could do 
 so easily, and without disturbing the general tenor 
 and necessary succession of the scenes. But, though 
 I may not lay the flattering unction to my soul that 
 the artificial conditions of the English drama at the 
 time of my learning stagecraft were responsible for 
 all the failings of Sainfs and Sinners, I think I 
 may honestly plead them as an extenuation of some 
 of its worst defects. 
 
 Nothing could give a better idea of the stand- 
 point of the average British playgoer, of his utter 
 incapacity to view a play as a study and representation 
 of life, or to look upon it as anything but a comic 
 entertainment designed to make him laugh by any 
 possible means, than the first criticism I overheard
 
 xx PREFACE 
 
 upon Sainfs and Sinners. The play was produced, 
 for the purpose of getting the players easy in their 
 parts before facing a London audience, at the 
 Theatre Royal, Margate, in the presence of a holiday 
 audience. A very uproarious farce had previously 
 been running at the London theatre where Sainfs 
 and Sinners was announced for production on the 
 following Thursday. The Margate audience assembled 
 with the expectation of a repetition of the broad non- 
 sense which such an association promised. They 
 showed a certain amount of interest, but their chief 
 feeling was one of puzzled and somewhat shocked 
 uneasiness and discomfort. I went into a hotel to 
 call for a friend and heard a group at the bar dis- 
 cussing the play. One sentence fell upon my ear, 
 uttered in a puzzled, distressed, dissatisfied tone, " A 
 lot of folks going into a little chapel ! " That an 
 English playwright should select for representation 
 on the English stage a scene in which a great body of 
 his countrymen constantly figure one day in seven, 
 and which is of the utmost significance in the general 
 sum of English life, seemed so amazing and out- 
 rageous a violation of all the known canons of play- 
 writing to this honest Margate playgoer, that I have 
 never to this day been able to rid myself of the sense
 
 PREFACE xxi 
 
 of having done him a deep personal injury. While 
 the same failure to understand the elementary axiom 
 of dramatic composition was exemplified by an other- 
 wise intelligent free-thinker, who was observed to 
 show great resentment and contempt whenever the 
 minister gave utterance to any sentence implying a 
 religious belief. 
 
 Half the audience thought I was canting, and the 
 other half thought I was blaspheming. The play ran 
 almost two hundred nights at the Vaudeville Theatre, 
 some of its success being doubtless due to the dis- 
 cussion it raised as to the playwright's right to portray 
 contemporary religious life. The article I wrote in 
 defence of my position in The Nineteenth Century 
 review is here reproduced as an appendix. It was 
 never answered, and not one of its contentions was 
 combated. The liberty there demanded for the 
 dramatist has been since most freely accorded on 
 all sides, and the boundaries there marked out in- 
 dicate the present recognised domain of the stage. 
 Perhaps other stage reforms which are resisted to- 
 day will be also accepted as matters of course 
 when as many years shall have passed from the 
 statement of their claims upon the goodwill of .the 
 public.
 
 xxii PREFACE 
 
 Though the first general reception of the play was 
 chilly and carping, I received very warm recognition 
 of its aims from one or two quarters. Especially the 
 sketches of the smaller characters and the deacons 
 were much praised, and also in certain quarters much 
 blamed. The character of Hoggard was censured 
 as impossibly vile. But allowing for the necessary 
 sharpness and swiftness of stage portraiture, and the 
 impossibility of exhausting or even suggesting all 
 the minute motives and aspects of character in a 
 theatre, I think Hoggard may be claimed as a not 
 unfair representative of a very widely-spread class in 
 narrow English religious communities. There is of 
 course a very strong connection between the general 
 character and conduct of a nation and its creed, but 
 every day gives us instances of a ludicrous want of 
 harmony, or apparently of even the most distant 
 relation of any sort between a man's religious pro- 
 fessions and his actions. And this at -first -sight 
 astounding discordancy of belief and practice is 
 much more frequent in the narrower and smaller and 
 less intellectual sects, and is partly the correlative of 
 a low degree of intelligence. Any one who has care- 
 fully studied the curious and grotesque inconsistencies 
 of religious profession and conduct in England will, I
 
 PREFACE xxiii 
 
 think readily concede that a bitter and stubborn and 
 blind disregard of the primary duties to one's neigh- 
 bour is not at all an uncommon characteristic of 
 religious professors in the class from which Hoggard 
 is taken. At the same time, I think it would have 
 been better to have shown in some way that this is not 
 necessarily the accompaniment of the deacon's office. 
 A well-known Nonconformist minister, while cordially 
 recognising the faithfulness of the types of deacon in 
 Hoggard and Prabble, and declaring that he knew 
 them personally, suggested that I should also have 
 made George Kingsmill a deacon, which would have 
 removed all suspicion of bias. I scarcely found that 
 possible, and I thought that in the person of Jacob 
 Fletcher I had rendered a full acknowledgment of 
 the sterling qualities to be found in English dis- 
 senting life. 
 
 Upon the occasion of its first performance the 
 piece was played, apart from a few quite unimportant 
 alterations, as it is here published. But the death- 
 scene proving too sad for the genial associations of 
 the theatre where it was to be performed, I accepted 
 a kind suggestion from a well-known critic, and 
 changed the last scene into a happy union between 
 Letty and George. I did this with some reluctance,
 
 xxiv PREFACE 
 
 but I reflected that on the whole the final denouement 
 was not of such vital consequence as the presentation 
 of the picture of English religious life. I do not 
 think I shall be harshly judged by those who under- 
 stand what have been the inner conditions of writing 
 for the English stage and the concessions demanded 
 by the public until quite recently. 
 
 In restoring the original ending I am pleased to 
 think I am acting not only in harmony with my own 
 feelings, but also with the judgment of Mr. Matthew 
 Arnold. In appending a letter he wrote me after 
 seeing the piece, I am pleased to acknowledge his 
 constant courtesy and encouragement, and to re- 
 member that I was instrumental in bringing him to 
 the modern theatre after a great many years of 
 absence. His letter runs as follows : 
 
 " I went to see Saints and Sinners, and my interest 
 was kept up throughout as I expected. You have 
 remarkably the art so valuable in drama of exciting 
 interest and sustaining it. The piece is full of good 
 and telling things, and one cannot watch the audience 
 without seeing that by strokes of this kind faith in the 
 middle-class fetish is weakened, however slowly, as it 
 could be in no other way. 
 
 " I must add that I dislike seduction-dramas (even
 
 PREFACE xxv 
 
 in Faust the feeling tells with me), and that the 
 marriage of the heroine with her farmer does not 
 please me as a denouement. 
 
 "Your representative middle-class man (Hoggard) 
 was well drawn and excellently acted." 
 
 So wrote to me the sweet singer who lies silent 
 to-day by the banks of his beloved Thames. No, not 
 silent ! For another saying of his comes aptly to my 
 memory and has a bearing upon the present attempt 
 to bring together English literature and the English 
 stage " The theatre is irresistible ! Organise the 
 theatre ! " 
 
 If I have earned his commendation and " weakened 
 the faith in the middle-class fetish," much battered 
 in other quarters of recent years, I have fulfilled my 
 main design in presenting this play. For I do not 
 claim any great merit for Saints and Sinners apart 
 from that of representing with some degree of faith- 
 fulness, and with due regard to the requirements of 
 the modern stage, some very widely-spread types of 
 modern middle-class Englishmen. If it be objected 
 that they are rather commonplace and uninteresting, 
 I can only urge in defence that it is impossible to 
 suppose that God Himself can have taken any great 
 degree of pride in creating four-fifths of the present
 
 xxvi PREFACE 
 
 inhabitants of the British Isles, and can hardly be 
 imagined as contemplating His Image in the person 
 of the average British tradesman without a suspicion 
 that the mould is getting a little out of shape. 
 
 LONDON, 14/4 April 1891,
 
 Produced first at the Theatre Royal, Margate, on 
 Monday 22d September 1884 ; and at the Vaude- 
 ville Theatre, London, on 25th September 1884, 
 filling the bill nightly until Easter 1885. 
 
 CHARACTERS. 
 
 JACOB FLETCHER, Minister of Bethel 
 
 Chapel, Steepleford 
 GEORGE KINGSMILL, a Young Farmer 
 CAPTAIN EUSTACE FANSHAWE . 
 SAMUEL HOGGARD, a Tanner, Senior 
 
 Deacon at Bethel 
 
 LOT BURDEN, Foreman to Hoggard, 
 Collector of Pew-Rents at Bethel 
 
 PRABBLE, Junior Deacon at Bethel . 
 
 PETER GREENACRE 
 
 UNCLE BAM BERRY 
 
 RADDLES ..... 
 
 LEESON, Fanshawe's Man . . 
 
 RAILWAY PORTER 
 
 TOM MARKS .... 
 
 LETTY FLETCHER, the Minister's 
 Daughter .... 
 
 LYDIA, the Minister's Housekeeper . 
 MRS. PARRIDGE .... 
 FANNY PARRIDGE 
 
 Mr. THOMAS THORNE. 
 Mr. HENRY NEVILLE. 
 Mr. H. B. CONWAY. 
 
 Mr. MACKINTOSH. 
 
 Mr. FRED THORNE. 
 Mr. E. M. ROBSON. 
 Mr. LESTOCQ. 
 
 Mr. F. GROVE. 
 
 Mr. W. HOWE. 
 Mr. AUSTIN. 
 Mr. RANN. 
 
 Miss CISSY GRAHAME. 
 Miss KATE PHILLIPS. 
 Miss GIFFARD. 
 Miss PEACH. 
 
 The action takes place in the present day in the Midland 
 town of Steepleford and its neighbourhood, and in one scene of 
 the Third Act at Torquay.
 
 ACT I. 
 
 "Two LOVES I HAVE." 
 
 SCENE The Minister's Study. 
 
 (A day passes?) 
 
 ACT II. 
 A BIRD is SNARED. 
 
 SCENE I. Rodimore Woods at Sunset. 
 
 2. Ousebridge Junction. 
 
 3. The Minister's Study. 
 (A month passes,) 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 LETTY CHOOSES. 
 
 SCENE i. A Room in the Minister's House. 
 2. Villa at Torquay. 
 (Five days pass?) 
 
 ACT IV. 
 JACOB CHOOSES. 
 
 SCENE i. Exterior of Bethel Chapel on Sunday Morning. 
 2. The Vestry. 
 
 (Four years pass.) 
 
 ACT V. 
 
 LIVED DOWN. 
 
 SCENE Jacob's House on the outskirts of Steepleford. 
 
 TIME IN PERFORMANCE. 2 hours 38 minutes.
 
 ACT I 
 
 SCENE THE MINISTER'S STUDY, a room in a small old- 
 fashioned house in a country-town, very homely and unpreten- 
 tious; rather dingy old well-worn furniture; a portrait of Letty's 
 aunt in her girlhood at back; two collecting-boxes on the 
 mantelshelf. 
 
 Doors right and left. Bay window at back. Fireplace left. 
 
 LYDIA, the Ministers housekeeper, an unromantic- 
 looking woman of thirty, showing in LOT BURDEN, 
 a plain common little fellow about thirty-five. 
 
 LYDIA. The Minister's gone out for his morning 
 walk, but he'll be back directly. 
 
 LOT. I've just collected the quarter's pew-rents, 
 and I've brought the money. 
 
 {Pulling a little bag out of pocket.} 
 LYDIA. Oh, give it to me, Mr. Burden, and I'll 
 put it away before the Minister sees it. 
 
 ( Takes money and puts it on table?) 
 Bless his heart, he's just like a baby with his money ! 
 LOT. Ah, we ought to be as wise as serpents in 
 % B
 
 2 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT I 
 
 this generation, Miss Lydia; and Mr. Fletcher lets 
 everybody impose upon him. 
 
 LYDIA. To be sure he does. If I let him have 
 sixpence (sits), he's safe to give it away to the first 
 undeserving beggar he meets. It makes me wild, 
 and me working off my fingers to keep us all decent 
 on less than eighty pounds a year. 
 
 LOT (admiringly). Ah, what a manager you are, 
 Miss Lydia. I've always thought I could never 
 afford to get married ; it's so expensive, and children 
 will come, but with with such a saving woman as 
 you, I I think I should like to try it, Miss Lydia ! 
 
 {Nervously sighing and looking lovingly at 
 LYDIA.) 
 
 LYDIA. There, that's enough, Mr. Burden, don't 
 make them sheep's-eyes at me. 
 
 LOT {fidgeting with chair) . Why not, Miss Lydia ? 
 We could save money together ; and it's so nice to save 
 money. And Mr. Hoggard has just raised my wages. 
 
 LYDIA. What's he done that for? 
 
 LOT. I've been a good faithful servant and I 
 deserve it. 
 
 LYDIA. Rubbish ! Mr. Hoggard wouldn't raise 
 your wages because you deserved it ; he ain't that sort. 
 
 LOT. Notwithstanding, he has raised them ; and 
 what do you say, Miss Lydia? Marriage is honour- 
 able, the Apostle says. 
 
 LYDIA. The Apostle had never been married. 
 No, Mr. Burden, I'm much obliged, but I can't leave
 
 ACT I SAINTS AND SINNERS 3 
 
 the Minister. How do you think he'd manage with- 
 out me ? 
 
 LOT. There's Miss Letty. 
 
 LYDIA. Letty ! Why, she ain't no more use in 
 the house than a pet squirrel or a canary-bird. 
 
 LOT. No, she ain't a bit like us Chapel people, 
 is she ? 
 
 LYDIA. No, she favours the Langtons, her mother's 
 family. The Langtons, was Church folk, and always 
 very gay and worldly. 
 
 LOT. Ah, didn't one of the Miss Langtons 
 
 LYDIA. Yes, but that ain't neither here nor there. 
 Miss Letty it was, that's her picture. 
 
 (Pointing to picture.) 
 Our Miss Letty is named after her. 
 
 Lor. You've been with the Minister a good many 
 years, Miss Lydia. 
 
 LYDIA. Ever since I was nine years old, and 
 could light a fire and clean a saucepan. 
 
 Lor. Talking about Miss Letty, Steve Williams 
 says as he's seen her several evenings in the Lovers' 
 Walk with that Captain Fanshawe, from the Great 
 House. 
 
 LYDIA. What ! Our Letty walking out with such 
 a man as that ! Steve Williams must be mistook. 
 x LOT. He said he was sure. 
 
 LYDIA. I don't believe it ! I'll ask her when she 
 I jomes in. (JACOB and PETER GREENACRE pass by 
 
 window at back.)
 
 4 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT I 
 
 Here comes the Minister, and, I declare, he's bring- 
 ing in that drunken old Peter Greenacre. 
 
 JACOB (outside doo r). Come in, Peter ! Come in ! 
 
 Enter JACOB FLETCHER, a country dissenting minister, 
 about fifty, very gentle and kindly, shabbily dressed. 
 He stands at door holding it open for GREENACRE, 
 who shambles in, a disreputable old man with evi- 
 dences of hard drinking. He stands hat in hand, 
 bowing, and scraping his feet. 
 
 LYDIA. You don't mean to say you'll let this 
 drunken old vagabond impose upon you again, 
 Master? 
 
 JACOB (rather timidly) . Well, you see, Lydia, he's 
 spent all his parish pay, and he's had nothing to eat 
 for two days, and we can't let him starve, can we? 
 
 LYDIA. Yes, we can, and the best thing he can 
 do. 
 
 JACOB. Come, find him something to eat, Lydia. 
 
 LYDIA. Yes, that's just the way ! You'll fat him 
 
 up like the prodigal son, and he'll live till he's ninety. 
 
 ( Old GREENACRE stands bowing and cringing?) 
 
 JACOB. Let's hope so. Peter has been no saint in 
 his time, and we must keep him alive till he repents. 
 
 GREENACRE (bowing and cringing, speaks in a 
 trembling gin-sodden voice). I'm a monument of 
 grace, Muster Fletcher. 
 
 JACOB. Nonsense, Peter ! A monument of gin 
 and water, you mean.
 
 ACT I SAINTS AND SINNERS 5 
 
 GREENACRE. I've attended your ministry for the 
 last twenty-five years, Muster Fletcher. 
 
 JACOB. Ah, that shows what bad sermons I 
 preach, or you wouldn't have been so drunk last 
 \Vednesday. 
 
 GREENACRE. The flesh is weak, Muster Fletcher. 
 
 JACOB. And the gin at the "Three Pigeons" is 
 strong, eh? 
 
 GREENACRE. I'm regular in my place at Chapel 
 every Sunday evening, Muster Fletcher. 
 
 JACOB. You are, Peter, and every week-day evening 
 you're just as regular in your place at the public-house. 
 
 GREENACRE. I never neglect the means of grace, 
 Muster Fletcher. 
 
 LYDIA. No, nor the chance of wheedling a meal 
 out of the Minister. 
 
 JACOB. Ah well, Lydia (rises), don't be too hard 
 on him. He isn't the only one who makes a com- 
 fortable living out of coming regularly to Church or 
 Chapel. (Going up to bookcase.} 
 
 LYDIA (snatching up the bag of money that LOT has 
 brought in, pushes GREENACRE before her). There ! 
 Be off into the kitchen, you old rascal ! And the 
 next time you come sponging on the Minister, I'll 
 give you a glass of gin and water with poison in it, I 
 will, as sure as you're a living sinner ! 
 
 (Hustling him off at door.} 
 
 GREENACRE. Thank'ee, Miss Lydia, thank'ee. 
 {Exit, pushed off by LYDIA.)
 
 6 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT I 
 
 JACOB. Well, Lot, what is it ? 
 
 LOT. The pew-rents have fallen a good deal this 
 quarter, sir. Only fourteen pounds odd. 
 
 JACOB. Oh, only fourteen pounds, eh? 
 
 (Looks up and down his coat, which is very 
 
 old and much darned.') 
 
 Well, after all, new clothes are very uncomfortable, 
 and when a coat has served you well for six or seven 
 years, and got to be a sort of companion, it's ungrate- 
 ful to throw it away because it's getting a little bit 
 shabby ; it's like passing by an old friend because he's 
 down in the world. 
 
 LOT. You see, Mr. Fletcher, you don't go the 
 right way to increase the pew-rents. 
 
 JACOB. No, Lot? How's that? 
 
 LOT. Why, all the poor folks of the town come 
 to Bethel; all the scum, all the riff-raff, all the 
 publicans and sinners, as you may say. 
 
 JACOB. Well, yes ; they're the very people that I 
 want to come. 
 
 LOT. But they've got the best seats in the Chapel, 
 and they don't pay pew-rents. 
 
 JACOB. They can't afford to buy their religion. 
 
 LOT. Then they ought to take it in the gallery, 
 and be thankful. If we were to put them in the back 
 seats, we should get some fashionable folk in the front 
 pews. 
 
 JACOB (rises). No, Lot, we'll let it stay as it is. 
 There are plenty of places where the poor have to
 
 ACT I SAINTS AND SINNERS 7 
 
 take back seats ; we'll keep one place where the rich 
 and the poor shall meet together and be equal. 
 
 LOT. Well, sir, I'm sorry, but the cause ain't 
 prospering in a pecuniary sense ; and if you please, 
 sir, I should like to give you five shillings a quarter 
 more. Mr. Hoggard has just raised my wages. 
 
 JACOB. Has he? It's very generous of him, 
 because he told me that business had gone down 
 since Mr. Bristow's death. 
 
 LOT (looking fixedly at JACOB). Oh ! Have you 
 quite decided to take Mrs. Bristow's money out of 
 the business? 
 
 JACOB. Yes. You see, Lot, I am Mrs. Bristow's 
 only surviving trustee, and if the business is really 
 going down- 
 
 LOT (with meaning). Don't you do anything in a 
 hurry, sir. 
 
 JACOB. What do you mean, Lot? You make 
 me feel very uncomfortable. Poor Mr. Bristow left 
 his wife and children in my care, and I'd rather lose 
 my own money than theirs, and and you know 
 I'm no hand at money-matters. Mr. Crisp has valued 
 everything. 
 
 LOT. Yes, I know, sir. Crisp is Hoggard's valuer. 
 
 JACOB. And ours too. Do you know anything 
 against him? 
 
 LOT. Oh sir, Hoggard's my master, and he'd turn 
 me off if he knew I'd mentioned this. 
 
 JACOB. He shan't know it. Go on, Lot, tell me.
 
 8 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT I 
 
 LOT. Well, sir, don't you let Mrs. Bristow go out 
 of that business at Mr. Crisp's valuation. You have 
 a new valuer {emphatically'), as sharp a one as you 
 can get. I dursn't say any more. 
 
 JACOB {pause looks at him). Thank you, Lot. 
 You have said quite enough. Mr. Hoggard will be 
 here directly, and I shall know how to act. 
 
 LOT. Don't you thwart him, sir; he's a great 
 support to Bethel. He pays twenty pounds a year 
 pew-rent. He's a hard man, and if you once go 
 against him, he'll pay you home, as sure as his name's 
 Hoggard. (HOGGARD passes window.) 
 
 Here he is. Don't let him see me here, sir, he 
 might suspect. I'll go out this way through the 
 passage. {Exit quickly at side door.) 
 
 JACOB. I'm very glad I happened to see Lot. 
 In another hour I should have signed the deed. 
 
 Enter LYDIA showing in HOGGARD, a blustering well- 
 to-do middle-aged man of business, pushing LYDIA 
 aside. 
 
 HOGGARD. All right, my good woman. I know 
 my way. {Exit LYDIA.) 
 
 HOGGARD {in a loud patronising tone). Ah, 
 Fletcher, good-morning, good-morning (giving hand) . 
 JACOB {shaking hands). Good - morning, Mr. 
 Hoggard. 
 
 (HOGGARD seats himself, stretches his legs, rubs 
 his hands.)
 
 ACT I SAINTS AND SINNERS 9 
 
 HOGGARD. Very hot, ain't it ? 
 
 JACOB. Yes, it's splendid weather for our Sunday 
 school treat. 
 
 HOGGARD. Ah, I'm going out that way to-morrow. 
 Lovely scenery, Rodimore Woods. I've a great eye 
 for natural beauty myself. I'm going out that way to 
 see if I can get a bit of land for a new tanyard. I 
 may drop across you. Well (rubbing his hands}, sup- 
 pose we get to business, eh? (Draws chair up.} 
 You got my note ? 
 
 JACOB (hesitating nervously). Yes, and I've decided 
 not to take Mrs. Bristow's money out of the business 
 at present. 
 
 HOGGARD (blankly staring at JACOB). I don't 
 understand you, Fletcher. 
 
 JACOB. I should like first to have the property 
 valued by another valuer. 
 
 HOGGARD. Well, I'm astonished ! I'm perfectly 
 astounded ! To think what a set of unbusiness-like 
 idiots there are in the world. 
 
 (Rising, puts chair back.} 
 
 Why, my dear sir, Crisp has prepared the deed, 
 and I really can't allow you to open the ques- 
 tion. 
 
 JACOB (quietly). I haven't closed it yet, Mr. 
 Hoggard. 
 
 HOGGARD. What? Oh, come, come, come ! 
 
 (Follows him up.) 
 This is really very absurd ! This won't do ! I must
 
 io SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT I 
 
 insist on our bargain. Come, Fletcher, I know you've 
 had a lot of trouble in this matter, and 
 
 (Takes out his piirse, takes out two notes, puts 
 
 them on table in front of JACOB.) 
 I meant to give you this last Christmas. There, take 
 them ! Take them ! 
 
 (Pushing the notes towards JACOB.) 
 JACOB. What's this for, Mr. Hoggard? 
 HOGGARD. Why, you've been trying to do me 
 out of my fair bargain, but I don't cherish an un- 
 Christian spirit. There ! Take them ! Put them 
 in your pocket ! (Pushes notes towards JACOB.) 
 
 JACOB. No, Mr. Hoggard. I can't take a bribe 
 to blind my eyes, and prevent my judgment. 
 
 HOGGARD. Bribe ! Bribe ! Have I been your 
 deacon all these years, and do you think I would 
 offer you a bribe ? 
 
 JACOB. Then you offer me this money quite 
 apart from Mrs. Bristow's affairs ? 
 HOGGARD. Of course I do. 
 
 (JACOB goes to shelf, takes off two boxes, one 
 
 marked "For the Poor" and the other 
 
 " Contributions to Steepleford Hospital") 
 
 JACOB. Then will you please put one of these 
 
 notes into the poor-box, and the other in the hospital 
 
 box? (Puts boxes in front of HOGGARD.) 
 
 HOGGARD. Eh ! Eh ! Well, if you choose to 
 fling the money into the gutter. 
 
 (About to put the money into the box.)
 
 ACT i SAINTS AND SINNERS II 
 
 No ! on second thoughts you've made a very serious 
 imputation on my character, and I'll put the money 
 back in my purse. 
 
 (Does so, and buttons up his pocket?) 
 
 JACOB. Mr. Hoggard 
 
 (Puts boxes on shelf again comes round table.} 
 do you consider Mr. Crisp's valuation fair or unfair ? 
 
 HOGGARD. Of course it's fair. 
 
 JACOB. Then why do you object to another 
 valuer ? 
 
 HOGGARD (cornered*) . Eh ? Look here, Fletcher, 
 you parsons do not understand business. You can't. 
 It isn't in your way. 
 
 JACOB. Well, if business means taking advantage 
 of your neighbour, I'm very glad it isn't in my way. 
 Come, you'll help me to give poor Mrs. Bristow her 
 just rights ? Yes, you will. 
 
 (Putting his hand on HOGGARD'S shoulder?) 
 We are what they call professors of religion ; let us 
 act up to what we preach don't let us say one thing 
 with our lips and another with our lives. 
 
 HOGGARD (uneasy, shuffling away from JACOB). 
 Look here, Fletcher, you're my minister, but I won't 
 be preached to on week-days. Sunday is the day for 
 preaching. 
 
 JACOB. Yes, but every day is the day for practice. 
 (After a pause, very firmly.) I cannot sign that deed, 
 Mr. Hoggard. 
 
 HOGGARD. What ? You break your word ! You
 
 12 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT I 
 
 dare you forget who I am, you forget that I can 
 turn you out of house and home, and and I will, 
 
 too, you you 
 
 {Spluttering with anger, unable to contain him- 
 self, then changing to a soft wheedling tone.} 
 Come now, Fletcher, it isn't to our interest to quarrel. 
 Come now, you stick to your bargain, and I'll raise my 
 pew- subscription to fifty pounds a year. 
 
 JACOB. Thank you, Mr. Hoggard, I'm much 
 obliged to you for offering it to me, because it shows 
 me that Mr. Crisp's valuation must be very unfair; 
 but I don't quite see my way to taking money for 
 betraying my trust. 
 
 Enter LETTY in outdoor clothes, a pretty country-girl 
 about twenty-one. HOGGARD stands, pale and 
 venomous, speechless for a few moments. 
 
 HOGGARD. Very well, sir. I have half-supported 
 you all these years, and this is your return for my 
 kindness, you beggarly conscientious pauper. 
 
 (LETTY runs to her father and throws her 
 
 arms round his neck.) 
 
 JACOB. Not quite a pauper, Mr. Hoggard. I'm 
 so rich that I don't need to covet from the widow 
 and the fatherless. 
 
 LETTY (to HOGGARD indignantly). How dare you 
 insult my father ? How dare you ? 
 
 (JACOB quiets LETTY.) 
 HOGGARD (to JACOB). Very well, sir. If you're as
 
 ACT I SAINTS AND SINNERS 13 
 
 rich as all that you won't need any more help from me, 
 so I discontinue my twenty pounds a year pew-rent 
 from this time ; and I warn you, the first chance I get, 
 the first slip you make, out of our chapel and out of 
 this house you go, both of you. (Exit.} 
 
 LETTY. Father, you shall not endure it. Why 
 didn't you get very angry with him ? 
 
 JACOB. My dear, he isn't worth it. 
 
 LETTY. Oh, how I hate him ! How sick I am 
 of it all ! 
 
 (Tiirowing her hat and cloak off on chair.) 
 
 JACOB. Sick of what, dear? 
 
 LETTY. Of this silly town, and our silly people. 
 Everything in Steepleford is so commonplace, and so 
 respectable, and nothing ever happens, and you and 
 I are buried under it all ! Oh, how I wish that 
 something would happen ! Anything ! Anything ! 
 
 JACOB. Well, there's the Sunday school treat 
 to-morrow. 
 
 LETTY. Yes, but that's only buns and milk and 
 water. Oh, I wish I wish I wish oh daddy, I'm 
 so tired of this dull, stupid life ! I wish something 
 would happen to take me out of it. 
 
 JACOB. Well, dear, I suppose you will be taken 
 out of it when George has saved up enough money. 
 
 LETTY. Now you know you're talking nonsense, 
 daddy. 
 
 JACOB. I thought, dear, that George eh? He's 
 very fond of you, Letty.
 
 14 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT I 
 
 LETTY. Is he ? Well, I can't help people falling 
 in love with me. There's no Act of Parliament against 
 it, and if people will do these foolish things they must 
 take the consequences. 
 
 JACOB. Then if George you wouldn't like eh, 
 Letty? 
 
 LETTY. I shouldn't like to to leave you, daddy. 
 But, oh, I should like to leave Steepleford. 
 
 JACOB. Leave Steepleford ! 
 
 LETTY. Yes, and go about with an organ and a 
 monkey, or a waxwork show, or a shooting-gallery, 
 or anything that's exciting, and not quite respect- 
 able. You know you could grind the organ, daddy, 
 eh? 
 
 JACOB (smiling) . Well, that would be easier work 
 than grinding out sermons. 
 
 LETTY. Yes, and so much better fun. And I'd 
 teach the monkey its tricks, and wear a pretty dress, 
 and go round with the hat. 
 
 JACOB. I think we should get a few coppers. 
 
 LETTY. Yes, and see lots of life. ( Clapping het 
 hands.) Oh daddy, do say " Yes." ( Very animated?) 
 
 JACOB (sits aside). How like she grows to hei 
 aunt. (Troubled.*) (Glances at picture?) 
 
 LETTY. What are you thinking of, daddy? 
 
 JACOB. Of your aunt, Letty. 
 
 LETTY. Oh, do tell me about her. You've 
 raised me so many times. 
 
 JACOB. Not now, darling, another time.
 
 ACT I SAINTS AND SINNERS 15 
 
 LETTY {looking up at portrait} . How happy she 
 looks. 
 
 JACOB. Yes, there. (Sighs.) She changed after- 
 wards. 
 
 LETTY. Is it a love story, daddy ? 
 
 JACOB. Yes, with a sad ending. 
 
 LETTY (very animated). A love story with a sad 
 ending. Oh, do tell me ! Do tell me ! 
 
 GEORGE KINGSMILL, a young farmer, opens door, stands 
 nervously at it, not liking to come in. 
 
 JACOB. George ! Come in, my lad. 
 
 GEORGE (embarrassed) . Good - morning, Mr. 
 Fletcher. Good - morning, Miss Letty. I I hope 
 I (Stops confused.} 
 
 JACOB. Sit down, George. 
 
 LETTY (going). Yes, sit down, Mr. Kingsmill. I 
 know I'm in the way, so I'll go. 
 
 GEORGE (rising). No, Miss Fletcher, don't go. 
 I came on purpose 
 
 LETTY. To have a chat with daddy, of course 
 you did. 
 
 GEORGE. No no, indeed, I I 
 
 LETTY. Why, what else could you have come 
 for? I'll be very good, and run away, and won't 
 disturb you once. 
 
 (Runs off laughing, GEORGE following her 
 with hungry eyes.} 
 
 GEORGE. She always runs away the moment I
 
 16 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT I 
 
 come ! Oh Mr. Fletcher, I can't help it. I know 
 I'm a great fool, but I'm mad with heartache for her ! 
 One morning when she was going to school it's nine 
 years ago now she dropped her red comforter out of 
 mischief, and I picked it up and gave it to her, and 
 then she ran away and blew me a kiss out of mischief, 
 and ever since then I've thought of nobody but her. 
 If I live a hundred years I shall never love anybody 
 but her. She's more to me than light to my eyes. 
 She's more than life to me. I'm stifled when I try 
 to speak to her when she touches my hand it goes 
 through me like sweet fire ; you don't know how 
 much I love her I'd die for her, and she doesn't 
 care a pin's head for me. (Sobbing.) 
 
 And so I've come to say " Good-bye " to her before I 
 leave England. 
 
 JACOB. Good-bye ! Leave England ! 
 
 GEORGE. Yes. Farming's been bad work lately. 
 I'm going to Australia to try my luck there. 
 
 JACOB. Going to Australia ! Well, George, we 
 shall be sorry to lose you, but perhaps you are 
 right. There's more breathing-room out there. But 
 Letty 
 
 GEORGE. Oh Mr. Fletcher, if she would but give 
 me a word of hope before I go ! If she'd only say 
 that some day she might turn to me, I'd work so 
 hard for her. Will you say a good word for me, Mr. 
 Fletcher? 
 
 JACOB. Why, so I have, but love-making's a sort
 
 ACT i SAINTS AND SINNERS 17 
 
 of broth that too many cooks very easily spoil. But 
 I'll call her, and you shall speak for yourself. 
 
 ( Goes to door and calls.) 
 Letty ! 
 
 GEORGE (desperately). Do you think I stand any 
 chance, sir? 
 
 JACOB. Why not? Letty's young yet, and she 
 doesn't know her own mind. Keep up your courage 
 speak to her as you have been speaking to me, 
 and I don't think she can find it in her heart to 
 refuse you. Here she is. 
 
 LETTY enters demurely. 
 
 LETTY (demurely). Is your gossip over, daddy? 
 
 JACOB. Yes, dear. We've been talking of you; 
 haven't we, George ? You know, dear I think, that 
 is, George thinks well, George will tell you what he 
 thinks. (Going.) 
 
 LETTY. Where are you going, daddy? 
 
 JACOB. I'm going to to look after the chickens. 
 
 LETTY. Shan't I look after them, daddy? 
 
 JACOB (quickly). No, no. (Aside to GEORGE.) 
 
 Speak up, George, don't be frightened, and 
 
 (Looking out of window.) 
 
 (Aloud.) That little bantam's righting again ! I 
 really must lock him up. (Exit quickly.) 
 
 GEORGE. Letty, you know what I want to say to 
 you but the words won't come, 
 c
 
 1 8 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT I 
 
 LETTY. Oh, I'm so sorry ! A dictionary ! I'll 
 fetch you a dictionary. (Goes up to bookcase.} 
 
 GEORGE. Letty, don't tease me. (Meets her.} 
 Don't you know what I've come to tell you? 
 
 LETTY (pretending to be puzzled}. No, I cannot 
 imagine. Is it about old Dubleton's cough? 
 
 ( Comes down} 
 
 GEORGE. This isn't a joking matter for me, 
 Letty! 
 
 LETTY. No, it's very serious. Lydia and I are 
 making him some flannels for the winter. 
 
 GEORGE (maddened}. Letty, I'm dying with 
 thirst 
 
 LETTY. And there's nothing but milk in the 
 house. 
 
 GEORGE. I'm dying with thirst for your love, 
 Letty, and, God forgive you ! you laugh at me. 
 
 (Taking up his hat and rushing off} 
 
 LETTY (genuinely penitent, stops him). No, no, 
 Mr. Kingsmill, stay. It's wicked of me to torment 
 you, but it isn't I, it's the little bird of mischief inside 
 me ; but indeed indeed I feel very much honoured 
 by your love, and I wish I could love you back 
 again. 
 
 GEORGE. And won't you can't you ? 
 
 (Takes her hands.) 
 
 LETTY. I don't know. I haven't tried. You 
 see I have scarcely had any offers yet, and I should 
 like to refuse a lot before I quite make up my mind.
 
 ACT I SAINTS AND SINNERS 19 
 
 GEORGE. Oh Letty, if you had the choice of a 
 thousand men you wouldn't find one who could love 
 you as I do ! Letty, I am going away from England 
 for years for years 
 
 LETTY. I'm so sorry; why are you going? 
 
 GEORGE. Let me go to make a home for you, 
 Letty. I will work so hard for you, as faithfully as 
 Jacob served for Rachel, and all the years of waiting 
 will seem but a day for the love I bear you. Don't 
 send me away in despair ; give me something yes, 
 that little coral necklace you wear, give it to me that 
 I may keep in dear remembrance of you, and in the 
 hope that one day you may learn to love me, and be 
 my wife, yes, give it to me. 
 
 (LETTY takes off necklace, is about to give it to 
 GEORGE, then puts it back.) 
 
 LETTY. No, it would be cruel to bid you hope 
 when when I know it is impossible. 
 
 GEORGE. Letty, a few months ago, when you . 
 kissed that bunch of violets and gave them to me to 
 wear, you did love me a little then? 
 
 LETTY. Oh, forgive me, Mr. Kingsmill, it was 
 very wrong of me to encourage you. 
 
 GEORGE. But tell me the truth. You did love 
 me a little then ? 
 
 LETTY. Yes, perhaps I did (sighs') then. 
 
 GEORGE. And now? What has come between 
 us? Who has stolen your heart from me? You 
 don't answer !
 
 20 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT I 
 
 LETTY. You have no right to ask 
 
 GEORGE. Then there is somebody? 
 
 LETTY. I don't know. Oh Mr. Kingsmill, I'm 
 not worthy of your great love ! I'm only a foolish 
 flighty girl, and whatever happens to me I shall bring 
 no happiness to them that love me. Go away and 
 forget me ! I mean it forget me ! 
 
 GEORGE. Is that your last word to me, Letty ? 
 
 LETTY. Yes, forget me ; it will be better for you. 
 Go away and forget me. 
 
 (GEORGE goes to door, looks at her with 
 passionate longing.) 
 
 GEORGE. When my heart forgets to beat I shall 
 forget you, Letty. (Exit rapidly.) 
 
 LETTY. How good and true he is ! How safe 
 and sure of happiness I should be if I were his wife ! 
 While he was speaking I felt I almost loved him ; and 
 yet, how different he is from Eustace Eustace Fan- 
 shawe ; and he loves me too at least he said so 
 the other night. What am I saying ? 
 
 (Goes to window.) 
 
 Oh, if I had but the courage to see him no more. 
 If I dared but refuse to meet him. Oh, to be loved 
 by these two men, and to feel that I shall leave the 
 good and choose the evil ! 
 
 LYDIA enters, speaking off. 
 LYDIA. You can wait in here.
 
 ACT I SAINTS AND SINNERS 21 
 
 FANSHAWE enters, a handsome, reckless, nonchalant 
 military man about forty. LETTY starts back in 
 confusion. LYDIA noticing LETTY'S confusion. 
 
 LYDIA. This gentleman wants to see the Min- 
 ister. I don't know what's his business. 
 
 FANSHAWE. That's my business. Will you tell 
 Mr. Fletcher I want to see him? 
 
 LETTY. My father is in the garden, Lydia. Will 
 you tell him ? 
 
 LYDIA. Oh yes, I'll tell him. (Aside.) And I'll 
 tell the Minister too what Lot Burden told me this 
 morning. (Exit.) 
 
 LETTY (reproachful, pleased). Why have you come 
 here? 
 
 FANSHAWE. To see you, Letty ! Are you angry ? 
 
 LETTY. Yes, very angry. 
 
 FANSHAWE. Well, then, I came to see your father 
 and give him a ten-pound note for his charities. I 
 know it's a very bad excuse, but it was the best I 
 could think of, and I was determined to see you. 
 
 LETTY (pleased). Even if it cost you ten pounds? 
 
 FANSHAWE. If it cost a thousand a million ! 
 
 LETTY. Well, then, you have seen me. Good- 
 morning. 
 
 FANSHAWE. Stay ! Why were you not in the 
 Lovers' Walk last evening? 
 
 LETTY. Because I chose to stay at home. 
 
 FANSHAWE. You will be there to-night ?
 
 22 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT I 
 
 LETTY. No, Captain Fanshawe, I shall not meet 
 you again. 
 
 FANSHAWE. Very well, don't. I'll meet you 
 instead. Where's the harm? 
 
 LETTY. The harm is I have not told my father. 
 
 (Going.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. Wait. You shall not go. You will 
 be there to-night? 
 
 LETTY. No, it is the Dorcas meeting. 
 
 (Turns.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. Deuce take the Dorcas meeting ! 
 To-morrow? 
 
 LETTY. No, it's our Sunday school treat. 
 
 FANSHAWE. Ah, I'm fond of Sunday school 
 treats. I shall be there. 
 
 LETTY. Captain Fanshawe, I forbid you. 
 
 (Indignantly.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. Why, so you shall, when you do it 
 in that pretty way; but all the same I shall come. 
 Where do you hold this treat ? 
 
 LETTY (after a pause). Down the river at the 
 ferry, and across to Rodimore Woods. 
 
 FANSHAWE. How lucky ! I shall be there fishing 
 to-morrow. 
 
 LETTY. Captain Fanshawe, you must not come 
 unless you ask my father's consent. 
 
 FANSHAWE. I never ask anybody's consent. I 
 always do as I please. What time do you break up 
 to-morrow night ?
 
 ACT I SAINTS AND SINNERS 23 
 
 LETTY. I don't know. About sunset, I suppose. 
 
 FANSHAWE (coming close to her, whispering in her 
 ear). Suppose by any chance you happened to loiter 
 behind the rest, I shall be in the woods ; suppose by 
 any chance you happen to lose your way, I shall be 
 sure to find you ; suppose we thought it pleasant to 
 row back to Steepleford in the twilight, I shall have 
 my boat there just above the ferry. You will, little 
 witch, you will, Letty ? 
 
 LETTY. No, indeed, I shall not. ( Going.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. You will ! You must ! You shall ! 
 
 (Seizing her, kisses her hand passionately.) 
 I'll bet you a hundred kisses to one you will. 
 
 JACOB has entered, stern and distressed. 
 
 JACOB. Sir, who are you, and what business have 
 you in my house? 
 
 (LETTY stands covered with shame.} 
 FANSHAWE. Your daughter had the misfortune 
 to get stranded on the sandbank in the river a few 
 days ago, and I had the pleasure of rescuing her, 
 
 and 
 
 JACOB (sternly). And does that give you the 
 right to come here and treat her with this freedom 
 and disrespect? 
 
 (Takes up FANSHAWE'S hat, which is on table.} 
 My daughter and I are not of your class ; we do not 
 desire your acquaintance. 
 
 (Giving him the hat.)
 
 24 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT i 
 
 Your hat, sir ! When I wish to see you in my house 
 again I will send for you. 
 
 FANSHAWE (aside). I'll take your daughter's 
 opinion on the matter, my friend. (Exit.) 
 
 JACOB. Letty ! 
 
 LETTY (who has stood shamefaced since JACOB'S 
 entrance) . Father, do not speak to me. Let me go 
 to my room. 
 
 JACOB. No, my dear; hear me first. You 
 asked me for your aunt Letty's history just now. 
 Look at that picture ; she was once as happy and as 
 lovely and innocent as you are now. A few years 
 and she came back to die in our arms, her heart 
 broken, her beauty and innocence gone. 
 
 LETTY (frightened, ashamed). Oh father, no 
 more ; say no more. I have been foolish, but not 
 wicked; and see (taking off coral necklace), a good 
 man asked me for my love this morning. Look ! 
 send this to George Kingsmill, and tell him that if 
 he will give me time to learn to love him, and to 
 grow worthy of his love, I will be his wife one day. 
 
 JACOB (clasping her). My Letty! My own! 
 You make me so happy, for now I know you are 
 safe. 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 ( One day elapses between Acts I. and II.)
 
 ACT II 
 
 SCENE I 
 
 RODIMORE WOODS, a glade with sunset through the 
 trees. The river at back, -with boat. 
 
 LEESON, FANSHAWE'S valet, is discovered looking off, 
 
 with fishing-rod in hand, disjointing it. 
 LEESON. What's the governor want dodging after 
 these Sunday school brats for ? Sunday schools ain't 
 much in his way ! {Goes up, takes up creel.) 
 
 If ever there was a devil on the face of this earth, 
 it's Captain Eustace Fanshawe ! 
 
 FANSHAWE enters hurriedly. Looking off. 
 
 FANSHAWE. Put down that cursed tackle, any- 
 where, throw it into the river. 
 
 (LEESON throws it off.) 
 
 Come here. (Takes letter out of pocket?) You see 
 that young lady a little to the left of those children. 
 
 (Points cff.) 
 LEESON. Yes, sir.
 
 26 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT n 
 
 FANSHAWE (giving letter} . Take this note to her. 
 Wait till you have a chance of giving it to her alone. 
 . . . There, she's moving away from the others, make 
 haste ! (Exit LEESON with note.) 
 
 I won't give her up. I can't ! she's too charming ! 
 If she were only a fiftieth part as charming, I might 
 screw up the half-farthing's worth of virtue I have left 
 and run away from her, but as she is No ! (Looks 
 off.) Ah, she's seen him ; he's given her the note ; 
 she's reading it ! She'll come ! She'll come ! Give 
 her up, not I ! When a man has been as badly used 
 by womankind as I have been, damn it all ! he owes 
 it to his own sense of justice to be revenged on 
 womankind as often as he can. ( Chuckling.) I don't 
 think I shall get to be much worse than I am ! 
 
 (Sits at foot of 'tree.) 
 
 And I might have been a good man, I suppose, if I 
 could have chosen my own father and mother, and 
 if everything and every creature I've met, from my 
 cradle upwards, hadn't pushed me to the bad. If, 
 instead of meeting that other woman ten years ago, I 
 
 had met with Letty Fletcher What's the good 
 
 of wishing. After all, there's a great comfort in being 
 out-and-out wicked it's like being soaked through, 
 you can defy the elements. 
 
 (CHILDREN'S laughter heard off.) 
 
 FANSHAWE (rises). Hillo ! (Looks off.) 
 
 Her father with a pack of children at his heels ! 
 
 (Laughter heard off.)
 
 SCENE i SAINTS AND SINNERS 27 
 
 Yes, laugh and play ! You turned me out of your 
 house yesterday, you may find your daughter has left 
 it to-morrow ! (Exit.) 
 
 CHILDREN laugh. . . . Pause. JACOB enters with a 
 child on his back and a dozen clinging round him. 
 They speak as they enter. JACOB stands panting 
 and wiping forehead. 
 
 IST CHILD. Now me, Mr. Fletcher ! Now me ! 
 
 2ND CHILD. No, me ! me ! you're my donkey 
 now. 
 
 IST CHILD. No, it's my turn now. Be my 
 donkey, Mr. Fletcher ! (JACOB sits at foot of tree.) 
 
 JACOB. I think I'm everybody's donkey to-day, 
 and I'm getting more kicks than ha'pence. 
 
 (CHILDREN'S -voices heard off at a distance 
 
 singing Tallis 's evening hymn) 
 Why, listen ! (Looks off) 
 
 They're breaking up. The ferryman leaves at twi- 
 light ! Now run back, all of you, or else you'll lose 
 the ferry, and have to stay in the woods all night. 
 
 IST CHILD. Ain't you coming with us, Mr. 
 Fletcher? 
 
 JACOB. No ! I'm going to walk back. 
 
 2ND CHILD. Oh, do come back with us and be 
 our donkey ! 
 
 IST CHILD. Yes, do, Mr. Fletcher. I like you 
 on week-days so much better than Sundays. 
 
 JACOB. Why, how's that ?
 
 28 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT n 
 
 IST CHILD. Why, on Sundays you preach sermons 
 ever so long, and on week-days you give us sweets 
 and oranges. 
 
 JACOB. Loaves and fishes ! Loaves and fishes ! 
 
 LETTY appears, looks on. 
 
 (JACOB taking oranges from pocket and bowl- 
 ing them off.) 
 
 JACOB. There, run back to the others ! And 
 wish them all good-night for me. 
 
 {Bowls oranges off; CHILDREN run off after 
 them. LETTY comes down, takes JACOB'S 
 arm as he turns to go.) 
 
 LETTY. Father, let me walk home with you. 
 
 JACOB. Six miles is too far for you after such a 
 day. Besides, George will be waiting for you at the 
 station ! You haven't seen anything of him ? 
 
 LETTY. No ! 
 
 (The hymn in the distance ceases.) 
 
 JACOB. I suppose he hasn't come back from 
 London yet. What a pity he had started yesterday 
 before I could tell him the good news ! And what a 
 surprise it will be for him when he gets home, and 
 finds my letter and your necklace waiting for him, 
 won't it? 
 
 LETTY (listlessly). I daresay it will make him 
 happy.
 
 SCENE SAINTS AND SINNERS 29 
 
 JACOB. Happy? He won't be able to contain 
 his joy. (Taking out large old-fashioned watch.) 
 Well, I must be starting. 
 
 LETTY. Father, let me come home with you. 
 
 JACOB. No, no, my dear ! I tell you it's too far, 
 and I want to think over my sermon. And, besides, 
 my walking saves the sixpence train -fare. They're 
 just breaking up go back to them, you'll be home 
 before I am and make haste and (going) if you 
 should happen to find somebody waiting for you at 
 home, you'll make him welcome till I come, won't 
 you? There, make haste look, they're crossing the 
 ferry, I must be starting. (Exit.) 
 
 LETTY. He would not take me with him ! What 
 can I do? (Takes out FANSHAWE'S letter, reads.) 
 
 " I must see you, if only for a moment. I am 
 waiting for you along the river below the ferry. It is 
 the last time we shall ever meet, I must and will see 
 you " . . . ( Crushes letter) . No, I will not see him 
 it is wrong and cruel of him to ask me, I must not 
 love him. I will go back to the others ! 
 
 (FANSHAWE comes from behind trees. LETTY 
 is going.) 
 
 LETTY. No ! I will go after my father, and show 
 him this letter. 
 
 FANSHAWE (comes down and intercepts her). Where 
 are you going? 
 
 LETTY (trembling, afraid). After my father. 
 
 FANSHAWE. You shan't go until you've heard me.
 
 30 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT H 
 
 LETTY (shrinking away) . No, Captain Fanshawe, 
 I must not, I will not. 
 
 FANSHAWE (quickly) . I have something to tell you. 
 
 (This scene to be played quickly, passionately.) 
 
 LETTY. What can you have to tell me ? 
 
 FANSHAWE. That I love you desperately, madly, 
 beyond all telling, and I will kill myself before I will 
 give you up. 
 
 LETTY. How can you talk so wickedly ? 
 
 FANSHAWE. Because I am wicked, and because 
 I mean it. Yes, I tell you plainly, I am no saint, 
 but I love you, as man never loved woman before, 
 and you shall not go from this place till you say you 
 love me. . . . Tell me so, say it say you love me ! 
 
 ( Very imperatively, seizing her hands.) 
 
 LETTY. I cannot I do not love you. 
 
 FANSHAWE. You do love me. I know it, and 
 you know it ! Say you love me ! Do you hear ! Say 
 you love me ! (His face close to hers, looking at her 
 commandingly.) 
 
 LETTY. Why do you torture me ? I will not say 
 it, it would not be true. 
 
 FANSHAWE. It is true ! I won't hear another 
 word from those lips, and I will not let you go till 
 you say it. 
 
 LETTY. Captain Fanshawe, I have promised to 
 be the wife of George Kingsmill. . . .
 
 SCENE i SAINTS AND SINNERS 31 
 
 (CHILDREN'S voices are heard singing another 
 hymn at a greater distance. The singing 
 grows fainter during the following scene.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. Indeed ! And when did you promise 
 that? 
 
 LETTY. Yesterday morning. 
 
 FANSHAWE (very tauntingly). To please your 
 father ! Good girl ! She does as her father tells her ; 
 she takes her love and she gives it away to the man 
 he chooses for her. Good God ! And I thought at 
 last I had met a woman who could love me as I 
 love her. 
 
 LETTY (piteously). You should not speak to me 
 like this. 
 
 FANSHAWE. How should I speak to you? I 
 love you ; I would have taken you from these dull 
 fools, and lifted you to the station you were meant 
 for. I would have given you everything that heart 
 could wish for. I would have spent my whole life in 
 making you happy. I am not a good man, but you 
 could have made me one your love would have 
 saved me ; I had staked all my hopes upon it. I had 
 built upon it ; and now you fling me aside, and tell 
 me to hang or drown myself, or go to the devil any 
 way I choose. 
 
 {Singing ceases.) 
 
 LETTY. Oh, you will break my heart ! I did 
 not know you loved me so much ! I never dared to 
 hope to be your wife. Oh, what am I saying? I
 
 32 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT n 
 
 do not love you. I must not Captain Fanshawe, 
 let me go ! ( Going, he stops her.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. Tell me once, Letty, tell me once 
 before we part for ever that you love me, and I will 
 set you free say, " Eustace, I love you " (very im- 
 ploringly) . 
 
 LETTY. I I (madly) Oh, you know I love 
 you (shrinking from him). What have I said? 
 (FANSHAWE embraces her.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. Ah, I knew it ! 
 
 LETTY (struggling). Let me go you gave me 
 your word ! 
 
 FANSHAWE (releasing her). Go, then, and marry 
 the man you do not love Go ! . . . 
 
 LETTY (going aside, and looking off) . They've all 
 gone ! The ferryman isn't there ! (alarmed). 
 
 FANSHAWE. No ! and it would be too late now 
 to catch the train. 
 
 LETTY. I must run after my father, I shall catch 
 him if I make haste. (Going.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. No, I have my boat here ! (Looks 
 at watch.) I'll row you up to the junction, and we 
 shall catch the last train to Steepleford 
 
 (LETTY hesitates.) 
 
 You don't trust me ! On my honour I will take you 
 safely to the station ! 
 
 ( Offers hand to help her into boat.) 
 
 LETTY. Indeed I I . . . (struggling, hesitating, 
 looking pitcously at him).
 
 SCENE II SAINTS AND SINNERS 33 
 
 FANSHAWE. Come, it's for the last time ; you shall 
 not refuse me. 
 
 LETTY {getting into boat) . Yes, the last time ! I 
 have given my promise to George Kingsmill. 
 
 FANSHAWE (in boat). Keep it by all means 
 (grimly). (Pushing off with oar.} 
 
 (Boat glides off. Scene changes to Railway 
 Station. During the scene, which com- 
 menced with lights full up, stage has grown 
 gradually quite dusk.} 
 
 SCENE II 
 
 OUSEBRIDGE JUNCTION 
 
 Enter HOGGARD with umbrella, followed by LOT 
 BURDEN. 
 
 HOGGARD (looking at watch). Twenty minutes to 
 eight ; a quarter of an hour to wait. Well, I think 
 we've done a good stroke of business to-day eh, Lot ? 
 
 PORTER enters with a box, puts it down, and exit 
 on to platform. 
 
 LOT. Yes, sir, a capital stroke of business. 
 
 HOGGARD. Did you notice how I twisted him 
 round my finger? 
 
 LOT. Well, I think you had the best of the 
 bargain. 
 
 D
 
 34 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT n 
 
 HOGGARD. I should think I had, Lot. The fool ! 
 That bit of land is worth five hundred pounds. 
 
 Lor. And you got it for two hundred and eighty 
 by just telling a few a few um um stretchers. 
 
 HOGGARD (sifting on box}. That's what I call 
 business. 
 
 LOT. You're a shrewd, clever man, sir, and no 
 mistake. 
 
 HOGGARD. Well, I think if a man wanted to get 
 the better of Sam Hoggard, he'd have to get up un- 
 commonly early in the morning. That reminds me, 
 we must have an allowance on that last lot of hides 
 from Birkett. 
 
 LOT. Well, sir, they're in splendid condition and 
 very cheap at the money. 
 
 HOGGARD. Then we must get it out of the Rail- 
 way Company. Send in a claim for damage in transit. 
 
 LOT. How much must I claim, sir? 
 
 HOGGARD. Five pounds. We must be sharp in 
 business nowadays. Business is business. What 
 does the Bible say? "Seest thou a man diligent in his 
 business? He shall stand before kings " ! 
 
 LOT. Yes, sir. 
 
 HOGGARD. You may as well claim seven pounds. 
 The Railway Company can stand it. Besides, it's no 
 sin to get the better of a Railway Company. 
 
 ( Going to ticket-office^) 
 They're always robbing the public and Lot 
 
 Lor. Yes, sir.
 
 SCENE ii SAINTS AND SINNERS 35 
 
 HOGGARD. I raised your salary yesterday morning, 
 not because you're worth it but well, just to 
 encourage you. 
 
 LOT. Thank you, sir. 
 
 HOGGARD. If you happen to see Fletcher, you 
 might tell him that my affairs are in rather a bad way, 
 and he'd better make sure of what I offer, money 
 down. Frighten him a little, do you see, Lot? 
 (winking and nudging LOT) . 
 
 LOT. Oh, very well, sir, I will. 
 
 HOGGARD. Yes, tell him I've been launching out, 
 speculating and trying to do too much business. He's 
 fighting shy of his bargain, and wants to have a new 
 valuer for Mrs. Bristow. 
 
 LOT. Does he now, sir? How very unbusiness- 
 like. 
 
 HOGGARD. I can't understand his change ; he 
 was willing enough to take Crisp's valuation last 
 week. Somebody must have been putting him up 
 to this. 
 
 Lor. Do you think so, sir? I wonder who it 
 can be? 
 
 HOGGARD. You never mention my affairs to him, 
 do you ? 
 
 Lor. Oh dear no, sir. I hope you know me 
 better than that. 
 
 HOGGARD. I had to talk to him pretty sharp 
 yesterday morning. 
 
 LOT. Did you find him very obstinate, sir?
 
 36 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT n 
 
 HOGGARD. As obstinate as a pig. Couldn't move 
 him. 
 
 Lor. And he's generally very easy about money- 
 matters. 
 
 HOGGARD. As green as grass. That's what I 
 reckoned upon. Oh ! he'll come round I daresay. 
 If he doesn't, I'll make Bethel too hot for him. I'll 
 turn him out. You know, Lot, when I set my back 
 up, I'm a very nasty customer. 
 
 LOT. Yes, sir, so you are, a very nasty customer. 
 
 HOGGARD. But I want to be nice and amiable 
 and pleasant. So you can just give Fletcher a hint 
 that he'd better close with me at once. (Taking out 
 watch.') Ten minutes to eight. 
 
 LOT. Oh, we've got plenty of time, sir, the seven 
 forty up 7 express ain't gone yet, and the Steepleford 
 train can't start until after she's left. 
 
 HOGGARD. Oh well, I'll get our tickets. You 
 stick to me, Lot, and I shall make something of you. 
 {Exit into booking-office.) 
 
 Lor (looking after him}. Yes, you'll make me as 
 big a rascal and liar as you are, if I don't take care. 
 I know you, Sam Hoggard ! If I were to brush you 
 the wrong way, you'd turn me off without a character, 
 and I might starve. Yes, I'll keep in with you as 
 long as I'm obliged, but if ever I do get a chance of 
 
 paying you back, Mr. Samuel Hoggard 
 
 (Exit after HOGGARD.)
 
 SCENE II SAINTS AND SINNERS 37 
 
 FANSHAWE, with LETTY'S cloak on his arm, enters, 
 followed by LETTY. 
 
 FANSHAWE. I have brought you safely, you see. 
 
 LETTY. Thank you ; I will not trouble you any 
 further. 
 
 FANSHAWE. You forget I am going to Steepleford 
 too, and I will not part from you until we are there. 
 
 LETTY. I would rather go alone, indeed I would. 
 
 FANSHAWE. Will you never learn to trust me ? 
 
 LETTY. Yes, yes, indeed I do it is not that ! 
 But if any of my father's congregation should see me 
 with you 
 
 FANSHAWE. What would they do? 
 
 LETTY. They would talk. 
 
 FANSHAWE. Would they? It would be a sin to 
 take away their one pleasure in life. 
 
 LETTY. They have already seen me with you. 
 
 FANSHAWE. And if they should see me once 
 more, would there be so much harm in it ? To-morrow 
 I shall have said good-bye to you for ever. You shall 
 not cheat me out of this one last hour. 
 
 LETTY. Let me wait on the other side, then. 
 Oh, you make me so wretched. I cannot bear the 
 thought that I am driving you to be a bad man. 
 
 FANSHAWE. Oh, I don't want any driving. I'm 
 bad enough as it is, but with your love, I would have 
 tried to be as good as you (Letty. looks distresseif) or I 
 would have made you as bad as I am. However, 
 that's all past now.
 
 38 SAINTS AND SINNERS. ACT H 
 
 LETTY. Yes, all past (crossing), I must keep my 
 promise I must (Exit on to platform.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. Good ! if you want a woman to love 
 you, tell her you're an infernal scoundrel, and threaten 
 to go to the devil for her sake. I'm damned if I 
 don't really begin to love the little witch. 
 
 Enter a PORTER crosses stage. 
 
 (To PORTER). What time does the train start for 
 Steepleford? 
 
 PORTER. Seven fifty-five, sir, but she'll be a little 
 bit late to-night. The seven forty up-express ain't in 
 yet, and the branch can't start till after she's gone. 
 
 (Lifts box to shoulder.} 
 Are you going to Steepleford, sir ? 
 
 FANSHAWE. Yes. 
 
 PORTER. Second train on the other side, sir. 
 
 Don't get into the first, or you'll get took up to 
 
 London by mistake. (Exit to platform with box.) 
 
 (FANSHAWE suddenly struck with man's last 
 
 words.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. Get taken up to London by mistake ! 
 By Jove ! The devil's own luck ! I'll do it ! 
 
 (To LEESON who enters.) 
 
 Leeson, you're just in time. Get me two first-class 
 tickets for Steepleford ; bring them over to the other 
 side, you'll find me with that lady. The first train 
 that comes up is the London express ; put us into it
 
 SCENE ii SAINTS AND SINNERS 39 
 
 by mistake ; bundle us in, and take care we don't find 
 out we're in the wrong train, you understand. 
 
 (Looks at LEESON.) 
 
 LEESON. Perfectly, sir. You're going to Steeple- 
 ford, and in the hurry you get into the London train 
 by mistake. (Crossing to booking-office.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. Good and Leeson, there's twenty 
 pounds for you if you don't bungle it. 
 
 LEESON (touching hat). Thank you, sir. 
 
 FANSHAWE. When we get up to London and I 
 find out you've put us in the wrong train, I shall 
 bully you like a pickpocket. 
 
 LEESON. Of course you will, sir, for my careless- 
 ness. ( Going.} 
 
 FANSHAWE. And, Leeson when we get to the 
 hotel that lady is my wife. 
 
 LEESON. All right, sir. 
 
 (Exit into booking-office.") 
 
 FANSHAWE. She's mine ! Once get her up to 
 London, she can't come back. Yes, my little bird, 
 you're in the trap. (Exit on to platform.) 
 
 LOT enters from booking-office and sees him. 
 
 Lor. Why, there's that Captain Fanshawe ! 
 (Goes to window.) Why, and there's Miss Letty too ; 
 they're walking up and down the platform together ! 
 I wonder what Mr. Fletcher would say to Miss 
 Letty's being seen in public with such a man as that 
 Captain Fanshawe.
 
 40 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT n 
 
 (Turns towards booking-office as FANSHAWE'S 
 man comes hastily out, tickets in hand, and 
 knocks against him.) 
 
 LEESON. Out of the way, there's a good fellow. 
 LOT (recognising him) . You're Captain Fanshawe's 
 man, ain't you? 
 
 LEESON. Yes lam; what of it? 
 Lor. Where's your master taking Miss Fletcher? 
 LEESON. Why, home to Steepleford, of course; 
 look, here are the tickets ! (Shows tickets.) Oh, 
 Mr. Fletcher knows all about it ! 
 
 Lor. Mr. Fletcher knows all about it? 
 LEESON. Yes, he does so don't you worry ! 
 
 (Exit, slamming door in LOT'S face.) 
 LOT. If they're going to Steepleford, perhaps I'd 
 better not interfere, and 
 
 HOGGARD enters from booking-office without umbrella. 
 
 HOGGARD. Well, Lot, is that our train just 
 come in? 
 
 LOT. No, sir, that's the London express. (Aside.) 
 I'd better keep him from seeing them, or he'll bully 
 Mr. Fletcher, and make a lot of mischief. 
 
 (HOGGARD is going to platform door.) 
 Our train can't start till after the express is gone, sir. 
 Why, you haven't got your umbrella, sir. 
 
 HOGGARD. I must have left it in the booking- 
 office. Just get it for me, will you?
 
 SCENE ii SAINTS AND SINNERS 41 
 
 LOT (aside). If I can only keep him from seeing 
 them. {Exit into booking-office.} 
 
 (HoGGARD goes up to window, looks out.} 
 HOGGARD. Why, bless my soul ! that surely must 
 be Fletcher's girl getting into that carriage. 
 
 (Feeling for his spectacles.) 
 
 Re-enter LOT BURDEN from booking-office with 
 umbrella. 
 
 LOT (aside}. I'll keep him on this side till the 
 last moment. (Aloud} Here's your umbrella, sir. 
 
 (Gives it.} 
 
 HOGGARD. I thought I saw that girl of Fletcher's 
 getting into a first-class carriage just now with a 
 gentleman. 
 
 LOT. Oh dear no, sir. Miss Fletcher wouldn't 
 be travelling first-class ; it couldn't be her. 
 
 HOGGARD. No, I suppose not ; I must have been 
 mistaken. (Exit upon platform} 
 
 LOT (rushes up to window} . They've gone ! Yes, 
 they've gone by the express ! She's run away with 
 that rascal to London. (Exit upon platform} 
 
 BELL Change.
 
 42 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT n 
 
 SCENE III 
 THE MINISTER'S STUDY as in Act I 
 
 An old garden-hat ^/"LETTY'S lying on a chair. 
 Discover LYDIA laying supper- things. Cloth on table. 
 
 LYDIA. Nearly nine o'clock, and not a sign of 
 the Minister and Letty. 
 
 Enter JACOB with a bottle of wine and a plucked, 
 uncooked chicken. 
 
 Oh, here you are at last. Why, what have you got 
 there ? 
 
 JACOB. That's a chicken and a bottle of port- 
 wine. 
 
 LYDIA. Oh, what's that for? 
 
 JACOB. Why, for supper to be sure. 
 
 LYDIA. I should like to know where the money's 
 to come from for such luxuries ! 
 
 JACOB. Well, it is very extravagant, I know; 
 but you mustn't be angry with me this once, Lydia. 
 You see, this is George's first visit to my house as 
 my future son-in-law, and I want to give him a 
 warm welcome for Letty's sake. That's a fine bird, 
 isn't it? 
 
 LYDIA (examining fowl, probing it with her fingers).
 
 SCENE in SAINTS AND SINNERS 43 
 
 Ah ! she may have been a fine bird in her time, but 
 she's like me, she's seen her best days. 
 
 JACOB. No, she's at an end of her best days, but 
 I hope your best days are to come, Lydia. 
 
 LYDIA (grunts). Ugh ! (probing the fowl) she'll 
 take a lot of basting to make her tender. 
 
 JACOB. Then she must have a lot of basting, 
 Lydia. Where's Letty ? 
 
 LYDIA. Didn't she come in with you? 
 
 JACOB. No, she came by train with the children. 
 She ought to have been home an hour ago. 
 
 LYDIA. She hasn't come then. 
 
 JACOB. I daresay she's popped in somewhere. 
 And George Kingsmill, hasn't he come yet? 
 
 LYDIA. No, not a blessed soul has been near the 
 house since you left it. 
 
 JACOB. Ah, I suppose George hasn't got back 
 from London. 
 
 LYDIA. What's he gone to London for? 
 
 JACOB. Why, about his farm. He went straight 
 away yesterday morning when he left this house. So 
 he doesn't know that Letty has promised to be his 
 wife. How pleased he will be when he gets home 
 and learns the good news ! 
 
 LYDIA. Good news ! Ugh ! 
 
 ( Grunts, dissatisfied?) 
 
 JACOB. Yes, I call it good news when two young 
 people love one another and agree to take each other 
 for better or worse.
 
 44 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT n 
 
 ( Going up to window and drawing the blind 
 a little aside with a mere shade of anxiety.} 
 I wonder where she is ! 
 
 LYDIA. Well, I suppose she'll get married to 
 somebody or the other sooner or later, and if we are 
 to have a heap of sweethearting and courting in the 
 house we may as well get it over and done with it ! 
 
 (At table.} 
 
 JACOB (comes down} . Well, I don't suppose George 
 will wish to marry her for a year or two. Not that I 
 shall stand in their way. Letty is twenty-one, and 
 she must do as she pleases. I only want to see her 
 happy, and there's a deal too much prudence about 
 marriage nowadays. Young folks are afraid to marry 
 because they can't keep a big house and a lot of 
 servants, and so they wait till all their best days are 
 gone ; but I say to young people, " Don't wait till 
 the sun is going down ; marry each other while you're 
 young, and enjoy the morning of life together and 
 toil side by side." That's what I say. 
 
 LYDIA. Ugh ! (Snatching up fowl.) I suppose 
 you'll want some bread-sauce with this animal. 
 
 JACOB. Yes, Lydia, plenty of bread-sauce, and 
 
 make haste, because Letty and George will soon be 
 
 here. ( Going up to window sees LETTY'S hat lying 
 
 on the chair, picks it up, looks at it fondly.} 
 
 The untidy little puss ! 
 
 LYDIA. Yes, she's always leaving her things in 
 your study. Give it to me I'll hang it up.
 
 SCENE in SAINTS AND SINNERS 45 
 
 JACOB. No let it be I like to have it in the 
 room (Puts it down on chair.} 
 
 and Lydia 
 
 LYDIA. Well ! 
 
 JACOB. One fowl isn't much between four hungry 
 people. Do you think it would be very extravagant 
 if we were to have one of those nice custard-puddings 
 of yours, just for this once, Lydia, because you know 
 this is a very special occasion, and it will only happen 
 to me once in my life. 
 
 LYDIA. Well, I suppose I must humour you, but 
 it will mean short commons for the next week. 
 
 JACOB. Never mind we must have a little feast 
 to-night. I am so glad my Letty is going to marry 
 the very man I should have chosen for her out of all 
 the world. Ah ! how happy it would have made her 
 mother, if she could have lived till now. 
 
 LYDIA. Ugh ! I suppose you'll want this creature 
 stuffed. (Probing fowl.} 
 
 JACOB. Yes, Lydia, plenty of stuffing and plenty 
 of good gravy ; and, Lydia, gently with that poor bird 
 show a little respect to old age. 
 
 LYDIA. Ugh! Well, I'll make the best of her, 
 
 but don't you go buying poultry again, you leave that 
 
 to me. (JACOB goes to cupboard, takes out corkscrew 
 
 and wine-glasses, puts wine-glasses on table, 
 
 draws cork of bottle. LYDIA ^vw to door.) 
 
 She ain't no chicken, she ain't. 
 
 (Exit.)
 
 46 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT n 
 
 QACOB alone, goes to back table and takes off a 
 vase of flowers, sets it in centre of supper- 
 table ; does all this with a pleased air of 
 proprietorship, rubs his hands, looks at 
 table pleased?) 
 
 JACOB. Let me see, the last time we had a bottle 
 of wine when was the last time we had a bottle of 
 wine? Oh, I remember, it was when Mr. Prabble 
 sent me one for christening his twins. That was two 
 years ago last February. 
 
 (Taking up a wine-glass to re-arrange table.} 
 
 LOT enters hurriedly by a side door. 
 
 LOT. Mr. Fletcher ! 
 
 JACOB. Well, Lot, what is it? 
 
 LOT. Miss Letty, sir do you know where she is? 
 
 JACOB. I left her to come home with the others 
 from the ferry why what's the matter? Has 
 has 
 
 LOT. Oh sir, it will break your heart, and I wish 
 there was somebody else to tell you. 
 
 JACOB, Why ! what do you mean ? What's hap- 
 pened to her? Tell me quick, where is she? 
 
 LOT (after a pause, very delicately) . She's run away 
 to London with that rascal Captain Fanshawe. 
 
 (JACOB drops the glass from his hand, and 
 stands speechless for some moments.} 
 
 JACOB. No no no How do you know ? 
 
 LOT. I happened to be at the junction, sir, and
 
 SCENE in SAINTS AND SINNERS 47 
 
 I saw them on the other side. The London express 
 came up, and they went away by it. 
 
 JACOB. You saw them go ! You saw a man 
 robbing me of my daughter, and you didn't cry, 
 "Stop thief!" 
 
 LOT. I was on the wrong side, sir, and the train 
 had started before I could stop them. 
 
 JACOB. You're sure there's no mistake? It was 
 Letty you saw? 
 
 LOT. Oh sir, there's no mistake. 
 
 JACOB (remembering). Yes yes yes. Why he 
 was making love to her here yesterday morning, here 
 in my own house, and she did not repulse him. 
 (Starting up violently?) The next train for London 
 when does it start ? 
 
 LOT. There's no train till the morning, sir. 
 
 JACOB. Horses ! I must get horses, and drive 
 up to London after them ! 
 
 LOT. Oh sir, you wouldn't reach London till late 
 to-morrow morning. 
 
 JACOB. The telegraph I'll telegraph and have 
 them stopped ! 
 
 LOT. The office is closed, sir. 
 
 JACOB. You should have stopped her ! You 
 should have dragged her away from him ! Oh, Lot, 
 what can I do? What can I do? 
 
 LOT. You can do nothing till the morning, sir. 
 
 JACOB. Nothing till the morning? I must! I 
 must reach her to-night ! I will ! I will !
 
 48 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT n 
 
 ( Goes mechanically and takes his hat and coat 
 
 I tell you I must reach her to-night, to-night to-night, 
 Lot, to-night ! Qh ! 
 
 ( Throws coat in window, sits at table.) 
 Lot, her good name is gone. I shall never hold 
 up my head again. 
 
 LOT. Don't say that, sir. We may perhaps keep 
 it secret till you can find Miss Letty and bring her 
 back ; let's hope for the best. Oh sir, have patience, 
 nobody knows of it. 
 
 JACOB. Nobody knows of it to-night, but to-morrow 
 all the town will know that my Letty, my girl is oh, 
 if I could but reach her for a moment ! If I could 
 but whisper one word in her ear ! I might yet save 
 her ! And I stay here, and can do nothing ! 
 
 (Bursts into tears, continues sobbing for a few 
 
 moments. LOT moves towards him with a 
 
 sympathetic gesture. Taking LOT'S hand.) 
 
 Thank you, Lot, for what you have done. You won't 
 
 mention this to anybody? 
 
 LOT. Not to a living soul, sir. I'll have my 
 tongue out before I breathe a syllable of it. 
 
 JACOB (shakes hand). Thank you, Lot. Don't 
 wait. I can bear it best alone. I'll go up to London 
 to-morrow morning, and find her, and bring her back 
 again yes, to-morrow. Good-night, Lot. 
 
 LOT. Good-night, sir. I wish I could help you 
 bear it, sir.
 
 SCENE in SAINTS AND SINNERS 49 
 
 JACOB. Nobody can do that nobody knows how 
 much I loved her. (Exit LOT.) 
 
 (JACOB alone, stares around the room.) 
 JACOB. Gone ! Gone ! How shall I answer to 
 her mother for her? Gone ! (Rises.) 
 
 (Takes up LETTY'S old garden-hat, puts it 
 down, happens to see picture of LETTY'S 
 aunt, goes to it, turns its face to the wall, 
 looks helplessly round the room old, 
 haggard, tearless.) 
 Gone ! Gone ! Gone ! (Sits.) 
 
 GEORGE (calls outside) . Mr. Fletcher ! Mr. 
 Fletcher ! where are you ? 
 
 Enters with a quick, joyous, eager step. 
 
 GEORGE. Well, here I am you see ! I got your 
 letter, and I came on at once. I couldn't wait a 
 moment ! I've been waiting all these years for one 
 word of love from her ! Where is she ? Why, what's 
 the matter? Where is Letty? Does she expect me? 
 Tell her I'm here ! What has happened? You 
 didn't expect me you're upset. Where is she ? Why 
 don't you speak ? 
 
 JACOB. George, she is I cannot tell you She 
 
 GEORGE. You have bad news. What is it? 
 Tell me ; I can bear it. Ah ! She is dead ! 
 JACOB. Would God she were. {Rises.) 
 E
 
 5 o SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT n 
 
 GEORGE. Worse than death ! There is but one 
 thing worse than death. Is it that"! 
 JACOB. You have said it. 
 
 (GEORGE stands still for some moments, dazed, 
 with one hand to his head, the other resting 
 on back of chair ; with a strong movement 
 he swings chair behind him, conies down, 
 stands with his hands clenching tablecloth; 
 then in a cold hoarse voice} 
 GEORGE. Who is he ? His name ? 
 JACOB. It is too late. You cannot save her. 
 GEORGE. His name? I will know it. His name, 
 I say ! 
 
 JACOB. Why, what will you do ? 
 GEORGE. I will kill him ! As there is a heaven 
 above us, I will kill him ! 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 (A month elapses between Acts II. and III.)
 
 ACT III 
 
 SCENE I 
 SITTING-ROOM AT THE MINISTER'S. FRONT SCENE. 
 
 Discover LYDIA showing in HOGGARD and PRABBLE. 
 
 PRABBLE is a little provincial grocer, very small, 
 
 but very self-important. 
 
 LYDIA. The Minister's in his study. I'll tell him 
 you're here. 
 
 PRABBLE. Miss Fletcher's not come home yet? 
 
 LYDIA. No, she hasn't. 
 
 HOGGARD. Not come home ! How's that ? 
 
 LYDIA. Because she's stayed away. (Exit.) 
 
 HOGGARD. Prabble, I have my suspicions about 
 this girl's visit to Ixmdon. (Sits.) 
 
 PRABBLE. Ah ! London is a sink of iniquity. I 
 lived there three months when I was a young man. 
 
 HOGGARD. I think as deacons of the chapel we 
 ought to get from Fletcher some explanation of his 
 daughter's absence.
 
 52 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT HI 
 
 PRABBLE. Yes, and another thing, Mr. Hoggard. 
 I find the members of the congregation are going to 
 the Stores, and I've asked Mr. Fletcher more than 
 once to preach against them. I'm a grocer, and I've 
 got eleven children, and how can I pay my rates and 
 taxes and bring up my family if the Stores are allowed 
 to undersell me, eh? I ask you that as a member 
 of the great tax-paying middle classes. 
 
 HOGGARD. Very true, Prabble. The middle 
 classes are the great backbone of this country. It's 
 such men as you and I, Prabble, that are the source 
 of England's greatness. We have made England 
 what she is to-day. Oh, here is Fletcher. 
 
 Enter JACOB, looking broken and older than in last act. 
 LYDIA follows him in and busies herself about the 
 room. 
 
 JACOB. Good-morning, Mr. Hoggard. 
 
 (Crosses to PRABBLE.) 
 Good-morning, Mr. Prabble. 
 
 HOGGARD. We've called to fix the evening for 
 the missionary meeting next month. 
 
 JACOB. Any evening will suit me. (Dreamy, list- 
 less, uninterested.) 
 
 HOGGARD. Then we'll say Tuesday the i yth. 
 
 (Taking out pocket-book, making memor- 
 andum.) 
 
 That's settled. So your daughter has not returned 
 yet?
 
 SCENE i SAINTS AND SINNERS 53 
 
 JACOB (a little confused and troubled). No no 
 I have not pressed her to come back, but she'll be 
 home now in a day or two. Yes, she's sure to come 
 home in a few days. 
 
 HOGGARD. She seems to like living in London. 
 
 LYDIA. Yes, and do you know why ? 
 
 HOGGARD. No. 
 
 LYDIA. Because in London people mind their 
 own business, and down here they're always poking 
 their noses into their neighbour's. 
 
 HOGGARD. Oh ! 
 
 PRABBLE. I was about to remark, Mr. Fletcher, 
 that you have not yet denounced the Stores from the 
 pulpit. 
 
 JACOB. Well, I don't see my way to make a 
 pulpit-question of it, Mr. Prabble. Of course I 
 always get my groceries from you, but I don't think 
 I ought to interfere with the way my congregation 
 spend their money. 
 
 PRABBLE. If I support your chapel, I expect you to 
 get the congregation to support my shop. That's only 
 fair. I've got to live, haven't I ? Eh, Mr. Hoggard ? 
 
 HOGGARD. You're quite right, Prabble? and that 
 reminds me, Fletcher (rises), I have to complain about 
 Sunday morning's sermon. 
 
 JACOB. What was the matter with it ? 
 
 HOGGARD. Matter? Why, I timed it it was 
 barely thirty minutes. 
 
 PRABBLE. No. Give me a good old-fashioned
 
 54 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT in 
 
 sermon, one that lasts an hour and a quarter. That 
 was always the length of sermons when I was a boy. 
 We don't get such sermons nowadays. 
 
 HOGGARD. Yes, to be sure. If I pay twenty 
 pounds a year for my religion, I'm not going to be 
 done out of it. 
 
 JACOB (meekly). I'm very sorry, gentlemen. To 
 tell you the truth, I have not been very well the last 
 week ; but you shall have a longer one next Sunday. 
 
 LYDIA (bursting in) . How do you expect to get 
 good sermons when you come and worry the minister 
 like this? Can't you see you're plaguing all the life 
 and spirit out of him ? 
 
 JACOB (remonstratingly) . Lydia ! Lydia ! Hush! 
 
 LYDIA. I shan't hush. There, you go back to 
 your study and leave them 
 
 PRABBLE. We're just going. Good-morning, Mr. 
 Fletcher. Come on, Mr. Hoggard. (Exit.) 
 
 HOGGARD (as he is going, aside to JACOB). You 
 haven't done any more in Mrs. Bristow's affairs? 
 
 JACOB. I have a valuer coming down from Lon- 
 don next week. 
 
 HOGGARD. Oh, very well. Good-morning. By 
 the way, I hope you have taken means to ascertain 
 the character of the people your daughter is staying 
 with. Who are these friends of yours in London? 
 Eh? 
 
 JACOB (with great dignity) . That is my business, 
 sir. You pay me for my sermons and you have a
 
 SCENE i SAINTS AND SINNERS 55 
 
 right to call them in question ; but with regard to my 
 daughter, I will answer for her where I am account- 
 able. Good-morning. 
 
 (Turns away from him and goes to window?) 
 
 HOGGARD (aside, looking at him) . That girl's gone 
 away for no good. There's something wrong, and 
 I'll ferret it out before I'm much older. (Exit.) 
 
 JACOB (to LYDIA). You see, it's no good, Lydia. 
 It's safe to come out. They'll find that I don't know 
 where she is, and then they'll guess the truth. You're 
 quite sure there was no letter this morning. 
 
 LYDIA. Quite. I saw the postman go by. 
 
 JACOB. The second post will soon be here. 
 ( Going up to window anxiously looking out?) 
 
 LYDIA. There, come away from that window. I 
 can't bear to see you standing there day after day 
 waiting for a letter that never comes. 
 
 JACOB. The postman is late again, he ought to 
 have been here before this. It's four weeks to-day 
 since she left home. A whole month, and not a line 
 when she knows my heart is breaking for her. 
 
 LYDIA. I can't understand her not writing. I 
 always knew she was giddy and thoughtless, but I 
 didn't think she was heartless and wicked. 
 
 JACOB. She isn't ! How dare you say so ? No ! 
 there's some mistake. She'll write to-day, or perhaps 
 she'll come home. Yes, she can't have the heart to 
 stay away much longer. Lydia, was I very unkind 
 to her when she was at home ?
 
 56 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT in 
 
 LYDIA. Unkind ! There never was a kinder 
 father in the world. 
 
 JACOB. Oh no, I must have been very hard and 
 cruel to her, or she would have written to me ! Per- 
 haps if I stopped in London another day I might have 
 found her. 
 
 (Looking out of window?) 
 
 Ah, there's the postman ! He's coming here ! Yes, 
 there's a letter at last ! You go, Lydia I dare not, 
 for fear. (Exit LYDIA.) 
 
 Oh, it must be from her it must ! 
 
 Re-enter LYDIA with letter. 
 
 Well, well, is it from her? Yes, it is it is! Give 
 it to me. (Snatching letter from LYDIA.) What did 
 I tell you ? I knew she would write ! 
 
 (Eagerly opens letter, throws envelope on floor, 
 
 reading.) 
 
 " TORQUAY, Monday. Father, I am ashamed to write 
 to you, and yet I must. What can you think of me ? 
 Oh, I can never dare to ask your forgiveness ! I do 
 not deserve it ! I should have written before, but I 
 waited till I could tell you that I was Captain Fan- 
 shawe's wife 
 
 LYDIA. Go on, sir ! Is she his wife ? 
 
 JACOB (reading). "but there has been some 
 delay in procuring the marriage -licence. However, 
 it will be here at latest in a day or two 
 
 LYDIA. Then the villain hasn't married her?
 
 SCENE I SAINTS AND SINNERS 57 
 
 JACOB (reading). "and I will write again the 
 moment I am married. You are not to grieve over 
 me ; you are to forget me, and think of me as dead." 
 (Dropping his hands with the letter?) Think of her 
 as dead ! (Sobbing, raising the letter to read again?) 
 " Do not try to come to me it would be useless, 
 I shall never dare to see you again. Oh my 
 father, when I think how I have deceived you and 
 brought shame upon you I am ready to go mad ! I 
 can write no more. Your heart-broken LETTY." 
 (Sobbing?) Think of her as dead ! Not try to come 
 to her ! Ah, but I will though, and bring her home ! 
 (Looking again at letter?) Torquay ; she doesn't 
 give her address in Torquay, but I shall be sure to 
 find her. 
 
 Enter GEORGE KINGSMILL. 
 
 My hat and coat, Lydia ! I'll start at once. I shall 
 be sure to find her. (Exit LYDIA.) 
 
 GEORGE. You've heard from her? You know 
 where she is? 
 
 JACOB. Yes, I am going to fetch her. 
 
 GEORGE. He's left her ; he's thrown her off? 
 
 JACOB. No. 
 
 GEORGE. She's with him still? I'll go with you 
 and settle my account with him. 
 
 JACOB. What do you mean? 
 
 GEORGE. I shall keep my word. 
 
 JACOB. No, George, vengeance is not ours. I
 
 58 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT in 
 
 have been wronged more than you. My home is 
 broken and all the pride and joy of my life taken 
 from me, but I will leave my vengeance to Whom 
 vengeance belongs. 
 
 GEORGE. Ay, and I'll make sure of mine ! 
 Where is he ? 
 
 JACOB. No, I want no help from you. I only 
 want my child back to my home and heart. 
 
 GEORGE. Where is he? 
 
 JACOB. You have no right to know while there is 
 murder in your heart. 
 
 GEORGE. It's not murder it's justice. Where 
 is he? 
 
 Enter LYDIA with hat and coat. 
 
 JACOB. I will not tell you. Lydia, you'll get her 
 room ready for her. Have everything just as it used 
 to be, and some flowers on the table ; she's fond of 
 flowers. I shall bring her home to-morrow. Yes, 
 my poor wanderer, I shall bring her home to-morrow. 
 
 (Exit.) 
 
 LYDIA (following him). Good-bye, sir; give my 
 love to her and tell her she shall be made welcome 
 home again. (Exit, following JACOB.) 
 
 GEORGE (left alone, looks round). Four weeks 
 since she left home a whole month ; and she is 
 still in his arms. Oh my enemy, I shall find you 
 
 yet ! Let me but meet him face to face 
 
 (His eye falls on the envelope of LETTY'S letter 
 on floor. He picks it up .)
 
 SCENE n SAINTS AND SINNERS 59 
 
 Her writing ! The Torquay postmark ! That's near 
 enough ! I shall find him ! {Exit.) 
 
 Scene draws up and discovers Scene II. 
 
 SCENE II 
 
 DRAWING-ROOM IN FANSHAWE'S VILLA AT TORQUAY. 
 Doors right and left, window with balcony, showing 
 the sea. 
 
 Discover FANSHAWE leaning against conservatory, with 
 cigarette. LEESON down right. Five letters on 
 salver on small table extreme right. 
 
 LEESON. I've got everything packed, sir. 
 
 FANSHAWE. All right. We leave by the early 
 train. We sail on Friday. 
 
 LEESON (goes). Yes, sir. Beg pardon, sir, Miss 
 your lady, I mean does she go to India with us ? 
 
 FANSHAWE (sharply). Yes, of course. 
 
 LEESON. Because this afternoon your lady asked 
 me why I was packing so many trunks for you. 
 
 FANSHAWE. Blockhead ! you told her I was 
 ordered to join my regiment in India? 
 
 LEESON. No, sir, I hem passed it off, sir. 
 
 (Exit.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. Was ever such cursed luck ! Pro- 
 vidence and the War Office must have planned this 
 campaign to spite me ! She shall go to India with
 
 6o SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT in 
 
 me; I won't leave her now. (Si/s on sofa.) To 
 think that I have fallen into my own trap and really 
 grown to love the girl ! For I do love her, and she's 
 good and true too that is, compared with me. There 
 is something in goodness after all, or why should I 
 feel a half longing to be good when I am with her ? 
 Why should I feel sorry that I have ruined her poor 
 little life? (Rises.) Hang it! I'm getting maudlin 
 moral. My digestion must be out of order. 
 
 (Goes to fireplace, throws cigarette in fire.) 
 How will she take this Indian business? I must 
 break it to her to-night. The marriage-licence too 
 that lie's getting threadbare. I shall have to invent 
 a new one, or I've a good mind to tell her the 
 truth. It's a beastly nuisance to have to keep on 
 telling lies. (Leaning arms on mantelpiece.) 
 
 Enter l^m/rom her room in evening-dress. 
 
 LETTY (eagerly going to letters on table). Ah ! The 
 post ! The marriage-licence. 
 
 FANSHAWE. Not come. 
 
 LETTY. Not come ! Not come ! But why do 
 they not send it? Oh, if you loved me as you say 
 you do, you would not rest one moment till you had 
 put me out of this horrible suspense. 
 
 FANSHAWE. Can you not trust me ? 
 
 LETTY. Have I not trusted you? How could I 
 help trusting you? You gave me no choice.
 
 SCENE ii SAINTS AND SINNERS 61 
 
 FANSHAWE. And have I not made you happy? 
 
 ( Crosses to her.) 
 
 LETTY. So happy that I wish I were dead. Oh, 
 it is all like a dream ! I am afraid to think nothing 
 seems real to me ; all my life at home, my girlhood 
 when I was good and innocent oh, it is as far away 
 as if I had lived it in another life, hundreds of years 
 ago ! Eustace, Eustace, if you do not mean to make 
 me your wife, in mercy say so, and kill me ! 
 
 FANSHAWE. Kill you ! (Sits on tabled) Yes, 
 sweet, I think I shall kill you when you tell me that 
 you do not love me. 
 
 LETTY. I do not know whether I love or 
 hate you. I only know I fear you, and must obey 
 you. 
 
 FANSHAWE. Good girl ! Then you'll do as I 
 wish you. 
 
 LETTY. What do you mean? 
 
 FANSHAWE. I ought to have told you before, but 
 I was afraid of losing you. I am ordered to join my 
 regiment in India. I sail on Friday. 
 
 LETTY. But but what will become of me ? 
 
 FANSHAWE. I mean to take you with me. 
 
 LETTY (desperately) . Yes yes but as your wife, 
 as your wife. 
 
 FANSHAWE. Yes, of course. 
 
 (Leaning over her, sitting on table.) 
 
 LETTY. You will marry me before we start? 
 Swear it again and again, so that if you break your
 
 62 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT HI 
 
 word I may kill myself, and lay ten thousand broken 
 oaths against your soul ! 
 
 FANSHAWE. Letty, you are my wife already. 
 
 LETTY. No ! {Rises.) I am the poor unhappy 
 fool who believed you when you promised to make 
 her your wife. Oh, what shall I do ! What shall I 
 do ! My father ! My father ! 
 
 (Sobbing, sits in front of fireplace.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. Come, dry up your tears. (Rises, 
 goes up.) I cannot bear to see you wretched. ( Comes 
 to her.) Put on your hat and come down to the 
 beach, there's a good girl ! ( Goes to table for hat.) 
 You'll find me outside. (Lights cigar.) 
 (Aside.) I shall have to tell her the truth. 
 
 (Exit at balcony. Clock on shelf strikes half 
 hour.) 
 
 LETTY. Half-past eight ! They are having supper 
 at home. Lydia has just knocked at the study-door, 
 and father has said " Coming, Lydia." I can see him 
 at his bookshelves with his old study-coat, and his 
 dear face with its kind gentle smile. Oh my father !, 
 my father ! (Rises.) You were always so good to 
 me, and how have I repaid you? What can you 
 think of me? Oh if I could but forget I ever had a 
 home. If I could but get rid of this weight at my 
 heart ! If I could but stop out this one thought ! If 
 I could but sleep and wake again like a little child ! 
 I will forget ! I will forget ! I will forget !
 
 SCENE ii SAINTS AND SINNERS 63 
 
 Enter LEESON. 
 LEESON (holding open door). Will you come in? 
 
 Enter RADDLES, a dissipated middle-aged man, very 
 shabby, and slightly intoxicated. 
 
 I'll find Captain Fanshawe he was here a few minutes 
 ago. (RADDLES comes down.) 
 
 LETTY. What is it, Leeson ? 
 
 LEESON. A party to see Captain Fanshawe. 
 
 LETTY. Your master has gone out on the beach. 
 
 LEESON. What name shall I say? 
 
 RADDLES. Raddles Jack Raddles, his old friend 
 Jack. 
 
 (LEESON exit upon balcony after FANSHAWE.) 
 Good evening, miss, or ma'am, I suppose I should say. 
 Excuse my intruding, but the Captain and me are 
 very old friends relatives I should say. 
 
 LETTY. Indeed ! 
 
 RADDLES. Yes, you wouldn't think it now, would 
 jfou? A gentleman like the Captain, and a seedy 
 sort of a chap like me, but so it is, and was uncommon 
 chummy at one period of our lives existence, I 
 should say when the Captain was at Oxford. Yes, 
 I'm Captain Eustace Fanshawe's brother-in-law, I am. 
 
 LETTY. His brother-in-law? 
 
 RADDLES. Yes ; and I don't care who knows it. 
 I ain't ashamed of the Captain, if the Captain's ashamed 
 of me.
 
 64 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT in 
 
 LETTY. His brother-in-law ! You married Captain 
 Fanshawe's sister? 
 
 RADDLES. Oh no ! The Captain married my 
 sister. 
 
 LETTY (suddenly, fiercely). But she's dead ! She's 
 dead ! She's not alive now ? 
 
 ( Comes a step towards him.) 
 
 FANSHAWE enters, and remains by conservatory. 
 
 RADDLES. Oh yes she is, or rather she was when 
 I left her this morning. 
 
 (FANSHAWE comes down in a threatening 
 manner. RADDLES seeing him retreats a 
 step up stage.) 
 
 LETTY {to FANSHAWE). You hear this man. He 
 says his sister is your wife. Is it true ? 
 FANSHAWE (firmly). Quite true. 
 
 (LETTY, who has been standing with her arm 
 raised, lets it fall helplessly by her side.) 
 
 LETTY. You villain ! 
 
 % 
 
 (Staggers to sofa. FANSHAWE takes a step 
 
 up stage after RADDLES.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. How dare you show your face in 
 England, and in my house ? 
 
 RADDLES. Well, Captain, the fact is, Mabel and 
 me have been hard up very hard up, and she 
 thought you wouldn't like it to be known as we were 
 in pecuniary distress.
 
 SCENE ii SAINTS AND SINNERS 65 
 
 FANSHAWE. You want money? Haven't you 
 had enough, the pair of you, to drink yourselves to 
 death before this? Where are you staying? 
 
 RADDLES. At the "Green Man," Union Street, 
 next door to the Temperance Hotel. 
 
 FANSHAWE. I'll come to you there in half an 
 hour. Clear out of this, and if you show your face 
 in my house again I'll have you horsewhipped. 
 
 (Opening door. Exit RADDLES quickly. FAN- 
 SHAWE turns to LETTY.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. Now you know why I cannot marry 
 you. (Comes down.) 
 
 LETTY. Let me go ! Let me go ! This is no 
 place for me. Oh God, I have no name, no place 
 upon this earth ! 
 
 FANSHAWE. You have one name, one place. 
 Come to India with me as my wife. 
 
 LETTY. Your wife ! I deserve your taunts ! Your 
 wife ! You do well to mock me with that name now 
 that I have given up all my hopes in earth and 
 heaven to win it from you now that you have cheated 
 me out of it ! Your wife ! Have you not humbled 
 me enough ? Let me go ! You and I are strangers ! 
 
 FANSHAWE. Where will you go ? Home ? 
 
 LETTY. Home ! 
 
 FANSHAWE. Where else can you go? 
 
 LETTY. You know I cannot go home. My 
 father cannot take me back again, I have dis- 
 honoured him !
 
 66 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT 111 
 
 FANSHAWE. Nonsense ! Think how pleased they 
 will be to see you back again, and what a fuss they 
 will make over you. Think what a splendid subject 
 you'll make for them to exercise their tongues on 
 first, and their Christian pity afterwards. 
 
 LETTY (maddened} . I hate their pity and their for- 
 giveness ! I will have none of it ! I will kill myself ! 
 
 FANSHAWE. Kill yourself! When you can come 
 to India with me ! 
 
 LETTY. Oh, I will hear no more ! Let me go ! 
 
 ( Going to door.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. Where will you go? Listen to me. 
 (Puts her on sofa.) I have wronged and deceived 
 you, but I love you. I have robbed you of your 
 good name and wrecked your life, but I love you. 
 I have not given you the name of wife you know 
 now that I cannot, but, by God, I love you as much 
 as ever wife was loved. Letty, your life is tied to 
 mine. You have already paid the price. You will 
 not be mad enough to leave me ? What hope, what 
 life have you apart from me? 
 
 LETTY. You can remind me of that now you 
 have destroyed my every other hope in life ! 
 
 FANSHAWE. Yes, and I would do it again to win 
 you. I love you with a cruel love that will not be 
 denied. You shall not escape me. I will not give 
 you up ! 
 
 LETTY. Oh, I think I shall go mad ! I think I 
 shall go mad !
 
 SCENE II SAINTS AND SINNERS 67 
 
 FANSHAWE (comes to her). Go mad ! What for? 
 You'll be happy when you've left England, and I'll 
 soon teach you to care as little what people say about 
 you as I do. Besides, that woman may die, and 
 then I will marry you 
 
 LETTY. Ah, but if she should live 
 
 FANSHAWE. Let her live ! And you, Letty, dare 
 to live for me. Dare to be happy. Our world is 
 our two selves. In that we are secure. Choose 
 will you go from this house nameless and dishonoured, 
 or will you come to India with me ? 
 
 LETTY. Ah, you have me in your power, and you 
 know it. Very well, I will do as you bid me. I will 
 dare to be as bad as you wish me. Make me like 
 yourself. (Throws herself into his arms.) 
 
 FANSHAWE (clasping her). Swear you will never 
 leave me ! 
 
 LETTY. What need to swear that? Where can 
 I go? 
 
 FANSHAWE. Nothing but death shall part us ! 
 
 LETTY. Nothing but death shall part us ! And 
 may it soon come to me ! 
 
 FANSHAWE. I shall soon hear a different tune 
 from those dear lips. We leave by the early train 
 to-morrow. 
 
 LETTY. I shall be ready. 
 
 FANSHAWE. I'm going to get rid of that man. 
 
 (Leaves her, picks up hat from table, goes to door, 
 holds out his hands. She comes to him.)
 
 68 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT m 
 
 My wife in all but name. (Kisses her.) I'm sure of 
 you now. (Exit at balcony.) 
 
 LETTY. Yes, you are sure of me. You are 
 glad, are you? So am I ! Oh, I have passed the 
 boundaries, stepped over the eternal landmarks ! 
 Yes, you are sure of me ! And I shall grow to be 
 as wicked as you are ! Yes, as wicked as you are ! 
 Yes, on, on, on, on wherever you drag me, I will 
 come ! I will come ! Don't fear ! I'll be just what 
 you make me ! 
 
 Enter LEESON. 
 
 LEESON. Ma'am, your father is at the door and 
 wishes to speak to you. 
 
 LETTY. My father ! No, no, no, Leeson ! Shut 
 the door. I will not see him ! I am not here say 
 that I have left anything to keep him from me ! 
 Stay, Leeson, does he look ill, grieved? Is he 
 changed ? Does he seem angry ? 
 
 LEESON. No, ma'am, he spoke very quietly, and 
 said he must see you. 
 
 LETTY. I cannot see him, Leeson. I will not ! 
 Tell him his daughter is not here tell him he has 
 no daughter; she died when she forgot she had a 
 father and a home. 
 
 JACOB enters. 
 Ah ! (Starts away.) (LEESON exit.) 
 
 JACOB. Letty ! My Letty ! My poor girl, have 
 I found you !
 
 SCENE II SAINTS AND SINNERS 69 
 
 LETTY. Ah, don't touch me ! Don't speak to 
 me ! Do you know what I am ? Leave me ; I'm 
 not fit you should touch me ! 
 
 JACOB. Ah, don't say that. Letty dear, don't 
 turn away from me ; it is I, your father, come to take 
 you home again. 
 
 LETTY. No no ! Go away ! I have disgraced 
 you ! I am your daughter no longer ! ( Turns, looks 
 at him.) And you are so changed. Oh, it was I 
 who struck the blow ! I did it, in return for all your 
 kindness and love for me. 
 
 JACOB. Ah, but I forgive you. (Embraces her.) 
 There! (Putting \jEm's head on his shoulder.) Lean 
 your head upon my shoulder. Don't shrink from 
 me. 
 
 LETTY. Oh, I cannot bear you should speak like 
 this ! Why don't you hate me for all the misery I 
 have caused you? Why don't you drive me from 
 you ? Then I could bear it ; but oh, your kindness 
 will drive me mad ! I'm not worth caring for. Go 
 away and forget me. (Turning away from him.) 
 
 JACOB. Letty ! Letty ! Listen, my dear. I 
 have come to take you from this place and make you 
 a good and happy girl again. 
 
 LETTY. I can never be good and happy again. 
 I must be wicked and miserable. Yes, I must. I 
 have chosen my path I must go on. 
 
 JACOB. Oh my chiH, I dare not guess what your 
 future will be if you will not listen to me ! I will give
 
 7 o SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT in 
 
 you no peace day or night till I have won you back. 
 I will tear you from this man's arms. 
 
 LETTY. He loves me. He has sworn to make 
 me his wife, and I have promised to be faithful to 
 him. I am bound to him. Oh father, it is my one 
 chance of winning back my good name ! What hope, 
 what future is there for me apart from him ? 
 
 JACOB. What hope, what future is there for you 
 with him? Letty, my poor child, what possesses 
 you? It cannot be you who are talking like this 
 the little girl I brought up at my side and watched 
 over day and night. Oh Letty, you are not yourself, 
 you are blind, you are dazed ! Ah, but you will listen 
 to me and come home with me come home ! 
 
 LETTY. I cannot. I dare not face the people who 
 knew me. You know how bitter your good people 
 are against such as I. Besides, it would mean ruin 
 for you. Oh, I have weighed it all ! Don't you see, 
 father, it was that one thought that drove me on the 
 thought that I had disgraced you and put a stain upon 
 all your life's work ! If I come back your people will 
 turn you out from your place it will take the very 
 bread from your lips. 
 
 JACOB. What if it should? Do you think there 
 is anything in the world for me in comparison with 
 winning you back, my dear? Do you think I should 
 ever be happy again if I thought you were lost ? But 
 nobody knows of it, dear. I could not bear that 
 people should talk of you I knew you would soon
 
 SCENE ii SAINTS AND SINNERS 71 
 
 come back, and so, dear, nothing is known your 
 secret is quite safe. 
 
 LETTY. How good, how kind of you ! 
 
 JACOB. Ah, come home, dear ! all shall be for- 
 gotten and forgiven. And I shall always be with you, 
 and no one shall say a harsh word, or think a harsh 
 thought of you ! Come ! 
 
 LETTY. Oh, if I dared ! If I could ! But no ! 
 I'm on the wrong side for turning back. I have 
 given him my promise. 
 
 JACOB. Ah, Letty, I too have given a promise. 
 I promised your mother on her deathbed that I would 
 watch over you. See, I kneel to you you will come. 
 Letty, your mother is waiting for you to say " Yes." 
 
 (Kneeling, imploring?) 
 
 LETTY (after a long pause). Yes, I will come. 
 
 JACOB (rises, clasps her) . My child ! My child ! 
 
 LETTY. Wait for me. I'll be back in a moment. 
 (Exit into her room.) 
 
 JACOB. She'll come she'll come ! I've won her 
 back. ( Crosses, and sits on sofa.) 
 
 Enter FANSHAWE /r0w balcony. Comes down. 
 
 FANSHAWE. Mr. Fletcher ! 
 
 JACOB. Yes, sir. (Rises.) If there is any shame 
 or manhood in you, keep away from me don't tempt 
 me I dare not trust myself to speak to you. I 
 should forget my calling. Keep away from me, sir. 
 
 FANSHAWE. What is your business here ?
 
 72 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT in 
 
 JACOB. My business here, sir, is this. A thief 
 has stolen my daughter from me my business, sir, is 
 to save my child from a scoundrel. 
 
 FANSHAWE (getting towards LETTY'S door) . I don't 
 quarrel with your terms, .but I don't mean to give up 
 your daughter. ( Crosses to door.) She is of age 
 she is here by her own free will she has promised to 
 stay with me till I can make her my wife. 
 
 JACOB. Your wife ! I do not believe your 
 promises of marriage, sir. If you had meant honour- 
 ably by my daughter, why have you not already made 
 her your wife ? 
 
 FANSHAWE. Well, if you will know, because I am 
 married already. 
 
 JACOB. And you dared to I have no words. 
 Out of my way give me my daughter. 
 
 FANSHAWE. Excuse me. (Locks door.) She shall 
 not leave this house until I have spoken to her. 
 
 JACOB. Not a word, sir. You shall not have her ! 
 Give me that key. 
 
 FANSHAWE. No ! she is her own mistress. When 
 she comes to that door she shall choose between us. 
 If she is determined to go with you, so be it. But if 
 I can persuade her to stay I'll fight to death to keep 
 her. 
 
 JACOB. You shall not have her ! You shall not 
 have her ! Give me that key. Help ! Help ! Help !
 
 SCENE II SAINTS AND SINNERS 73 
 
 Enter GEORGE KINGSMILL by balcony. 
 
 George ! ( Goes to him.) 
 
 FANSHAWE. Who is this man? Who are you, 
 sir? 
 
 GEORGE. Letty Fletcher's betrothed husband. 
 She was to have been my wife, but you came be- 
 tween us. You took her from me. Now pay me the 
 cost. 
 
 FANSHAWE. What do you want? 
 
 GEORGE. I will kill you, or you shall kill me. 
 
 JACOB. George ! George ! 
 
 GEORGE. Mr. Fletcher, this is my business. (To 
 FANSHAWE.) I know nothing of your rules of honour, 
 as you call them ; make any rules you like, so long 
 as we meet face to face on equal terms. 
 
 FANSHAWE. I refuse to fight a madman who 
 forces his way into my house. 
 
 GEORGE. What ! You were brave enough to steal 
 from me the girl I loved ! You were brave enough 
 to ruin and betray her, and you haven't courage 
 enough to answer for it ! 
 
 FANSHAWE (about to respond, checks himself). I 
 will not fight you. 
 
 GEORGE. You shall ! You rat, if you won't meet 
 me man to man, I'll kill you as I would any other 
 rat. (Striking him. FANSHAWE drops key.) 
 
 JACOB (coming between them). George, are you 
 mad ? Her story is not known. I am trying to save
 
 74 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT in 
 
 her good name. If you kill him you kill her good 
 name. George, spare him. 
 
 LETTY'S VOICE {at door). Father, I am ready. 
 Why have you locked the door? 
 
 JACOB. For her sake, George, it must not be 
 known it must be hushed up, for her sake. 
 
 GEORGE (a long pause then reluctantly) . For her 
 sake, to save her good name. 
 
 (JACOB picks up key from floor where FAN- 
 SHAWE has dropt it, and unlocks the door.) 
 
 LETTY enters in dress she wore when she left home. 
 JACOB takes her across towards door. GEORGE is 
 up stage. 
 
 FANSHAWE. Letty, your promise ! You shall go 
 to India with me. 
 
 GEORGE. To India? 
 
 JACOB (at door) . My child has said her last word 
 to you, sir. Leave her to me, and let me spend all 
 my life in teaching her to forget the wrong you have 
 done her. Come, my dear. Home ! Home ! 
 
 (FANSHAWE makes a movement to stay them, 
 but is confronted by GEORGE, who comes 
 down centre of stage.) 
 
 Quick CURTAIN. 
 (Five days elapse between Acts III. and IV.)
 
 ACT IV 
 
 SCENE I 
 IN FRONT OF BETHEL CHAPEL ON SUNDAY MORNING. 
 
 The chapelts a plain red-brick building with large doors 
 for chief entrance, A small door at side leading to 
 vestry. 
 
 Enter HOGGARD and PRABBLE, meeting in centre. 
 During this scene people go into chapel. 
 
 HOGGARD (Bible and hymn-book under his arm, 
 e-uidently in very good spirits) . Good-morning, brother 
 Prabble. Good-morning. 
 
 PRABBLE. Good-morning, Mr. Hoggard; you've 
 been away for a few days, haven't you ? 
 
 HOGGARD. Yes, brother Prabble. (Looking to- 
 wards vestry-door.} Has Fletcher gone in yet? 
 
 PRABBLE. I should think not it wants some time 
 to service. We're early. 
 
 HOGGARD. Yes, I'm always early. I haven't 
 been late for public worship once during the last
 
 76 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT iv 
 
 twenty years. Have you thought any more of what 
 we were talking about ? Fletcher, I mean. 
 
 PRABBLE. Yes, and I quite agree with you we 
 want a younger man at Bethel. 
 
 HOGGARD. Yes, one with a louder voice, and 
 more business-energy. Religion's no good nowadays, 
 brother Prabble, unless it's combined with business- 
 energy and push. What's the secret of all our great 
 revivalist meetings? Why, business-energy and push 
 and advertising ! Why does one chapel prosper while 
 another goes to the wall? Business- energy and push. 
 What's been the secret of my success in life ? Why, 
 business-energy and push and advertising ! " Push 
 yourself to the front ; cut the ground from under your 
 neighbour's feet get up a big sensation." That's the 
 great secret of success in business, brother Prabble ; 
 and the same rule applies to religion. 
 
 PRABBLE. To be sure it does. 
 
 HOGGARD. Look at me ! I began life in a very 
 humble way. My origin wasn't at all distinguished. 
 I went into that tanyard, Prabble, at half a-crown a 
 week, and without shoes to my feet. I think I may 
 take a little honest pride in myself, brother Prabble. 
 
 PRABBLE. If you can't, Mr. Hoggard, who can ? 
 
 HOGGARD. And I don't mean to stop, Prabble, 
 till I'm one of our merchant princes, and an M.P. 
 That's my ambition, Prabble M.P. 
 
 PRABBLE. Well, I'm sure there's plenty of mem- 
 bers of Parliament very inferior to you, Mr. Hoggard.
 
 SCENE i SAINTS AND SINNERS 77 
 
 HOGGARD. Just so. I think I shall be rather 
 above the average. (Takes PRABBLE'S arm confi- 
 dentially and leads him aside.} Well, we were 
 talking about religion. What we want at Bethel is 
 a sensation, to rouse the people from their lethargy, 
 and cut the ground from under the Church-people's 
 feet. 
 
 PRABBLE. Yes, and we want the Stores denounced, 
 and Mr. Fletcher ain't the man to do it. 
 
 HOGGARD (confidentially}. At the same time we 
 can't turn Fletcher off without sufficient reason. We 
 must find something against him. 
 
 PRABBLE. Yes, he's been with us a good many 
 years, and all the poor folk are very fond of him. 
 
 HOGGARD. Now supposing I should find a suffi- 
 cient reason, supposing I should call upon him to 
 resign, will you support me? 
 
 PRABBLE (cordially). Certainly, certainly, Mr. 
 Hoggard. You're one of my best customers. You 
 support my shop, and I'll support you. 
 
 HOGGARD. Very well, Prabble, I'll speak to him 
 this morning, before he goes into the pulpit, and I 
 can rely upon you ? 
 
 PRABBLE. Oh, I go with you entirely. 
 
 HOGGARD. Then we understand one another. 
 How sweet it is for brethren to dwell together in 
 unity ! It is like the precious oil that poured down 
 Aaron's beard ! Mrs. Prabble and all the little 
 Prabbles quite well?
 
 78 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT iv 
 
 PRABBLE. Quite well, thank you. How's Mrs. 
 Hoggard, and all the little Hoggards? (Both going 
 in.) 
 
 HOGGARD. All in capital health. What glorious 
 weather ! 
 
 PRABBLE. Yes, so good for trade ! (They both 
 move towards chapel-door.') 
 
 HOGGARD. Our hearts ought to be filled with 
 thankfulness. After you, brother Prabble, after you ! 
 What does the Bible say ? " He that abaseth himself 
 shall be exalted." 
 
 (Makes way for PRABBLE, who goes into chapel.) 
 (Aside.} I can twist Prabble round my finger. 
 Now, Mr. Fletcher, if you don't agree to my terms, 
 this is the last Sunday you'll preach at Bethel. 
 
 (GREENACRE has entered, and shuffled up to 
 him, stands bowing and cringing he is 
 very disreputable^) 
 
 Get out, get out, you old vagabond; really it's 
 abominable that such persons should be allowed in a 
 Christian place of worship ! What is religion coming 
 to? (Exit into chapel.) 
 
 Lor enters. GREENACRE turns to him. 
 
 GREENACRE. Good - morning, Muster Burden. 
 So Muster Fletcher's come back, and Miss Letty, 
 she's home again too ! La, what a beautiful sermon 
 he preached last Sunday it did me good, it refreshed 
 me, it did.
 
 SCENE I SAINTS AND SINNERS 79 
 
 Lor. Well, you wanted refreshing, after getting 
 into such a state on the Saturday night. 
 
 (UNCLE BAMBERRY has entered, an old work- 
 ing man, very respectable, dressed in his 
 Sunday's best, very deaf.) 
 
 LOT (to UNCLE BAMBERRY). Well, Uncle, how's 
 your deafness ? 
 
 UNCLE BAMBERRY (holding ear) . Eh? 
 
 LOT (shouting) . Your infirmity ? 
 
 UNCLE BAMBERRY. Eh ? Oh ! she's very well 
 she's at home, cooking the dinner. ( Crosses GREEN- 
 ACRE, who has been bowing and cringing.) No, Peter, 
 I've got nothing for you. 
 
 GREENACRE. I was saying, what a beautiful 
 sermon we had. 
 
 UNCLE BAMBERRY. Too hot for me ! Too hot 
 scorches me up. 
 
 GREENACRE. Muster Fletcher's sermon sermon. 
 
 UNCLE BAMBERRY. Sermon Aye, aye ! I can't 
 hear. I haven't heard a sermon this thirty years and 
 more ; my infirmity, can't hear daresay it's all very 
 good I always come to chapel. 
 
 GREENACRE (sniffling). Yes, we mustn't neglect 
 our privileges. 
 
 UNCLE BAMBERRY. I work in the brickfield all 
 week, and I be knocked up every Saturday night, and 
 I can sleep a deal more comfortable in chapel nor 
 anywhere else picks me up for the week ; and my
 
 8o SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT iv 
 
 missus wants me out of the way, while she does her 
 bit o' cleaning and cooking. 
 
 LOT. But you shouldn't snore, it disturbs the 
 congregation. 
 
 UNCLE BAMBERRY. Aye, aye, what a blessing 
 Sunday is for us poor people. Whatever should we 
 do without it? 
 
 Lor (shouting). You mustn't snore in the sermon. 
 
 UNCLE BAMBERRY. Swore in the sermon bless 
 my soul, who did ? 
 
 LOT. You did (shouting). " Snored, snored." 
 
 UNCLE BAMBERRY. Snored, did I? (very peni- 
 tently). Well, I am sorry! Bless me, did I snore? 
 You don't say so ? Did I snore ? Did I now ? 
 
 Lor. Yes, and we can't have it, especially in the 
 front pews. You'd better take a back seat back seat, 
 right out of the way (dropping his voice) (shouting) 
 right at the back of the gallery, d'ye hear ? 
 
 UNCLE BAMBERRY. Me go to the back of the 
 gallery? What for? I pay my eighteenpence a 
 quarter pew-rent, and if I be awake I can't hear a 
 blessed word, so what's the harm of my going to sleep ? 
 
 LOT. .But you must go to sleep gently gently ! 
 (roars.) Gently ! you old fool ! 
 
 UNCLE BAMBERRY (obstinately). I shan't give up 
 my corner. (Crosses.) Can't hear a blessed word 
 what the minister says. I daresay it all very good, 
 you know. Bless me, did I snore ? dear, dear, dear 
 now. Shan't give up my corner. (Exit into chapel.)
 
 SCENE i SAINTS AND SINNERS 81 
 
 GREENACRE. I never sleep in the sermon, I 
 wouldn't miss a word of it for the world ; I drink it 
 all in, I do. 
 
 LOT. Yes, if there's anything to drink, you 
 wouldn't leave much. There, you be off, here's Mr. 
 Fletcher coming. 
 
 GREENACRE. I want to thank him 
 
 LOT. You want to get a dinner out of him. Be 
 off into chapel, and pray as you may soon be took 
 off to a better place, for we've had quite enough of 
 you here. 
 
 (Takes him by back of neck, pushes him into chapel.} 
 
 JACOB enters. 
 
 JACOB (hurriedly). Well, Lot, what news ? Is my 
 poor child's secret safe? 
 
 LOT. It's quite safe, Mr. Fletcher. I've been 
 talking casual-like among the congregation, and they 
 all think Miss Letty's been away visiting in London. 
 
 JACOB. And if the truth had leaked out, you 
 think you would have heard it, Lot? 
 
 LOT. Of course I should. Don't you worry, 
 sir, it's all passed over, and nobody knows a word 
 about it. 
 
 JACOB. Thank you, Lot. I hope I'm not doing 
 wrong in hiding the truth, but I couldn't make known 
 her shame. 
 
 LOT. Where is Miss Letty? 
 
 JACOB. She's there at home, waiting at that 
 
 Q
 
 82 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT rv 
 
 window, poor child ! She was afraid to be seen until I 
 had come on and got to know whether her secret was 
 safe. I promised her I would wave my handkerchief 
 if all were well. (Takes out handkerchief, waves it.) 
 There, you see, she's seen the signal. She'll come. 
 
 LOT. Well, I'm glad that it's passed off without 
 any trouble or unpleasantness, sir. 
 
 JACOB. God bless you, Lot ! You've been a true 
 friend to me. 
 
 LOT. Don't you say anything about that, sir, or 
 else you'll make me feel very uncomfortable. Any- 
 thing more that I can do, I shall only be too proud 
 and happy. (Exit into chapel.) 
 
 JACOB (looking off) . Ah, she's started. Yes, dear, 
 you may come, all's well all's well. 
 
 GEORGE KINGSMILL enters. 
 George ! 
 
 GEORGE (shaking hands) . There's nothing known ? 
 
 JACOB. I hope not. I think we shall save her. 
 George, you won't be rash enough to carry out your 
 dreadful threat, and make her shame known. 
 
 GEORGE. Not if it will harm her. She's all I 
 care for. If she is safe, there is nothing to keep me 
 in England, and the sooner I leave this place and 
 her, the sooner I shall forget. I've settled every- 
 thing, and I leave to-morrow. I've come to say 
 good-bye to you and to the place where my fathers 
 worshipped.
 
 SCENE i SAINTS AND SINNERS 83 
 
 JACOB. Good-bye is a hard word to say to you, 
 George. You know it was my dearest wish in life to 
 have you for my son, but it was not to be. 
 
 GEORGE. Oh sir, when I got your letter that 
 night telling me she had promised to be my wife I 
 wouldn't have changed places with a king. I knew 
 it couldn't be true that she could ever love me. 
 
 JACOB. My poor fellow ! 
 
 GEORGE. However, we have saved her good name. 
 How is she? How does she bear it? 
 
 JACOB. Her heart is broken, George. Ah, she is 
 coming. Don't you remember how she used to trip 
 along the street, as if her feet were wings. How she 
 is changed ! 
 
 GEORGE. It would pain her to meet me : you'll 
 wish her good-bye for me; and tell her oh Mr. 
 Fletcher, I may put the whole world between her and 
 me, but she'll still be the nearest and dearest in all 
 the world to me ! Good-bye, Mr. Fletcher. 
 
 JACOB. Good-bye, George, good-bye. God bless 
 you ! 
 
 {Exit GEORGE hastily into chapel; JACOB 
 turns to meet LETTY, who enters timid and 
 anxious, ashamed, looking fearfully round.} 
 
 LETTY. Father ! You are quite sure they don't 
 know 
 
 JACOB. Not a syllable it's quite hushed up, 
 nobody knows it. 
 
 LETTY. Yes, I know it, and it seems to me the
 
 84 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT IV 
 
 very stones and trees know it, for nothing here at 
 home seems the same as it used to be. Father tell 
 me do I (deeply ashamed} do I look changed? 
 There is no difference in my face, is there? 
 
 JACOB. No no, dear, I think not. You look a 
 little pale. What makes you ask ? 
 
 LETTY. Because (pauses ashamed} I came by 
 some children in the street just now, and I thought 
 they stared at me. 
 
 JACOB. No, dear, no; it is only fancy. Look, 
 dear, here are Mrs. Parridge and Fanny coming. 
 You'll stay and speak to them. 
 
 LETTY (shrinking). No no, father. 
 
 JACOB. Yes, yes, dear. (Taking her hand.) 
 
 Enter MRS. PARRIDGE and FANNY, a country-woman 
 and her daughter, of the better labouring class. 
 
 MRS. PARRIDGE. Good - morning, Mr. Fletcher, 
 good-morning, Miss Letty. You've been away, visit- 
 ing, haven't you? 
 
 LETTY. Yes. 
 
 MRS. PARRIDGE. I hope you had a pleasant holi- 
 day. Where have you been ? 
 
 LETTY. I have been in London. 
 
 MRS. PARRIDGE. We've got a bit of news for 
 you, Mr. Fletcher, and for you too, Miss Letty. 
 Come, Fanny, you tell it to Miss Letty. 
 
 FANNY (giggling and blushing). Mother, don't !
 
 SCENE i SAINTS AND SINNERS 85 
 
 MRS. PARRIDOE. Bless the girl, it's nothing to be 
 ashamed of. You ask her, Miss Letty. I know it'll 
 interest you. Young girls always like to hear about 
 getting married. 
 
 (LETTY winces, recovers herself, and nerves her- 
 self to speak to FANNY.) 
 
 LETTY. You are going to be married, Fanny? 
 
 FANNY (curtseying). Yes, miss please miss, I'm 
 going to be married to William Higgins. 
 
 LETTY. I hope you will be happy, with all my 
 heart. 
 
 MRS. PARRIDGE. We wanted to ask you if you'd 
 be kind enough to marry them, Mr. Fletcher? 
 
 JACOB. Why yes, to be sure I will, Mrs. Parridge. 
 
 MRS. PARRIDGE. And, Miss Letty, you'll come 
 too? 
 
 LETTY (quickly). Yes, yes, I shall be pleased to 
 come. 
 
 MRS. PARRIDGE. That's right. What a blessing 
 it is to have good children like ours, Mr. Fletcher. 
 My Fanny is a good girl ; she isn't like that Lucy 
 Gatehouse. (LETTY winces and turns away.) 
 
 JACOB (quickly). It isn't for us to judge, Mrs. 
 Parridge. Who made us to differ? Who made 
 your daughter so much better than her companion? 
 Let Him judge who knows all hearts, and let us be 
 dumb. 
 
 MRS. PARRIDGE. I suppose you'll be asking us 
 to your wedding one of these days, Miss Letty ?
 
 86 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT iv 
 
 JACOB. No, no, Letty has no thought of marriage. 
 
 MRS. PARRIDGE. You don't mean to say that 
 such a sweet pretty flower as our Miss Letty won't 
 be gathered by somebody. 
 
 JACOB. Come, it's time for me to go in. Good- 
 morning, Mrs. Parridge. Good-morning, Fanny. 
 
 MRS. PARRIDGE. Good-morning, sir; good-morn- 
 ing, Miss Letty. 
 
 (FANNY curtsies. Exeunt MRS. PARRIDGE 
 and FANNY into chapel.} 
 
 LETTY (leans on JACOB'S shoulder). Oh father, 
 my punishment is greater than I can bear ! Every 
 word they spoke went to my heart. 
 
 JACOB. They meant it all in kindness, dear ; and 
 don't you see, it shows they suspected nothing, it 
 shows you are safe. 
 
 LETTY. If I could be sure that the past will 
 never be known. 
 
 JACOB. The danger is over, dear. All is safe. 
 
 ( Crosses.} 
 
 LETTY. I will go through your vestry. Then I 
 shall not meet anybody. 
 
 JACOB. Come then, dear. Dry up your tears, 
 and try to look a little more like your old self. 
 Courage, dear it's only this once. The ordeal will 
 soon be over. Courage, courage ! 
 
 (Leads her in at side-door.) 
 
 (Scene draws up and discovers Scene //.)
 
 SCENE il SAINTS AND SINNERS 87 
 
 SCENE II 
 THE VESTRY-ROOM AT THE CHAPEL, 
 
 A plain white-washed room ; doors leading to chapel, to 
 Jacob's room, and to outside passage. Window at back. 
 
 Discover HOGGARD walking itp and down with 
 impatient malignant expectation. 
 
 HOGGARD. Make haste, Mr. Fletcher ! Make 
 haste ! (JACOB and LETTY /aw window.) 
 
 Oh, here you are at last. 
 
 JACOB and LETTY enter. 
 
 JACOB. Good-morning, Mr. Hoggard. 
 HOGGARD. I want a word with you. (Sternly.) 
 JACOB. I have only a few minutes before I go 
 into the pulpit. Will you come after the service ? 
 
 HOGGARD. No, now. (Frowning and staring at 
 LETTY.) You can go, madam, your company isn't 
 wanted. 
 
 LETTY (indignantly). You forget yourself, sir. 
 HOGGARD. Oh, none of that, my lady, it won't wash. 
 JACOB. Step into my room, Letty. 
 LETTY. Oh father, had I not better stay? 
 JACOB (taking her up stage to door). Hush ! 
 
 (Puts her into room at back, closes door 
 after her. Harmonium in chapel plays 
 voluntary all through the scene, until the 
 entrance of the congregation.)
 
 88 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT iv 
 
 JACOB. Well, Mr. Hoggard. 
 
 HOGGARD (has seated himself with calm determined 
 malice). I understand you are sending a man to 
 my place to value my stock and premises for Mrs. 
 Bristow. 
 
 JACOB. Yes, I have given him instructions to 
 begin to-morrow. 
 
 HOGGARD. You'd better withdraw your instruc- 
 tions. 
 
 JACOB. I cannot. 
 
 HOGGARD. Oh yes, you can, and you will too. 
 You'll accept Crisp's valuation. 
 
 JACOB. You have already had your answer. 
 
 (Turns up stage towards door at back, 
 HOGGARD rises and intercepts him.) 
 
 HOGGARD. Stay, where are you going? 
 
 JACOB. To prepare for the pulpit. 
 
 HOGGARD. Stop a minute, sir. Before you 
 stand in that pulpit, I want you to give me an 
 exact account of your daughter's conduct for the last 
 month. 
 
 JACOB, (surprised, shaken). Why, what makes you 
 ask she has been away from home, visiting. 
 
 HOGGARD. Where ? With whom ? 
 
 JACOB. That is my business. 
 
 HOGGARD. And mine, as a deacon of this chapel. 
 Come, you'd better accept Crisp's valuation. 
 
 JACOB. In mercy's name, what do you suspect? 
 what do you know?
 
 SCENE ii SAINTS AND SINNERS 89 
 
 HOGGARD. You accept our valuation I suspect 
 nothing ; I know nothing. You refuse (advancing 
 towards chapel-door) I forbid you to enter that 
 pulpit till I have told all the congregation the truth 
 about their Minister's daughter, where she has been, 
 what she is. 
 
 ( JACOB falls helplessly into chair by side of table.') 
 Oh, you'd preach to other people, would you? You'd 
 show us the straight path ! Look at home ! Preach 
 to your own child ! Set your own house in order ! 
 
 JACOB {hoarse, calm). You know, then? 
 
 HOGGARD. Everything. I had my suspicions, 
 and last Wednesday, just to satisfy a little curiosity, I 
 got a private detective to hunt up Captain Fanshawe. 
 Oh, you needn't be alarmed. I know he has left 
 England, but he's been lately living at Torquay. I 
 went to Torquay. Were you ever there ? 
 
 JACOB (rises, comes to HOGGARD). Mr. Hoggard, 
 you know my child's secret. Yes, she is guilty. Ah, 
 but you do not know she had no chance of escape. 
 You will not ruin her. You will have mercy upon 
 her. Do as you choose to me, but spare her. Do 
 not publish her shame to the world. Spare my poor 
 child. Think if it were your own daughter. 
 
 (HOGGARD laughs contemptuously, and shakes 
 
 his head.) 
 
 Think what it means to her and me. I have snatched 
 her from sin and despair. I have won her back to 
 peace and purity and home-love. She is beginning
 
 90 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT iv 
 
 her life anew. She has repented in the dust. I will 
 answer for her that all her future shall be as white 
 and stainless as a child's. Have mercy ! If you 
 make known her guilt, it will perhaps madden her 
 back to sin and destruction. Ah, but you will not 
 refuse mercy to a soul that cries to you in such need. 
 Mercy for my poor wronged daughter ! Give her one 
 chance to redeem the past. Mercy you can save 
 her or destroy her. Her future is in your hands. 
 Mercy, mercy, mercy ! 
 
 HOGGARD. Well, I don't want to harm the girl, 
 but her future is in your hands, not mine. Come, 
 now, nobody except me knows or shall know any- 
 thing of this business. I shall hold my tongue. 
 Come, accept Crisp's valuation, and she shall be safe. 
 
 JACOB. You will drive me to that? Either I 
 must stand by and let you rob the widow and orphans 
 of my dead friend, or you will blast my child's name. 
 That is what you offer me ? 
 
 HOGGARD. Yes, if you like to put it in that way ; 
 and remember, if this business comes to light, we 
 shall be obliged to call upon you to resign your 
 ministry, and I don't think you'll find it very easy to 
 get another if I have anything to do with the refer- 
 ences. Come, now, which is it to be ? 
 
 JACOB. Oh, it is devilish to put me to such a 
 trial ! Man, you have children of your own. How 
 dare you tempt me? It is beyond my strength. 
 What can I do ? What can I do ?
 
 SCENE n SAINTS AND SINNERS 91 
 
 HOGGARD. Come, the time's short. I've made 
 up my mind. You know me. You accept our valua- 
 tion ? Yes or no ? 
 
 JACOB (after a pause, very determinedly). No. I will 
 not pay the price you ask. You shall not defraud your 
 dead partner's wife. I refuse your offer, Mr. Hoggard. 
 (The door at back opens, LETTY enters, very 
 pale. JACOB rushes to her and takes her 
 in his arms.) 
 Letty, my girl ! Oh, how can I tell you? 
 
 LETTY (calm, despairing). There is no need to 
 tell me. I have heard all. 
 
 JACOB. Oh, forgive me, my darling ! I am sorely 
 pressed, and I don't know which way to turn. Tell 
 me, my child, what am I to do? 
 
 LETTY. Father, you shan't put yourself in this 
 man's power for my sake. Besides, what would be 
 the good? he knows it to-day, and all the world 
 may know it to-morrow. Oh, I would rather be at 
 the mercy of all the world than at his ! Oh, I felt 
 sure it would come ! I knew we couldn't hide it. 
 Never mind I can bear it ! I will ! 
 
 JACOB. My brave girl ! (LETTY crosses to JACOB, 
 who embraces her.) Yes, you are right ; now I feel 
 strong again. (To HOGGARD.) You hear what my 
 child says, sir. We will have no dealings with you. 
 Do your worst, we are ready ; we ask for no mercy, 
 we stand upon the truth. 
 
 HOGGARD (going to door). Very well. Your
 
 92 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT iv 
 
 congregation is there : then I am to make a full 
 statement to them of your daughter's conduct ; I 
 am to ask them whether they think such a character 
 is fit to mix with our wives and daughters, and 
 whether the father who brought up such a child 
 is fit to rule a Christian congregation? I am to open 
 this door and ask them that? 
 
 JACOB {springing forward). No, stand aside, sir. I 
 
 will ask them myself. ( Thrusts HOGGARD aside, flings 
 
 open the folding- doors, calls out aloud.) My friends ! 
 
 my friends ! I have something to say to you ! Come 
 
 and hear me all of you ! All of you come and hear ! 
 
 (Harmonium ceases, and congregation crowd up 
 
 to folding- doors. Amongst them GEORGE 
 
 KINGSMILL, PRABBLE, MRS. PARRIDGE, 
 
 FANNY, LOT, UNCLE BAMBERRY, and 
 
 GREENACRE.) 
 
 All of you ! This way ! Do you hear ? I have 
 something to say to you ! 
 
 I have worked amongst you for more than twenty 
 years. I have stood up in that place and taught you 
 for half my life, and I thought to end my days in 
 your service. But the time has come when I can 
 guide you no longer. Providence has laid a heavy 
 trial upon me. I cannot bear to preach to you again, 
 
 my friends, because because 
 
 (Turns to LETTY and shelters her in his arms.) 
 Oh my dear child, how can I say it ? 
 
 LETTY. Go on ! go on ! I can bear it !
 
 SCENE II SAINTS AND SINNERS 93 
 
 JACOB. because you know my child has been 
 away from home. A villain trapped her into his 
 power ; she was at his mercy in a great city. My 
 friends, my own child is such a one yes, such a one 
 as that woman who was sent away to sin no more. 
 And knowing how bitterly and truly she has repented, 
 I would have hidden her shame yes, you will not 
 think any the worse of me for trying to hide it but 
 it has come to light it is known in your midst and 
 now I dare not stand up in that place as an example 
 any more. My friends, my teaching among you is at 
 an end. 
 
 (Turns to LETTY, who is sobbing on his shoulder. 
 Congregation talk among themselves^) 
 
 HOGGARD (comes down). Then we understand 
 you resign your ministry, Mr. Fletcher? 
 
 JACOB. You understand aright, sir. 
 
 HOGGARD. Under the circumstances, I don't see 
 what else you could do, so on behalf of the members 
 generally we accept your resignation. 
 
 GEORGE (stepping forward from crowd). Wait a 
 bit. You are going to turn Mr. Fletcher from his 
 pulpit ? 
 
 HOGGARD. Well, we have got to think of public 
 opinion. The Church -people look down upon us. 
 They treat us like dirt as it is, and what would they 
 say if it was known that we kept on a minister who 
 had such a daughter as that girl there ? 
 
 GEORGE. Silence ! Mr. Fletcher and all of you,
 
 94 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT iv 
 
 my family is well known in this neighbourhood. We 
 have lived here for seven generations, and no soul 
 living can breathe a word against us. I am leaving 
 England to-morrow morning for ever. Before I start, 
 Mr. Fletcher, I am willing to marry your daughter, 
 and I pledge you my word to leave her in your care. 
 I offer to give her the protection of my name, and if 
 any man dares to speak a word against her who is to 
 bear that name, let him say it in my hearing, and I 
 will answer him. 
 
 LETTY (to JACOB) . No, no, father ! Tell him it 
 cannot be. I have done him too much wrong 
 already. (Aside?) And this is the man whose love 
 I threw away ! 
 
 JACOB (to GEORGE). No, George, we cannot 
 accept your sacrifice, and it would not avail. The 
 past would still remain. Disgrace would still hang 
 about us. My friends, I cannot speak to you any 
 more this morning. Mr. Hoggard, we will give up 
 the minister's house as soon as it is wanted for a new 
 tenant. 
 
 LETTY. Oh father, what will become of us ? 
 
 JACOB. Come, Letty, we will go home. The 
 ravens are cared for, and we shall not be forgotten. 
 Come ! 
 
 LETTY. No, father, I am not fit to go with you ! 
 Throw me off. Then they cannot take your place 
 from you. {Goes away from him.} Disown me ! 
 
 JACOB. Nay, my Master never disowned such as
 
 SCENE ii SAINTS AND SINNERS 95 
 
 you. Disown you ! Nay, I own you as my dear 
 daughter my dear child ! Be brave, dear ! we have 
 faced the truth. Now we have no need to hide the 
 past. No, from this hour we will begin to live it 
 down. 
 
 CURTAIN 
 (Four years elapse between Acts IV. and F.)
 
 ACT V 
 
 SCENE JACOB'S COTTAGE ON THE OUTSKIRTS 
 OF STEEPLEFORD 
 
 A very poverty-stricken room, but clean and tidy. Door 
 and window at back opening into lane through 
 the window a wintry sunset fades into twilight. 
 Door left leading into kitchen. Door right leading 
 to staircase. Cupboard right. Old sofa, broken- 
 down chairs. Fireplace down stage left, and looking- 
 glass over it. 
 
 LOT enters at back as LYDIA comes from staircase. 
 
 LYDIA. Oh, it's you, Lot ! 
 
 LOT. How's Miss Letty to-day? 
 
 LYDIA. She's just fallen asleep. She seems quite 
 bright and lively this afternoon, but I'm afraid to 
 trust it, Lot it's deceitful. 
 
 Lor. Miss Letty overtaxed her strength nursing 
 all them people when the fever was about.
 
 ACT v SAINTS AND SINNERS 97 
 
 LYDIA. To be sure she did. Flesh and blood 
 ain't cast-iron, and there she was in them courts and 
 alleys, week after week, night and day, with scarcely 
 any rest. 
 
 LOT. Yes, and amongst the very worst characters 
 of the town. 
 
 LYDIA. Doctor Marsden told me that her nursing 
 saved more lives than his medicine, and I said, " Very 
 likely, doctor, I've got a very poor idea of physic in 
 general," I said, " and 1 daresay yours ain't no better 
 than the rest." And I said, " I'm not particular what 
 I turn my hand to, but as for nursing beggars and 
 thieves and chimney-sweeps, why," I said, " I'd rather 
 the Lord in His mercy took 'em all to Himself right 
 straight away." 
 
 LOT. Ah, if ever there was an angel on earth it's 
 been our Miss Letty this last four years. 
 
 LYDIA. Yes. I don't wish that Captain Fanshawe 
 any harm now he's dead, but I'm very glad I haven't 
 to answer for his wickedness, that's all ! 
 
 LOT. It seemed like a judgment on him, his 
 getting killed over in India almost as soon as he set 
 his foot there. Where's Mr. Fletcher? 
 
 LYDIA. He's gone to see about a Sunday's 
 preaching at Little Swancot. 
 
 LOT. I suppose things are no better with him ? 
 
 LYDIA. No, he's had the offer of several minis- 
 tries, but when Hoggard wrote to 'em about Miss 
 Letty of course they wouldn't have him.
 
 98 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT v 
 
 LOT. Well, it's a comfort Hoggard won't be able 
 to do him any more harm. 
 
 LVDIA. Have they caught Hoggard yet ? 
 
 LOT. No, but there's a reward offered for him. 
 He'd better take care. Tom Marks and a lot of the 
 subscribers to the Penny Bank are after him, and 
 they swear they'll lynch him. 
 
 LYDIA. I hope they will. Fancy Hoggard being 
 wanted by the police ! 
 
 LOT. Hoggard was too grasping. If he'd been 
 satisfied he might have been a rich man to-day, but 
 he took to speculating, and the more money he lost 
 the more he kept throwing after it, till he got quite 
 out of his depth. 
 
 LYDIA. Quite into his depth you mean. The 
 gaol will be just the right place for him. The rascal, 
 to rob poor people of their little savings as they put 
 by for their old age ! 
 
 LOT. Why, he was bankrupt when he started this 
 Penny Bank. I can prove that ! 
 
 LYDIA. You can ? Then you do ! You go and 
 give all the evidence you can against him, and if you 
 don't get him fourteen years, I shall never respect you 
 again. 
 
 LOT. Yes, Miss Lydia, I will I'd do anything 
 to please you. {Ogling her.) 
 
 LYDIA. There, that's enough, Mr. Burden. Here's 
 the minister !
 
 ACT v SAINTS AND SINNERS 99 
 
 Enter JACOB at back, very much aged and broken-down. 
 
 JACOB (eagerly) . Well Lydia, how is she ? ( Going 
 to staircase-door, opening it gently?) 
 
 LYDIA. She seems rather better. 
 
 JACOB. What did I tell you? I'm sure she'll get 
 better my dear brave girl ! 
 
 LYDIA. She's just fallen asleep. 
 
 JACOB. I won't disturb her ! ( Closes door softly, 
 slays at door and listens.} Ah, Lot, my lad, how are you ? 
 
 LOT. Pretty moderate, sir. How's yourself? 
 
 (Shaking hands.) 
 
 JACOB. My heart fails me sometimes, Lot. I'm 
 going down the hill fast. I can't get a ministry, so I 
 get a Sunday's preaching in the villages. They don't 
 give me much, and sometimes there's twelve miles to 
 walk for it ; but it keeps the wolf from the door, and 
 he's been very near us lately, Lot. ( Opens the stair- 
 case-door again gently, listens anxiously.) 
 
 LYDIA. The vicar called again this afternoon to 
 inquire after Miss Letty. 
 
 JACOB. The vicar what did he say? 
 
 LYDIA. He hoped Miss Letty would soon be better, 
 for she was a great help to him amongst the poor. I don't 
 believe the vicar's half a bad sort though he is Church. 
 
 JACOB. I must step up and have a peep at her 
 she'll soon be better now yes, she'll soon be better. 
 (Exit at staircase-door.) 
 
 LYDIA. He tries to persuade himself that she's
 
 ioo SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT v 
 
 getting well, and I haven't the heart to tell him the 
 truth. He's got enough to bear without that. 
 
 LOT. It's a hard struggle for him, and for you, 
 too, Miss Lydia. 
 
 LYDIA. Nobody knows how hard, Lot. (Opens 
 the cupboard.") There's the cupboard you see there's 
 half a loaf in it, and when that's gone, I don't know 
 where the next mouthful is to come from. 
 
 LOT. But I do it's coming out of this purse. 
 (Pulling out his purse.) Oh Miss Lydia (sighing) t Vve. 
 thought of such a beautiful plan ! 
 
 LYDIA. No don't Mr. Burden don't ! I know 
 what's coming when you look like that. 
 
 LOT. Oh Miss Lydia, I know I'm not very hand- 
 some 
 
 LYDIA. No you ain't, Mr. Burden, and that's gospel- 
 truth. Don't look like that, there's a dear good man ! 
 
 LOT (correcting his sheep 1 s-eye s) . I won't if you 
 don't like it. 
 
 LYDIA. That's better. But it's no use talking 
 about marrying I've told you dozens of times I 
 won't have you. 
 
 LOT. Why not, Miss Lydia? I'd love and 
 cherish you, and I'd always obey you, and I'd bring 
 you home my wages every Saturday night and I'm a 
 very steady man and you know, Lydia, you're getting 
 on you'd better make haste and snap me up. 
 
 LYDIA. I'm much obliged, Mr. Burden, but I 
 can't leave my poor old master and Miss Letty.
 
 ACT v SAINTS AND SINNERS 101 
 
 LOT. Why should you leave them? I'm going 
 to have three pounds a week in my new situation, 
 and you know, you're such a good manager, Lydia, 
 why shouldn't we all have a home together only, you 
 know, you'd better be Mrs. Burden for the sake of 
 propriety. 
 
 LYDIA. Do you mean it? If I marry you, you'll 
 give a home to the minister and Miss Letty. 
 
 LOT. Yes, that I will. 
 
 LYDIA. You're a downright good little man, Lot, 
 and I've a good mind 
 
 LOT (eagerly). Don't spoil a good mind. Say 
 you'll put up with me. 
 
 LYDIA (looking him up and down). Well, there, 
 perhaps I might do worse. 
 
 LOT. Oh Miss Lydia ! ( Clasping her loutishly.) 
 I suppose I may take a kiss, Miss Lydia ? 
 
 LYDIA (submitting to be kissed) . Well, just a little one, 
 then. (LoT kisses her very gravely and reverentially.) 
 
 LOT (very gratefully). Thank you, Miss Lydia 
 I'm so much obliged to you. 
 
 LYDIA. There that's enough of that nonsense. 
 Now there's nothing in the house for the minister's 
 supper. 
 
 LOT. Then let's go and buy something. 
 
 LYDIA. Come along, then. (Putting on bonnet 
 and shawl.) The thousands' of times as I've said I 
 never would get married, and now I've been and let 
 myself be persuaded into it !
 
 102 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT v 
 
 LOT. Yes, there's lots of women say they never 
 will, but they're generally persuaded into it at last. 
 Just another little one, Lydia eh? (Kisses her.) 
 
 LYDIA. What fools women are ! 
 
 (Exeunt door in flat. After a pause, enter 
 JACOB from staircase door, he stands a/ 
 door a moment, and then looking off.) 
 
 JACOB. So pale and beautiful ! So peaceful in 
 her sleep ! It's not like earthly beauty it's an 
 angel's face. But she's young. The young are not 
 meant to die. It's the ripe corn that comes to the 
 sickle, not the green shoots. I must set to work on 
 my sermon. (Begins to write, throws down pen in 
 despair.) I can't write ! They complain that my 
 sermons are too mournful. Well, how can I preach 
 joyful sermons when I've scarcely had anything to 
 eat for two or three days, and have walked six miles 
 in the rain ? Oh, I'm tired of it ! Why should I 
 struggle any longer? I'm down, I'm beaten! The 
 world is too much for me ! I can bear up no longer ! 
 (Breaks down, sobs for some moments, then with a 
 great effort raises himself.) Come ! come ! come, 
 Jacob Fletcher, what's the matter now? What's all 
 this murmuring about? (Goes to looking-glass on 
 wall, stands in front of it, and harangues himself.) 
 What's the meaning of it, Jacob Fletcher, eh ? Aren't 
 you ashamed of yourself? Why, you poor miserable 
 old coward, have you gone through so much trouble; 
 and are you going to give way at last ? Thank God
 
 ACT v SAINTS AND SINNERS 103 
 
 that you have saved your daughter, and that she's 
 lived down all disgrace and evil - speaking ! Let's 
 have no more of this whimpering ! Work ! work ! 
 work ! Oh, you're hungry are you ? ( Goes to clipboard 
 and takes out half-loaf on plate?) Half a loaf ! Well, 
 half a loaf is better than no bread. Now what says 
 the old proverb, " Good meat requires good drink ! " 
 Well, a cup of clear cold water from the well outside. 
 Why, there ! That's right, Jacob Fletcher ! That's 
 more like yourself. Now, you're a man again. 
 
 {Exit with candle, very cheerful, left door.) 
 
 A pause. ' HOGGARD enters hastily as if pursued. He 
 is gaunt, ragged, starving; he looks round terrified, 
 listens. 
 
 HOGGARD. Have I thrown them off? {Goes to 
 window.) Hark ! there's somebody coming ! {Goes 
 to door.) No, it's only the wind. {Comes down.) 
 Where am I? Who lives here? I can't hold out 
 any longer ! I must have something to eat or I shall 
 die. {Sees bread on table.) Ah, bread ! {Seizes it, 
 is about to eat when JACOB re-enters left, with candle.) 
 Ah ! {Drops the bread.) 
 
 JACOB {surprised) . Mr. Hoggard ! 
 
 HOGGARD {dropping on his knees before JACOB). 
 Yes, Mr. Fletcher ! They're hunting me ! They're 
 just outside ! Don't give me up to them, Mr. Fletcher ! 
 I know I deserve it, but have mercy on me mercy ! 
 Let me stay here a few minutes till they're passed !
 
 104 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT v 
 
 Don't turn me out! {Clutches JACOB'S knees, falls 
 helplessly against them?) Oh ! 
 
 JACOB. Pray get up, Mr. Hoggard. I will shelter 
 you as far as I can. 
 
 HOGGARD. Thank you ! thank you ! {Sits in 
 chair.') Oh Mr. Fletcher, you don't know what I've 
 suffered ! I've been sleeping in hovels and under 
 hedges, and for a week I've had nothing in my lips 
 but what the beasts eat ! I'm starving I'm dying 
 with hunger ! (Rises.) 
 
 JACOB (pushing the bread towards him). You're 
 welcome to what I have. Eat ! 
 
 (Hoc-GARD seizes the bread with wolfish hunger, 
 when sound of men shouting is heard out- 
 side men coming towards door.) 
 
 IST MAN (outside). Perhaps he's in here. 
 
 2ND MAN (outside). Let's see ! Let's see ! 
 
 OMNES. Ay, ay ! Come in ! {Etc. etc. murmurs?) 
 
 HOGGARD {dropping loaf). They're after me! 
 Hide me somewhere ! For mercy's sake, hide me ! 
 They'll kill me, they'll tear me to pieces ! Hide 
 me ! Hide me ! Hide me ! 
 
 ( Clutching JACOB in deadly terror as knocking 
 at door interrupts him. JACOB runs and 
 bolts door, returns to left door) 
 
 JACOB. This way. {Opens door.) Straight through 
 there, and you can get out at the back. I'll keep 
 them here until you are safe away.
 
 ACT v SAINTS AND SINNERS 105 
 
 (Knocking at door loiider, men murmuring 
 and shouting. Exit HOGGARD.) 
 
 MARKS (outside) . Open the door ! Open the 
 door, or we'll break it open ! 
 
 JACOB (opens the door in fiat) . What do you want ? 
 
 (MARKS and one or two rough men enter 
 cottage, others are seen outside.) 
 
 MARKS. We're after that rascal Hoggard. He's 
 robbed the Penny Bank with our savings. Why, it's 
 Mr. Fletcher, ain't it ? 
 
 JACOB. Yes, Tom Marks. You remember me. 
 
 MARKS. Yes sir, and Miss Fletcher too, God 
 bless her ! She nursed my poor little Polly all 
 through the fever. 
 
 JACOB. My daughter is lying very ill upstairs. 
 She has just fallen asleep. You will not disturb her. 
 
 MARKS. Not for the world, bless her sweet face. 
 (Murmurs.) Hold your row, mates, hold your row. 
 
 JACOB. Come, persuade your friends to go away 
 quietly. I ask you for her sake to go away quietly ! 
 I beg you ! 
 
 MARKS. All right, sir; so we will. Mates, you 
 know Miss Fletcher the nurse. (Murmurs of " Yes, 
 yes ; Miss Fletcher, yes, we all know her. God bless 
 her!" etc.) Well, she's very ill, so keep quiet, d'ye 
 hear, and move off. Will you give her our humble 
 respects, sir, and we ho'pe she'll soon be better? Go 
 on, mates. Quiet now ! (Exeunt MARKS and men.)
 
 io6 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT v 
 
 (JACOB watches them off, and goes to side door, 
 opens it, calls, takes the candle and looks 
 fc.) 
 
 JACOB. Mr. Hoggard ! (Pause.) Mr. Hoggard ! 
 He's gone. He's safe. ( Comes back.) 
 
 PETER GREENACRE shambles in at back, rather more 
 aged and disreputable than in earlier Acts. 
 
 JACOB. Well, Peter, what is it? 
 
 GREENACRE. Jim Bowler's in a dreadful state, 
 Muster Fletcher. Jim's been seeing rats and snakes 
 again, and using sich language as we trembled in our 
 shoes to listen to him. What a terrible thing drink 
 is, Muster Fletcher ! 
 
 JACOB. Well, you ought to know, Peter. 
 
 GREENACRE. Yes, I'm a brand plucked from the 
 burning, I am. I'm a vessel of mercy, but I'm 
 afeared Jim's nothing but a vessel of wrath. If you 
 could come round and talk to him, he'd soon sign the 
 pledge again. 
 
 JACOB. What's the good of his signing the 
 pledge ? 
 
 GREENACRE. Oh, Jim's allays sober for a week 
 or ten days after he's signed the pledge. I will say 
 that for Jim. 
 
 JACOB. I'll come and see him to-morrow morning. 
 Good-night, Peter. 
 
 GREENACRE. Good-night, Muster Fletcher. La, 
 Muster Fletcher, I can't abide that minister as
 
 ACT v SAINTS AND SINNERS 107 
 
 they've got at Bethel now; he don't refresh my 
 soul a bit. I feel I've got a aching void, Muster 
 Fletcher, as he don't fill, and I'm afraid I shall have 
 to leave Bethel and go to the Church. Church-folks 
 ain't stingy ; there's allays plenty of coal and blankets 
 and pea-soup for them as goes regular to Church and 
 attends to their souls' salvation. I shall have to go 
 to Church, I shall. 
 
 Enter PRABBLE. PETER cringes and bows to 
 PRABBLE, who takes no notice of him. 
 
 Ah, you're proud and mighty now, Muster 
 Prabble ! You're puffed up amongst the princes and 
 rulers of the earth with your new plate-glass shop- 
 front ! But p'raps hereafter it '11 be me as '11 be 
 exalted, and you'll be brought low. But I won't 
 despise you ! No, I'll forgive you ! {Exit at back.} 
 
 JACOB. Mr. Prabble ! 
 
 PRABBLE. I daresay you're rather surprised to see 
 me, Mr. Fletcher. 
 
 JACOB. You are welcome to our home, such as it 
 is. Sit down. 
 
 PRABBLE (sitting). Thank you. Of course you've 
 heard of the disgraceful goings-on of that scoundrel 
 Hoggard? Shocking, ain't it? And a member of 
 a Christian congregation too ! 
 
 JACOB. I'm afraid that doesn't change a man's 
 heart, Mr. Prabble. 
 
 PRABBLE. No, no, it don't. Well, I mustn't stay.
 
 io8 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT v 
 
 You know we haven't been very comfortable at Bethel 
 lately. 
 
 JACOB. No? How's that? 
 
 PRABBLE. Well, the fact is our minister's views 
 on predestination are wrong altogether wrong, and 
 so he's got a call to a better place twenty pounds a 
 year more ; and we've had a meeting to-night, and it's 
 been unanimously resolved to ask you to come back 
 to be our minister. 
 
 JACOB (overjoyed}. To come back, did you say? 
 You want me to come back to my old ministry, 
 my old home ? 
 
 PRABBLE. Then you'll accept it? 
 
 JACOB. Accept it ! To be sure I will ! Tell my 
 people that though I am not so young as I was, I'm 
 not past work ! Come back to them come back ! 
 It is what my heart longs for ! 
 
 PRABBLE. We can make the salary eighty pounds 
 a year. We've prospered exceedingly since the Wes- 
 leyans shut up. 
 
 JACOB. I don't mind about the money, but 
 but my child, my child, Mr. Prabble how will she 
 be received by the congregation? I couldn't come 
 back if she were to be slighted and scorned no ! 
 
 PRABBLE. You needn't trouble about that. We've 
 talked the matter over, and we think, as Captain Fan- 
 shawe is dead and as Miss Fletcher has done all she 
 could to make up for the past, we don't see that 
 anybody has any cause to remember that. And you
 
 ACT v SAINTS AND SINNERS 109 
 
 may tell Miss Fletcher we invite her to come back 
 with you. 
 
 JACOB (dumb with joy, then recovering himself). 
 God bless you ! God bless you ! I will tell her 
 poor girl it will make her so happy ! 
 
 (Shaking hands warmly.) 
 
 PRABBLE. How is Miss Fletcher ? 
 
 JACOB. She's much better this evening. It's the 
 winter ; when the warm weather comes she'll soon be 
 well she'll soon be well. 
 
 PRABBLE (rising). Well, then, we shall expect 
 you back amongst us on Sunday week and and 
 (hesitating) and I was about to say that perhaps 
 some of these days you might take up the question 
 of the Stores it's iniquitous, and it's getting worse 
 and worse. I don't press it, you know but think it 
 over. Good-night, Mr. Fletcher good-night. 
 
 JACOB. Good-night, Mr. Prabble. Give my best 
 thanks to my congregation my best thanks ! 
 
 (Exit PRABBLE.) 
 
 They ask her to come back amongst them ! They 
 ask my strayed sheep to come back to the fold ! 
 Hark ! what's that ? ( Goes quickly to staircase-door, 
 opens it, LETTY, hectic, enters with hair down, and 
 cloak thrown over night-dress.) Letty ! Why, dear, 
 you've left your room ! How's this ? 
 
 LETTY. I feel so much better so strange and 
 happy ; I don't feel a bit tired ! (Staggering, JACOB 
 helps her to sofa.) I've been asleep, and I dreamed
 
 no SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT v 
 
 I was at home again in the old days, and George 
 Kingsmill came, and I teased him as I used to do, 
 but only for a little while for I had grown to see 
 how good and manly he was; and oh father, I felt 
 how cruel and wicked I had been to him ! And 
 look, there is the keepsake he sent me on my birth- 
 day ten years ago, when I was only fifteen ! Oh, was 
 he not good and true ! 
 
 (Kissing keepsake, dashing away a tear.) 
 
 JACOB. Yes, dear. ( Watching her anxiously 
 aside.) She's better ! She's quite like herself ! 
 
 LETTY. I wonder where he is. I wonder how 
 it is he has not written. I should like to see him 
 once to ask him to forgive me for all the wrong I 
 did him. 
 
 JACOB. Well, dear, perhaps you may some day. 
 And you're sure you're sure you're better? 
 
 LETTY. Yes, dear daddy it's quite a miraculous 
 cure. I feel so healthy that I could dance and sing ; 
 and to-morrow I shall astonish you I shall come 
 down and help Lydia with the house-work, and make 
 you so comfortable, yes, to-morrow ; and next week 
 I shall begin my nursing again. 
 
 ( With great feverish excitement.) 
 
 JACOB. My own ! And do you think you are 
 well enough to hear a bit of good news ? 
 
 LETTY. Yes. What is it? I can bear it. I tell you 
 I am quite quite well ! ( Coughing.) I am not going 
 to be an invalid any more. Tell me, daddy, what is it ?
 
 ACT v SAINTS AND SINNERS in 
 
 JACOB. Well, dear, they have asked me to come 
 back to my old ministry and to our old home. 
 
 LETTY. Have they ? I am so glad ! And you 
 will go of course, dear ; and it won't matter for me, 
 because I can easily get a place as nurse, as soon as 
 soon as I am well. ( Coughing.) 
 
 JACOB. Do you think I have kept you by me all 
 these years, and that I would part from you now? 
 No, Letty, my people have not asked me to come 
 back alone ; they have asked me to bring my daughter 
 with me to take her place as a good woman amongst 
 good women. 
 
 LETTY (with great triumph). They have done 
 that? Oh father, have I conquered them? Can 
 they forgive me? Have I lived down the past? 
 
 (The outburst of joy is too much for her, she 
 falls fainting in JACOB'S arms.) 
 
 JACOB. Letty, what's this? Letty dear, speak to 
 me ! Letty, speak ! 
 
 LETTY (very faintly). I I'm so weak, there's 
 no strength in me. I shall never be well again 
 never never never ! 
 
 JACOB. Oh my darling, don't say that '- 
 
 LETTY (starts up, hysterically). They have for- 
 given me forgiven father I I 
 
 (Falls back, coughing and fainting?) 
 
 JACOB. My dear one, you are very ill No one 
 here I must get help ! 
 
 LETTY. I oh {Coughs violently, faints.}
 
 H2 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT v 
 
 JACOB. Letty oh, she's dying ! She's dying ! 
 Lydia ! Help ! Help ! Lydia ! She's dying ! Ah, 
 no, no spare her do not rob me of her these last 
 few years Her life ! Her life ! Letty, look up, 
 my dear Letty ! Help ! Help ! Will no one 
 come ? 
 
 Knock at door. JACOB goes to it, opens it quickly. 
 GEORGE KINGSMILL enters, rough-bearded, bronzed, 
 and roughly-dressed, giving an impression of having 
 been some years in the Colonies. 
 
 GEORGE. Mr. Fletcher ! 
 
 JACOB. George ! (Shakes hands.) Look ! She's 
 dying ! Stay by her side a moment, while I go for 
 Doctor Marsden. (Exit.) 
 
 GEORGE (goes to LETTY, bends over her) . Letty ! 
 Letty ! I've come all across the world only to see 
 your face ! Letty one word ! My own I've loved 
 you through all I shall love you to the end ! I 
 want to take you back to my home to be my wife ! 
 Oh, she doesn't hear me ! Letty, I'm rich ! I've 
 been working all these years for you ! You're free ! 
 The past is dead and buried ! You shall not die ! 
 Oh God, it's cruel to kill her now ! Is she not mine ? 
 Have I not won her by all my long years of toil and 
 agony of love ? Letty ! Look up ! Speak to me ! 
 
 LETTY (looking up, very faintly, shcivs great sur- 
 prise and weakness). Ah! You! George! I knew 
 you would come, but (Looks round.) Where are
 
 ACT v SAINTS AND SINNERS 113 
 
 we? Have I died? and have you come to me after 
 death ? 
 
 GEORGE. No, on this side death ! Letty, I 
 want you to live I must have you live ! All 
 these years I've been working and waiting for this 
 moment ! I've dwelt upon it, and lived upon it out 
 there, all through the long cold nights, I've had but 
 one hope, that you would grow to love me, and 
 come to share my home. Letty, it's waiting for you 
 there, your home. Oh, don't send me back alone ! 
 Tell me you will come with me Letty, do you hear 
 me do you know me? 
 
 LETTY. Yes, I know you now, George. I have 
 so much to tell you. Look, here is the keepsake you 
 gave me on my birthday, years ago 
 
 GEORGE. And here is the necklace you sent me 
 when when you promised 
 
 LETTY. When I promised to be your wife. Ah, 
 it is all so long ago you must not grieve I thought, 
 an hour ago, I was going to be strong and well again 
 but now I know this is the end 
 
 GEORGE. Oh, live a little while a few months 
 a few days ! Live just long enough to let me grow 
 sure that you love me live to tell me so ! 
 
 LETTY. You know I love you with all my heart. 
 (He clasps her.) Oh, you are so strong with life, and 
 I am so faint and weak ! 
 
 GEORGE. God, what use is my strength to me? 
 Give it to her ! Oh, my own, my dearest, if I 
 
 i
 
 H4 SAINTS AND SINNERS ACT v 
 
 could but feed you with my life if I could make 
 you strong again ! 
 
 LETTY {quietly). It's better as it is. I don't mind 
 dying. George, where are you? Can you forgive me? 
 
 GEORGE. Forgive you? Oh Letty, I loved you 
 so that I never thought of that ! 
 
 LETTY (takes his hand, kisses if). And I was so 
 blind and thoughtless I did not know you then. 
 Ah, but I know you now ! Don't leave me ! Where 
 is father? George, you'll take care of him when I'm 
 gone, won't you ? 
 
 JACOB enters, comes up behind sofa. 
 
 You mustn't let him fret, and you must talk to him 
 about me when I'm gone he'll love to talk about 
 me. Yes, he'll lose his daughter, but you will be a 
 son to him, won't you? 
 
 JACOB (coming forward}. Letty oh must it be 
 must it be? 
 
 LETTY. Where are you, father? Give me your 
 hand. George, give me yours. There, now, I'm 
 quite happy. (JACOB bursts into tears.) Hush ! you 
 mustn't cry. Oh, I should like to live a little while 
 for your sakes, but for myself I don't mind at all. 
 When I was a little girl I used to be so frightened of 
 death now it seems so easy and quite pleasant. 
 This doesn't seem like death I only feel a little tired 
 I want to go to sleep I I I 
 
 {Drops back fainting.}
 
 ACT v SAINTS AND SINNERS 115 
 
 JACOB. Letty, stay with me stay with me just a 
 little while, till I can come this journey with you. 
 It's only for a little while it isn't worth saying 
 " good-bye." 
 
 LETTY. Good-bye for a little while, then. How 
 dark it's getting ! Father he'll take my place when 
 
 I'm gone (Breaks off suddenly, looks round 
 
 wildly, jumps up violently with a shriek?) Yes ! I 
 have sinned, but can you never forgive me? I have 
 tried so hard to live it down Oh you Christians, 
 will you never learn to forgive ? 
 
 ( Wildly staring?) 
 
 JACOB. Letty, Letty my dear, you have lived it 
 down no soul dare speak a word against you. 
 
 LETTY (quieting, stares round for some seconds, 
 smiles). Eh? What is it? Is that you, father? 
 Yes, I have lived it down, haven't I? They forgive 
 me ! (Drops back, looks up smiling.') I'm so tired, 
 daddy so tired (Dies.) 
 
 CURTAIN.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 RELIGION AND THE STAGE 
 
 (Reprinted from The Nineteenth Century review for January 
 1885 by tne kind permission of Mr. James Knowles.) 
 
 Je sais bien que, pour rponse, ces messieurs tichent d'insinuer 
 que ce n'est point au th3.tre a parler de ces matieres ; mais je leur 
 demande, avec leur permission, sur quoi ils fondent cette belle 
 maxime. MOLlfeRE, Preface to the Tartuffe. 
 
 A RECENT production at a London theatre has ob- 
 tained a greater success perhaps than it merits, because 
 it has incidentally raised the question of how far it is 
 lawful or expedient for a modern playwright to touch 
 religious questions and to put modern English religious 
 life upon the stage. 
 
 Upon any question of dramatic craftsmanship, literary 
 skill, or originality of plot, a playwright will do well to 
 abide by the wholesome rule that forbids an artist to 
 speak of his own work or to question any verdict that 
 may be passed upon it. It is true that this rule at times 
 presses somewhat severely upon a dramatic author, inas- 
 much as, while all other artists are judged by their own 
 performances, a playwright is judged partly by the per- 
 formances of others, and is praised or blamed not merely
 
 II 8 APPENDIX 
 
 for what he has done or misdone for himself, but for 
 what the management, the actors, the scene-painters, 
 and the carpenters have done or misdone for him. 
 Thus Shakespeare himself would hardly escape severe 
 condemnation as a sorry bungler in stagecraft, were he 
 an unknown playwright and his masterpieces had DOW 
 to be submitted to the public for the first time at an 
 afternoon performance with stock-scenery and slovenly 
 stage-management. 
 
 The curiously divergent values and meanings that a 
 public representation may attach to a play or to certain 
 portions of a play from what the author attaches to them, 
 or that different audiences may attach to the same play, 
 or that the same spectator may attach to the same play 
 seen under fresh conditions and with new actors, these 
 are among the hundred risks inseparable from the play- 
 wright's calling. And it is useless especially would it 
 ill become one who has been unusually fortunate in the 
 interpretation and discussion of his work to cavil at 
 those conditions and limitations of his art which are at 
 present unavoidable and irremediable. All success or 
 failure that may be due to adequate and skilful, or 
 inadequate and unskilful, production and interpretation, 
 all curious variances of critical and public judgment upon 
 technical questions, are best met with the discreet silence 
 of a quiet smile, and may be allowed to pass on without 
 comment to play their momentary little part in the 
 stupendous comedy of human affairs, thence to be dis- 
 missed into forgetfulness. And when one remembers 
 how little difference there is between what the public 
 acclaims as a good play and condemns as a bad one 
 that is, how little difference there is between the two 
 classes in the higher qualities of literature and character- 
 painting and in illumination of the human heart when 
 one considers how comparatively little harm would be 
 done to English literature and art if every acting-play
 
 RELIGION AND THE STAGE 119 
 
 since Sheridan and Goldsmith were irrecoverably lost 
 to-morrow, one may well hesitate to vex the public ear 
 with the discussion of any matter appertaining to modern 
 dramatic work. 
 
 But when a playwright is challenged by a part of a 
 first-night audience as to his right to depict any section 
 of the community, or rather as to his right to depict them 
 truthfully and make them use the language that is 
 natural to them ; when he is counselled and counter- 
 counselled upon the expediency of altering what is 
 distinctive and what he conceives to be faithful and life- 
 like in his portraiture in such a case he may perhaps 
 be permitted a word of apology and explanation upon 
 the ground that, small and unimportant as the individual 
 case may be, and not in itself worth a moment's con- 
 sideration, yet, seeing that the meanest matters may 
 contain the widest issues, the entire question of the future 
 development of the English drama and its right to press 
 on and possess itself of the whole of human life, is more 
 or less raised when any veto is placed, or sought to be 
 placed, upon the dramatist's perfect freedom of choice of 
 subject, persons, place, and mode of treatment. The 
 only restriction that should be placed upon him is that 
 he shall not offend against the recognised code of social 
 decency, and here we have a sufficient safeguard in the 
 censorship and the " common sense of most." 
 
 The question has an aspect of expediency that it may 
 be well to deal with first. Obviously, as a matter of 
 expediency and worldly prudence, a dramatist will do 
 wisely to avoid giving offence to the prejudices and 
 susceptibilities of any great portion of his possible 
 audiences. Indeed, so perfectly has this rule been under- 
 stood upon the recent English stage, so eager have we 
 been to exclude everything that might be offensive or 
 tedious or incomprehensible to any possible spectator, 
 that by a process of continual exhaustion and humble
 
 120 APPENDIX 
 
 deference to everybody's prejudices we have banished 
 from the stage all treatment of grave subjects but what 
 is commonplace and cursory and conventional. The 
 course of the drama has been diverted and hopelessly 
 cut off from the main current of modern intellectual life. 
 While the companion arts painting, poetry, and music 
 are allowed to present every aspect of human life, on 
 the stage only the narrow, ordinary, convenient, respect- 
 able, superficial contemplation and presentation of human 
 affairs is allowed. Though off the stage the gravest 
 matters have been in heated hourly prominence, on the 
 stage nothing of much greater importance has been 
 bruited than how a tradesman's family may prepare 
 itself for alliance with the aristocracy. And such trades- 
 men ! And such aristocrats ! 
 
 Nothing could better show the impotence and poverty 
 of the modern English drama than the account it has 
 rendered of modern English business-life ; nothing could 
 better show how strangely far we are from sincerity and 
 faithful insight in character-drawing, how fond the public 
 is of what is superficial and conventional, than the type 
 of business-man that has been most popular on the stage 
 in recent years. It will be allowed that if Englishmen 
 have been in earnest about anything the last fifty years, 
 they have been in earnest about money-making and com- 
 merce. Of gods and saints, and heroes and martyrs, 
 and kings, modern English life has not been quite so 
 prolific as an eager playwright might wish, and in their 
 rarity or absence from his daily sphere he may be forgiven 
 if he fails when he tries his unaccustomed hand upon 
 their portraiture. But Heaven and Free Trade be 
 praised ! there has been no dearth of business-men in 
 England this generation. No playwright can excuse 
 himself on the plea of want of models to study and paint 
 from. Surely, if sincerity and truth may be reasonably 
 demanded from the drama in any one particular, it is in
 
 RELIGION AND THE STAGE 121 
 
 the handling of modern business-life. Yet upon turning 
 to the stage what do we find? Of course there is no 
 lack of business-men in our modern plays; rather, of 
 one certain type of business-man, hereafter to be ex- 
 amined, there is an inordinate profusion. Indeed, this 
 particular individual, under various aliases and constantly 
 changing his trade, may be said in one sense to have 
 been the great prop and mainstay of English comedy for 
 some twenty years past. But so far as one can readily 
 remember, the only serious attempt to portray a modern 
 English man of business is to be found in Mr. Sydney 
 Grundy's Mammon. Ordinarily the man of business is 
 simply a peg to hang jokes upon. He invariably drops 
 his H's and puts in superfluous aspirates. He is ever- 
 lastingly making blunders upon his introduction into 
 what passes upon the stage for polite society. And 
 these blunders are so dwelt upon and exaggerated that 
 any pit or gallery-spectator can instantly detect them 
 and pride himself upon his superior breeding to the 
 person who makes them, who is yet assumed to be moving 
 in a better position, and to have better opportunities 
 for learning good manners, than the pit or gallery 
 spectator. And when the good-hearted tradesman makes 
 these blunders, the aristocratic people on the stage at 
 once call attention to them, and correct them with an 
 utter absence not merely of the forms but of the spirit of 
 good breeding. And this type of business-man has made 
 the fortune of many modern comedies. Now it is not to 
 be denied that many retired tradesmen do drop their H's 
 and commit social blunders ; and these apparently are 
 the especial traits of character that are most acceptable 
 to an English audience and most easily make it laugh. 
 But the want of all sincerity and searchingness in the 
 portrait must be apparent to any intelligent person who 
 will take the trouble to read a modern comedy where an 
 English tradesman is depicted, and then compare it with
 
 122 APPENDIX 
 
 the average English tradesman who can be met with 
 behind any counter in town or country. And a playwright 
 sitting down to write the part of an English man of 
 business does not first consider how he can faithfully 
 portray such and such an individual, and through him 
 the heart and meaning of English commercial life, but 
 how he can most readily make an average audience laugh 
 at outrageous verbal distortions or pronounced social blun- 
 ders. The same want of truthfulness will be found upon 
 comparing that curiously unreal nondescript, the rustic 
 of the London stage, with any living English peasant. 
 
 Now, while the stage remains so swaddled in petti- 
 ness and superficiality, the playwright who wishes to be 
 successful will indulge the public and continue to 
 manufacture for them their pet conventional stage-types. 
 Out of the thousand spectators that nightly watch a play 
 it may be safely assumed that nine hundred will be 
 struck by some outward, obvious, unmeaning peculiarity 
 of speech or manner rather than by any inward signifi- 
 cant truth or suggestion of character. And the whole 
 scheme and aim of dramatic art in this country being to 
 attract the multitude, and no existence being possible 
 to it except upon this footing, every play is framed upon 
 the principle of immediately flattering and satisfying, 
 not the one student of character and lover of literature, 
 but the ninety-and-nine pleasure-seekers and sight-seers. 
 And these pleasure-seekers have also a few tough British 
 prejudices which the judicious playwright must beware 
 of offending. The two chief subjects which are by 
 common consent supposed to be most difficult of stage- 
 treatment are religion and politics, because these are 
 the subjects upon which counter opinions are most rife 
 and popular feelings most easily raised. 
 
 As regards politics, they scarcely touch the moral or 
 emotional nature of man at all. Surely the present 
 disposition of political parties in this country, and the
 
 RELIGION AND THE STAGE 123 
 
 present aims of statesmanship on either side, do not invite 
 any attention from a serious dramatist. They would 
 make a very worthless theme for any dramatic work 
 except a farce. And the modern playwright need not 
 give himself a moment's uneasiness because he finds 
 himself debarred from treating English political life 
 except in the spirit of farce, or in that bland and sugary 
 way which, complimenting both sides upon being alike 
 right, equally conveys that there is no question of 
 human interest in the struggle between them. But 
 suppose it were found that upon any matter of deep 
 concern the two parties were divided ; suppose it were 
 found that political bias on the one side corrupted, and 
 on the other side sustained human nature, then who 
 could deny the dramatist the right of enforcing so much 
 upon the stage? With religion the case is far different 
 from politics, though the same motives of expediency 
 have banished from the modern stage all treatment of it 
 that is not purely conventional and superficial. 1 
 
 The present attitude of religious persons towards the 
 stage is a somewhat curious one. For some two 
 hundred years religious opinion in England has been 
 more or less antagonistic to the theatre. But gradually 
 the far-seeing and more liberal-minded teachers in the 
 different sects have become alive to the fact that the 
 theatre is immensely popular, and must be tolerated and 
 reckoned with. It threatens to become a powerful 
 influence in the life of the nation. And religious persons 
 are also fast discovering that, in the huge sempiternal 
 dullness and mechanical routine of English life, theatre- 
 
 1 I would like to enlarge this paragraph, and so far change its 
 drift as to claim for the stage the same right to deal searchingly 
 and truthfully wilh politics as with religion. To-day our modern 
 drama should lay hands upon every province of human life and 
 thought, nnd be satisfied with nothing less than sovereign sway and 
 masterdom over the whole realm. 25th April 1891.
 
 124 APPENDIX 
 
 going is not an unpleasant way of spending the evening. 
 Like Dame Purecraft in the matter of eating pig, they 
 would like to have it made as lawful as possible. So 
 they come timorously, with the old notion still clinging 
 to them that they are in " the tents of the wicked." How 
 welcome to weak consciences have been the various 
 entertainments that, under some convenient name or 
 cloak, have afforded to religious persons a satisfaction of 
 the ineradicable dramatic instinct, and saved them the 
 sin of going to a theatre ! How ludicrous is the spectacle 
 of religion, shivering on the brink of Shakespeare at the 
 Lyceum, and turning away to regale itself at the Christy 
 Minstrels or the Chamber of Horrors ! What a blank 
 and stupefying denial of all the genial humane qualities 
 of our nature is implied in the recent wholesale con- 
 demnation of the theatre by the great Boanerges of the 
 Baptists I But the truth is that religious persons, after 
 having vilified the theatre for two centuries, are fast 
 coming back to it. Not all Mr. Spurgeon's shouting to 
 his flock to stay and batten in his sheep-pens on the 
 dismal moor of hyper-Calvinism will long keep them from 
 straggling down to the green pastures and broad waters 
 of the nation's intellectual life. 
 
 There is, then, in every audience at all our leading 
 theatres, except perhaps those that are devoted to broad 
 farcical comedy and burlesque, a certain proportion of 
 religious persons who come timidly to the theatre with 
 a vague sense of wrong-doing, and are shocked if there 
 is any mention of religious subjects. Their views of 
 life are such, that there is no general reconciliation 
 possible between the two ideas of religion and the 
 theatre, and so they wish to keep them utterly apart, in 
 the same way that many worthy people find it convenient to 
 keep their science in a separate mental compartment from 
 their religion, from an uncomfortable feeling that if they 
 once get face to face one of them will destroy the other.
 
 RELIGION AND THE STAGE 125 
 
 In every audience there is a much larger proportion 
 of simply indifferent persons, who would be the first to 
 disclaim any particular reverence for any doctrine or 
 precept of religion whatsoever, yet who pay the ordinary 
 Englishman's ear and lip reverence to the current creed. 
 And these also feel uneasy if religion is broached on the 
 stage, because, having conveniently dispensed with it to 
 a great extent in regulating their everyday lives, they 
 think it may be very well allowed to remain in its present 
 condition of honoured and respectable superannuation, 
 as an affair of Sundays, and Parsons, and churches, and 
 chapels. 
 
 Strange Englishmen ! so cunning in the art of self- 
 deception ! Has, then, this religion of yours grown so 
 valetudinarian that it can no longer take the robust 
 exercise of out-of-door life? that you must shelter it from 
 the keen east winds of science, and the daily uphill 
 trudge of business, and the glow and bustle of healthy 
 amusement ? that you must deny it all the vigour and 
 movement of everyday life, and only take it out for a 
 little very gentle exercise once or twice on Sundays? 
 Well, wrap it up then, keep it warm! It's in a "parlous 
 state " truly ; and, if the worst should happen, Heaven 
 send us a good, serviceable, sound-winded, work-a-day 
 religion to take its place. 
 
 Speaking generally, we may say that from old-accus- 
 tomed prejudice, whose grounds they have never taken 
 the trouble to examine, ordinary playgoers have a haunt- 
 ing feeling of the impropriety of the theatre as a place 
 for even hinting that there is in the English nation to- 
 day any such thing as religion at all. The idea of 
 human life as being about six-sevenths secular and one- 
 seventh sacred keeps possession of them, and they do 
 not wish to have this convenient fiction disturbed or 
 examined. Then, too, the dramatic faculty is so little 
 developed in a general audience, there is so little
 
 126 APPENDIX 
 
 knowledge and appreciation of character, that they 
 cannot discriminate between an author speaking in 
 proprid persond and his allowing his personages to speak 
 whatever is natural and becoming to them. How little 
 essential reverence of heart is at the bottom of the 
 average play-goer's dislike of the mention of religion 
 upon the stage may be gathered from the fact that plays 
 that are implicitly choke-full of the deathfullest sort of 
 Atheism, the denial of the divinity of man, are allowed to 
 pass without protest, and run their hundreds of nights. 
 
 As a matter of expediency, then, it may be freely 
 conceded that the playwright is wise in his day and 
 generation not to meddle with religious matters, but to 
 accept the arbitrary and conventional division of human 
 nature into secular and sacred, and to ply his trade 
 wholly in the secular domain, in apparent ignorance of 
 whether there is anything sacred or no in man's nature, 
 and whether Englishmen have a religion to-day, and 
 whether it has any influence upon their character. Neither 
 must the sadly comic spectacle of our two hundred sects 
 all of them right and all of them wrong tempt him to 
 a smile or a sigh, though one would fancy that the waste- 
 ful joke of starting two hundred agencies to the same 
 end, the existence of each one implying the uselessness 
 of the other one hundred and ninety-nine, must at last 
 become apparent to the originators of it. It is quite 
 certain, however, that the existence of such a restriction 
 upon the dramatist forbids the hope of the English 
 drama ever reaching forward to be a great art, and con- 
 demns it to remain as it is, the plaything of the populace, 
 a thing of convention and pettiness and compromise. It 
 is useless to upbraid modern playwrights for not pro- 
 ducing great plays when in so small a matter as the 
 putting upon the stage of so common a type of modern 
 English life as a middle class tradesman, one is not 
 allowed to paint him thoroughly, according to one's poor
 
 RELIGION AND THE STAGE 127 
 
 judgment, in a faithful searching way, and giving, so far 
 as the exigencies of dramatic art allow, a truthful picture 
 of the man and his environment, and of the man moulded 
 or modified by his environment. If a dramatist must 
 not faithfully paint his brother British shopkeeper whom 
 he has seen, how shall he be trusted to faithfully paint 
 heroes and saints and demigods and other " tremendous 
 personages" whom he has not seen? The drama claims 
 for its province the whole heart and nature and soul and 
 passions of man ; and so far as religion has to do with 
 these, so far is the dramatist within his right in noting 
 the scope and influence of religion upon the character he 
 has to portray. The whole teaching of modern psychology, 
 the conception of human character as a natural production 
 arising from the action of the various surrounding agencies 
 upon the individual man and his ancestors through 
 countless ages and the reactions resulting therefrom : 
 this doctrine forbids the dramatist to accept any reserva- 
 tion of a certain plot or parcel of a man's nature which 
 must be screened off and veiled and assumed to be non- 
 existent before the analysis of the character can be made. 
 Every character is woven all of a piece ; if some threads 
 are taken out, the garment is mutilated and falls to bits. 
 The whole of the nature of man is sacred to the 
 dramatist, as the whole of the body of man is sacred to 
 the physician. One part is not more sacred than 
 another. The folly, the hate, and meanness, and envy, 
 and greed, and lust of human kind are just as sacred in 
 this sense as the higher and nobler qualities, and are 
 treasured with the same care. One might as well 
 dictate to a surgeon that in his survey of the human body 
 he must omit to take note of the presence of such and 
 such an organ and its influence upon the rest of the 
 body say the heart because of some sacred mystery 
 attaching to it, as to dictate to a dramatist that he shall 
 not be allowed in his study of a certain character to mark.
 
 128 APPENDIX 
 
 if necessary, the shaping and leavening of the whole 
 of that character by the religious milieu in which it has 
 been produced. It is for those who would deny to the 
 dramatist the right to depict religious life upon the stage, 
 to show either that religion has become a quite unessen- 
 tial and useless portion of human life, and is effete and 
 defunct, and has no bearing upon character in England 
 to-day, in which case the playwright can afford to treat 
 it as a naturalist does an organ that has lapsed into a 
 rudimentary state, or it is for them to show why religion 
 should not occupy the same part in the dramatist's 
 scheme and view of human life as it is supposed to do 
 in the outer world around him shall we say a seventh? 
 
 So far as the matter is part of the general compromise 
 and toleration upon religious matters without which 
 social life would be rendered grievously uncomfortable, 
 it would doubtless be unwise to try to disturb the present 
 equanimity and to arouse bitter passions that are now 
 disarmed or slumbering. And also one would not 
 willingly shock the sincere feeling of any worshipper, 
 were it even of the most degraded and brutal fetish. 
 There is a small enough stock of reverence in England 
 to-day; one may well be content to endure a little of it 
 wrongly directed and towards unworthy things. 
 
 But the matter is also part of the question of whether 
 our drama shall ever rise to the dignity of its mission 
 and exercise its right to portray and interpret and 
 faithfully reflect the main and vital features of our 
 national life ; and upon this point the humblest writer 
 for the stage has a right to be jealous and alert, and to 
 see that his art is not rendered weak and lifeless, and its 
 sustenance given to feed the beggarly array of decrepit 
 prejudices that totter about this breathing world and suck 
 into their numb and withered anatomies the nourishment 
 that should go to build up a healthy body of public opinion. 
 
 Inasmuch as religion is a matter of controversy and
 
 RELIGION AND THE STAGE 129 
 
 doctrine, the dramatist may be content to leave it in the 
 clouds where the arguments and sophistries of divines 
 have floated it. In this respect the relation of art towards 
 religion is fixed in Tennyson's memorable lines 
 
 I take possession of man's mind and deed, 
 I care not what the sects may brawl ; 
 
 I sit as God holding no form of creed, 
 But contemplating all. 
 
 In no case could it be profitable for the stage to become 
 the backer or antagonist of any doctrine or creed. But 
 inasmuch as religion is also a matter of conduct and 
 practice and character, the drama has every right to take 
 it for part of its subject-matter. 
 
 And before quite resigning ourselves to the dominion 
 of the popular prejudice, which holds that the dramatist 
 should blink the question of man's spiritual nature and 
 beliefs, it may be as well to glance at the accepted 
 relations of religion and the drama during the times of 
 the greatest dramatic activity and creation. The Greek 
 tragedians made unsparing use of their country's religion, 
 and wove it into their plays. In masterful and unques- 
 tioned sway over the destiny of man they reigned 
 coequal with the gods, and usurped omnipotence in their 
 dealings with the creatures of their hands. Again, all 
 through our own Elizabethan writers there is the freest 
 handling of religious matters whenever these come within 
 the sweep of their pen. One has only to imagine the 
 whole batch of dramatists of that era set to write a play 
 that should be successful upon our modern English stage 
 if produced for the first time to-day, to see how much 
 the temper and state of preparation of the audience, and 
 the knowledge of the dramatist that what he writes will 
 be accepted seriously and in good faith, have to do with 
 the production of great plays. We will take the three 
 greatest and most representative names of that age,
 
 130 APPENDIX 
 
 Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson, and ask how 
 they dealt with religious matters. The comparison is 
 very interesting, as it also incidentally discovers the 
 different bent of each genius and the different texture of 
 his mind. The essential reverence of these three writers 
 will scarcely be questioned, if reverence is to be reckoned 
 by the wholesomeness of the feelings rather than by the 
 squeamishness of the ears. Though even in the matter 
 of words it may be asked whether the clean and healthy 
 outspokenness of some of the Elizabethan writers is not 
 more reverent of everything worth reverence than the 
 putrid leer and imbecile suggestiveness of some music- 
 hall songs that have been imported into the modern 
 theatre. 
 
 To begin with Christopher Marlowe, " Son first-born 
 of the morning, sovereign star!" In Marlowe there is 
 none of the familiar playful quotation of Scripture so 
 frequent in Shakespeare, or the broadly comic portraiture 
 of religious hypocrisy unctuously mouthing Holy Writ to 
 its own ends that Ben Jonson delights in. Marlowe's 
 fiery genius sets directly about its main ends, and in 
 Doctor Faustus seizes the heart and core of the Christian 
 doctrine, and appropriates as much as is necessary for 
 the scheme of his play. There is no hesitation, no 
 question in Marlowe's mind as to the perfect right of 
 his art to enter this region and take full possession of 
 it. Fragments of Christian dogma are tossed hither 
 and thither in the burning whirlpool with waifs and 
 strays of heathen history and mythology, while the living 
 heat of the poet's imagination binds and mats all the 
 strange ingredients into one liquid flame of terror, and 
 the spectator watches, with harrowing suspense and 
 breathless inescapable impression of reality, the damna- 
 tion of a soul. Omitting the wretched buffoonery of 
 the comic scenes as possible interpolations or concessions 
 to the groundlings, there is no room left for any thought
 
 RELIGION AND THE STAGE 131 
 
 of reverence or irreverence. The question of the com- 
 parative truth of the Greek mythology and the creed of 
 Christendom sinks into a matter of " words, words, 
 words," as we contemplate the awful picture of the 
 death-agony of Faustus. Marlowe compels our acqui- 
 escence that that at least is real, is true. It would be 
 impertinent to defend the Faustus against any possible 
 charge of irreverence which the rancid, bilious tempera- 
 ment of superfinical godliness might bring against it. 
 No poet ever reaches such inaccessible heights of 
 inspiration without remaining quite impervious and out 
 of the reach of harm by any assault from that quarter. 
 It could only be in an outburst of bewildered indignation 
 or riotous satire that one could put the question, whether 
 in the matter of reverence of man's spiritual nature the 
 age that produced Marlowe's Faustus has any need to 
 feel ashamed of itself when brought to the bar of the 
 age that demanded a version of the same legend brought 
 down to the average intelligence of a modern burlesque 
 audience. 
 
 Upon turning from Marlowe to Shakespeare, we find 
 a difference in the treatment of sacred subjects and the 
 poet's attitude towards religion such as corresponds with 
 the difference in the genius and temper of the two men. 
 In neither of his four great tragedies is Shakespeare em- 
 ployed upon so vast and tremendous a theme as Marlowe 
 had to work upon in Faustus. Neither Hamlet, Macbeth, 
 Lear, nor Othello have the same inherent supernatural 
 grandeur, though all of them are far more human and 
 domestic. It is useless, though it is most interesting to 
 speculate, supposing that the ground had not been 
 already occupied by Marlowe, what Shakespeare might 
 have given us if he had treated the legend of 
 Faustus in the meridian of his powers, in the Hamlet 
 and Macbeth period. 
 
 In no respect is the varied universal play of Shake-
 
 132 APPENDIX 
 
 speare's genius, and his royal dominion over all things 
 human and divine, more fully shown than in the use he 
 makes of the Bible. He treats the Scriptures as if they 
 belonged to him. Bishop Wordsworth, in his Shake- 
 speare and the Bible, finds in the poet more than 550 
 Biblical quotations, allusions, references, and sentiments. 
 Hamlet alone contains about eighty, Richard the Third 
 nearly fifty, Henry the Fifth and Richard the Second 
 about forty each. Shakespeare quotes from fifty-four of 
 the Biblical books, and not one of his thirty-seven plays 
 is without a Scriptural reference. Genesis furnishes the 
 poet with thirty-one quotations or allusions, the Psalms 
 with fifty-nine, Proverbs with thirty-five, Isaiah with 
 twenty-one, Matthew with sixty, Luke with thir'y-three, 
 and Romans with twenty-three. Shakespeare does not 
 take religious dogma for the foundation of any play, as 
 Marlowe did in Faustus, nor does he search into the 
 private life of religious persons as Ben Jonson and 
 Moliere did. All the bishops, friars, and legates who 
 figure in his plays do so in their official capacity. How 
 significant is the wide difference of Shakespeare's por- 
 traiture of hypocrisy in the " prenzie Angelo" from Ben 
 Jonson's and Moliere's portraiture of the same vice in 
 the Banbury Puritan and in the Tartuffe\ 
 
 What most strikes us in considering Shakespeare's 
 attitude towards religion is the thorough saturation of his 
 plays in the spirit and sentiment and phraseology of the 
 moral rather than the doctrinal portion of Scripture. 
 Though doctrinal allusions are far from scanty in his 
 works, yet they are so little pronounced, so vaguely or 
 discreetly worded, or belong so clearly to the official 
 position of the speaker rather than to the conviction of 
 the author, or are so common to all the sects, or if per- 
 taining to one of them are cancelled by allusions to other 
 doctrines sanctioned by other sects : in a word, so little 
 sectarian bias peeps out in Shakespeare, that Catholics
 
 RELIGION AND THE STAGE 133 
 
 and Anglicans and Independents have alike claimed 
 him as belonging to their communion. 
 
 Shakespeare may or may not have been a believer in 
 baptismal grace. It is, however, refreshing in the pre- 
 sent dearth upon our stage of original English comedy 
 to find so lively a compensation for its absence at our 
 theatres, and so illustrious a proof of its present and 
 perennial vitality in English life, as is afforded by the 
 spectacle of a bishop laying the flattering unction to his 
 soul that Shakespeare was a devout believer in this same 
 doctrine of baptismal grace, because of two rather 
 meagre and casual allusions to it which Shakespeare has 
 placed in the mouths of two such widely diverse and 
 problematic subjects for the operation of the sacrament 
 as Henry the Fifth and lago. Our sense of obligation to 
 the good bishop is further deepened by his skillful com- 
 plication of the situation in the introduction upon the 
 scene of Mr. Bowdler. Mr. Bowdler, it appears, in his 
 Family Shakespeare, has, with an excess of cautious 
 reverence which the bishop feels must cause the judi- 
 cious reader surprise and regret Mr. Bowdler has seen 
 reason to put half-asunder such an evidently unsuitable 
 pair of yokefellows as lago and baptismal grace, which 
 Shakespeare had joined together. Mr. Bowdler has 
 omitted the latter of lago's lines 
 
 To win the Moor were 't to renounce his baptism, 
 All seals and symbols of redeemed sin. 
 
 Could ingenuity of mortal man have devised a more 
 exquisitely humorous situation than is here, without any 
 connivance of our own, forced upon us? What aspect 
 of the imbroglio to glance at first or last, what logical 
 way out of the manifold perplexity, whom to sympathise 
 with first or most, Bishop Wordsworth or Mr. Bowdler, 
 or Shakespeare handcuffed between them, one knows 
 not, so thickly the higgledy-piggledy crowd of incon-
 
 134 APPENDIX 
 
 gruities come tumbling upon us ! Poor timid Dowdier, 
 very anxious to preserve Shakespeare for our families if 
 he could do it without offence to decency and religion, still 
 more anxious to preserve our families pious and respect- 
 able from contamination by Shakespeare's irreverence and 
 loose talk, tries at least to stop lago's mouth from blabbing 
 of matters that lago has no business to know anything 
 about. The good bishop must have our Shakespeare 
 for a devout Anglican, and lo ! here is baptismal grace 
 in our Shakespeare's soul, apparently tottering upon the 
 rickety foundation of two incidental quotations in the lips 
 of two such dubious connoisseurs of spiritual matters as 
 Harry of England and the Spartan dog, while our poet's 
 confirmed, desperate, ineradicable, irreclaimable, irre- 
 fragable paganism stands sure and " foursquare to all 
 the winds that blow," based upon no less than one 
 hundred and twenty-nine adjurations and appeals to 
 heathen Jove and Jupiter, to say nothing of the rest of 
 the Pantheon. The good bishop will, however, at all 
 costs have our Shakespeare for a sound Churchman ; in 
 fact, in the present predicament, he will hazard the matter 
 and baptize him will-he nill-he, were it but for the sake of 
 so illustrious an example to his countrymen in a schismatic 
 nineteenth century. And now up comes the wretched 
 Bowdler with his whitewashing apparatus, and, applying 
 the proverbial zealous ignorance of indiscriminate " Church 
 restoration" to Shakespeare, is actually shaking down 
 one of the slender props of grace in the poet's soul ; has 
 actually taken away from us the welcome evidence of the 
 irreproachable lago we must hasten and bolster up the 
 frail tenement with our own episcopal shoulders and 
 administer a gentle episcopal chastisement to Bowdler, 
 the well-meaning, mischief-doing little man ! 
 
 Shade of that immortal genius, with what a smile of 
 kindly pity dost thou elude all our attempts to cabin, crib, 
 and confine in the fetters and tatters of our particular
 
 RELIGION AND THE STAGE 135 
 
 sect thy spirit, whose creed was broad and general as 
 the casing air, as wide and universal as the beneficent 
 heaven whose arch rests impenetrably bright or impene- 
 trably dark over every soul of man ! How small a 
 concern Shakespeare had for creeds and doctrines may 
 best be gathered from the absence of any marked 
 influence upon his plays of the religious struggle which 
 England had passed through in the previous generation. 
 And yet he is steeped in the language and spirit of the 
 Bible. And it is just this attitude of his towards the 
 English Scriptures that fits him to be the representative 
 poet of England. With more care for dogma he might 
 have sunk into the mere poetical figurehead of a sect or 
 a creed ; with less care for morality his work wouid have 
 lacked the deep and permanent foundation, that all great 
 art instinctively chooses, of resting upon wide-reaching 
 principles of justice and truth that all human hearts as 
 instinctively recognise and accept. The hateful, foolish, 
 convenient maxim so often dinned into our ears of late, 
 that the English modern drama should teach nothing 
 and believe in nothing, receives no countenance from the 
 greatest dramatists of the past, least of all from Shake- 
 speare. The greatest art is as instinctively, as relent- 
 lessly, though as unobtrusively moral as Nature herself. 
 One cannot always perceive it, but there is no escaping 
 it. Dante inflicting the tortures of damnation upon 
 myriads of innocent babes is as relentless as Nature in 
 England to-day condemning myriads of English babes 
 to the deep damnation of the life-long inheritance and 
 propagation of their fathers' and forefathers' vices and 
 diseases and crimes. Nature can do that ; so can Dante : 
 and Calvinists may take heart of grace from contemplat- 
 ing the fact. 
 
 It will not be necessary to dwell upon the didactic 
 side and purpose of Shakespeare's constant employment 
 of Scriptural phrases, precepts, and aspirations. Many
 
 136 APPENDIX 
 
 of his best known and most frequently quoted passages 
 are parallelisms or paraphrases of Scripture morality, or 
 of some part of that large body of moral axioms and 
 worldly wisdom and justice which belongs alike to the 
 Bible and to other systems of religion and philosophy. 
 Instances are so numerous and well known that they 
 will occur to every one. It is generally and carelessly 
 assumed that these didactic passages convey the nature 
 and extent of Shakespeare's relations and obligations to 
 the Bible. But this is far from being the fact. His 
 didactic use of Scripture-history and morality, though it 
 is the noblest and most valuable, is by no means the only 
 result, nor is it the personal and distinguishing mark, of 
 Shakespeare's close acquaintance with the Bible. Many 
 other poets have freely employed Scripture for serious 
 and didactic ends from Milton down to Montgomery. 
 What distinguishes Shakespeare is the perfectly free and 
 playful and everyday use he makes of Scripture by 
 putting it into the mouths of all sorts and conditions of 
 people on all sorts of occasions. Surely those keen 
 huntsmen of " lewd and pernicious enormity" in innocent 
 places, those playgoers who strain at the gnat of a 
 solitary Scriptural allusion in a modern play, can have 
 no notion what herds of camels they swallow every time 
 they witness a play of Shakespeare's in its integrity. 
 
 How utterly subservient Shakespeare deems the treat- 
 ment of religion upon the stage to the preservation of 
 dramatic truth and reality may be seen in Richard the 
 Third, where religion and morality become the flimsiest 
 child's baubles in the merciless intellectual grasp of the 
 tyrant. 
 
 lago, besides being an authority on the efficacy of 
 baptismal grace, is "full of most blessed condition" in 
 his reference to Holy Writ, and his constant display of 
 wise and moral maxims. Poor Bowdler cannot under- 
 stand it, and smells irreverence.
 
 RELIGION AND THE STAGE 137 
 
 Richard the Second so far allows his sense of human 
 injury to get the better of his sense of religious propriety 
 that he institutes a comparison in the matter of treachery 
 between himself and Christ, and earlier in the play he 
 cries out upon Bagot, Bushy, and Green as " three 
 Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas ! " Poor 
 Bowdler can do nothing but hold up his hands in horror 
 and excise the passage, and Bishop Wordsworth smilingly 
 pats his approval. No possible testimony to the efficacy 
 of baptismal grace to be squeezed out of such a line ! 
 Away with it ! 
 
 Shylock has several allusions to Old Testament 
 personages and facts, whose use is not very apparent to 
 the dim, bewildered, tender-conscienced, narrow-visioned 
 Bowdler. While what can family respectability and piety 
 make of such a speech as " Yes, to smell pork ; to eat 
 of the habitation which your prophet the Nazarite con- 
 jured the devil into"? a speech in which the heights of 
 dramatic propriety and religious impropriety are simul- 
 taneously reached at one bound. Bowdlerism can only 
 sorrowfully shake its poor bewildered head at the 
 dramatist's readiness to sacrifice every rag of deference 
 to its pet prejudices, and, at all costs, to give the full 
 and exact truth of Shylock's manner of speech. 
 
 There are a large number of Scriptural allusions in 
 Shakespeare which apparently have neither any moral 
 to enforce, nor any special dramatic fitness to the speaker^ 
 or the occasion. Of such is Antony's 
 
 Oh, that I were 
 
 Upon the hill of Basan to outroar 
 The horned herd ! 
 
 which shows Shakespeare's rather than Antony's diligent 
 study of the Old Testament, and which indiscriminate 
 and unnecessary employment of Scripture language again 
 shocks and grieves our poor sensitive Bowdler, and fills
 
 138 APPENDIX 
 
 the soul of that great mountain of British Bowdlerism, 
 Samuel Johnson, with "pity and indignation." Leaving 
 Bowdlerism to digest or reject as it may this frequent 
 indiscriminate and casual employment of Scripture by 
 somewhat unqualified persons, we pass on to notice what 
 is more shocking and irreverent still, the extensive 
 acquaintance with sacred terms and topics shown by 
 Shakespeare's clowns and comic personages. 
 
 Hamlet and Richard the Third may justly have some 
 concern with the affairs of conscience, but what moral 
 necessity, except perhaps the sufficiently obvious and 
 imperative one of shocking all the tribe of Bovvdlers, can 
 there be to give Lancelot Gobbo a long soliloquy about 
 conscience and the devil? What is there to be said for 
 Cassio's broaching the awful tenets of Calvinism in a 
 state of drivelling drunkenness? How are we to view 
 the utter disregard of all poor Bowdler's sense of moral 
 fitness, the reckless, callous, ingrained want of all con- 
 sideration and fellow-feeling for jaundiced, green-sick, 
 sour-milk, retchy, phthisicky, maudlin, sniffing, nibbling, 
 dyspeptic, venomous, blear-eyed, addle-headed, spasm- 
 bitten, puffy, flatulent, east-wind-swollen, nineteenth- 
 century religiosity, which Shakespeare discovers in his 
 unscrupulous relish for putting, on comic occasions, 
 Scriptural allusions and terms and scraps into the mouths 
 of such personages as Sir Toby Belch, Feste, Moth, 
 Armado, Jaques, Celia, Touchstone, Mrs. Quickly, 
 Justice Shallow, Prince Henry, Pinch the schoolmaster, 
 Dromio of Syracuse, Mrs. Page, the gravedigger, the 
 clown in All's Well, and the porter in Macbethl " Most 
 unkindest kind cut of all," and double superlative topsy- 
 turvy perversion of all reverence, morality, and religion 
 as Bowdler understands them, the arch-quoter and arch- 
 purloiner of odds and ends from Holy Writ in all Shake- 
 speare is none other than, whom could one guess? 
 Sir John Falstaff. Sir John Heaven forbid one should
 
 RELIGION AND THE STAGE 139 
 
 fail of all due honour and respect to him when he comes 
 so pat to support one's theory ! Sir John never loses an 
 opportunity of patching up his old body for heaven by 
 seasoning his conversation with godly saws and ancient 
 instances. He is a perfect mine of Scriptural illustration, 
 and seems to have had every qualification for editing a 
 Reference Bible. "I am as poor as Job, my lord, but 
 not as patient." "In the state of innocency Adam fell, 
 and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of 
 villainy? 1 ' " Oh, if men were to be saved by merit, what 
 hole in hell were hot enough for him?" "A whoreson 
 Achitophel." " I never see thy face but I think on hell- 
 fire and Dives that lived in purple, for there he is in his 
 robes, burning, burning, burning." " Slaves as ragged as 
 Lazarus in the painted cloth where the glutton's dogs 
 licked his sores." " In the shape of man, Master Brooke, 
 I fear not Goliath with a weaver's beam, because I know 
 also life is a shuttle," two quotations and a dubious pun 
 in one sentence. " If to be fat is to be hated, then 
 Pharaoh's lean kine are to be loved." "If then the tree 
 may be known by the fruit." " And for thy walls a pretty 
 slight drollery, or the story of the prodigal." " His face 
 is Lucifer's kitchen, where he doth nothing but roast 
 malt-worms." " I think the devil will not have me 
 damned lest the oil that is in me should set hell 
 on fire." 
 
 No abuse, good Mr. Bowdler, no abuse in the world ! 
 he does but dispraise reverence before the wicked, that 
 the wicked may not fall in love with it. " God be thanked 
 for these Scriptural quotations; they offend none but 
 the virtuous." 
 
 Bowdlerism stands aghast, shuddering, woefully " tickled 
 in its catastrophe " ; cannot for its life understand how 
 this reckless want of reverence for all its consecrated 
 baggage and pedlar's pack of shibboleths and symbols 
 and phrases, is yet twinned with the deepest heart
 
 140 APPENDIX 
 
 reverence for virtue, and truth, and justice, and faith, 
 and honesty, and beauty, and righteousness. 
 
 But, O Bowdlerism, consider it, what if Shakespeare's 
 main idea about religion was even briefly this, the very 
 same as another Teacher's idea about the Sabbath which 
 also poor British Bowdlerism can never bring itself to 
 accept namely, that religion was made for man, and 
 not man for religion. 
 
 On leaving Shakespeare and turning to Ben Jonson 
 we are again met with a characteristic change in the 
 poet's attitude towards Scriptural things. " Broad-based, 
 broad-fronted, bounteous, multiform" Ben is more akin 
 to Moliere than to Shakespeare in his treatment of 
 religious affairs and persons. Though Ben has no 
 religious figure of such importance and tragic significance 
 as Tartuffe, he has drawn the hypocrites of his time 
 with a fierce and unsparing hand. There is a riotous 
 glee and overflowing merriment of satire in his delinea- 
 tions of Puritan hypocrisy in Bartholomew Fair and the 
 Alchemist. The full-length portrait of Zeal-of-the-land 
 Busy is without parallel and beyond all chance of com- 
 petition in its immitigable force of broad truthful humour 
 and merciless exposure of that constant type in English 
 life, the religious professor who has but one object in life, 
 the promotion of the self-same and identical interests of 
 the glory of God and his own stomach. The scene in 
 the fair, in which, after having gorged himself with 
 Bartholomew-pig as a protest against Judaism, he upsets 
 Joan Trash's basket of gingerbread images as a protest 
 against Popery, is one of the finest and richest pieces of 
 comedy in our literature. A noticeable feature of Ben 
 Jonson's religious professors is their inveterate habit of 
 quoting Bible phrases. His deacons quote Scripture by 
 the yard. Tribulation Wholesome, Ananias, the Ban- 
 bury man, and Dame Purecraft are incurably afflicted 
 with this loquacity of Scriptural quotation. One meets
 
 RELIGION AND THE STAGE 141 
 
 with as many as sixteen Scriptural allusions and phrases 
 in about as many speeches. Ben Jonson seems to have 
 been troubled with no qualms about the propriety of 
 making his religious persons speak their natural everyday 
 language. To what a small extent this perfectly free 
 treatment of Scriptural matters in Marlowe, Shakespeare, 
 and Jonson is part of the general coarseness and freedom 
 of speech in that time, is seen by the impossibility of 
 tearing out and wrenching away these several portions 
 of their works without great damage and injury to the 
 remainder, and leaving the writer's mind and spirit 
 misrepresented and mutilated ; while almost every coarse 
 and indecent expression in these writers may be readily 
 stripped and detached from the setting in which it is 
 found. 
 
 The mere mention of Tartuffe, and its acknowledged 
 position as one of the glories and masterpieces of 
 universal dramatic literature is a sufficient reply, one 
 would think, to all who urge that it is not lawful to treat 
 religion upon the stage. The play and Moliere's preface 
 to it remain as a triumphant assertion for all time of the 
 sovereignty of the drama in its own domain. And that 
 domain is the whole of the nature, and heart, and 
 passions, and conduct of men. 
 
 There is an old proverb which will of course be flung 
 at any modern playwright who mentions such names as 
 Shakespeare, Marlowe, Moliere, and Ben Jonson. He 
 will be reminded that fools rush in where angels fear to 
 tread. But by your leave, good folks, the boot is fast 
 stuck on the other leg this time. There is no maxim 
 that forbids even fools to tread where angels have rushed 
 in, and it is for you to prove how and why a modern 
 playwright does wrong in treading after those whose 
 shoe-latchets he is unworthy to loose. The quotation 
 upon the stage by any character of any portion of the 
 noblest example of our noble literature could never have
 
 142 APPENDIX 
 
 sounded strange in modern ears until the debts of our 
 language to those writings had been forgotten and an- 
 nulled by those who would rather see our stately and 
 beautiful mother-tongue turned into the roaring, gossip- 
 ing, evil-speaking trollops of every vile resort, than 
 employed as the mouthpiece and bearer of any intelligible 
 message to mankind. 
 
 The success or failure of any individual play is of the 
 merest momentary consequence, and need not here be 
 brought into our thoughts. But the matter of a free 
 atmosphere for dramatists to work in, the matter of some 
 sort of an appeal or tribunal beyond the heated, change- 
 ful prejudices and caprices of the populace, is of the 
 greatest importance to the future of the drama. 
 
 The question of the right of dramatists to faithfully 
 depict modern religious life is only part of the much 
 wider and more general question of their right and duty 
 and ability to deal faithfully with whatsoever aspect they 
 try to depict of the huge unwieldy mass of modern 
 human life. That larger right and duty indubitably 
 contains the smaller ; nay, cannot in any way be 
 detached from it. And in face of our utterly insigni- 
 ficant labours and attainments in that larger field a 
 modern playwright had best keep silence. 
 
 O human life! so varied, so vast, so complex, so 
 rich and subtle in tremulous deep organ tones, and soft 
 proclaim of silver flutes, so utterly beyond our spell and 
 insight, who of us can govern the thunder and whirlwind 
 of thy ventages to any utterance of harmony, or pluck 
 out the heart of thy eternal mystery ? 
 
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 The poems have a singular charm in their graceful spontaneity. Scots 
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