UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES Four Short Plays By the same Author Towards a Theory of Art Speculative Dialogues The Epic Thomas Hardy : A Critical Study Four Short Plays By Lascelles Abercrombie London : Martin Seeker Number Five John Street Adelphi 1922 LONDON ! MARTIN SECKER (LTD.) 1()22, TO EDWARD MARSH A I | f x K Ov 176586 Contents PAGE THE ADDER n THE STAIRCASE 49 THE DESERTER 85 THE END OF THE WORLD 123 NOTE The Adder is reprinted from Poetry and Drama; The Staircase and The End of the World from New Numbers. The Adder was produced by Mr. Basil Dean at the Liverpool Repertory Theatre in 1913, and by Mr. John Drinkwater at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in the same year. The End of the World was produced by Miss Muriel Pratt at Bristol in 1914, and by Mr. Drinkwater at Birmingham in 1915. The Staircase (with The End of the World) was produced by Mr. Jackson Wilcox at the Playhouse, Liverpool, in 1920. The Adder Woods in Autumn. A charcoal-burner's Hut at the back ; a little to one side, a round, flat-topt stack of wood, sheathed in turf, a thin blue smoke coming from the flue-opening in the middle. It is early evening, the undergrowth misted. Night falls as the play goes on. Two charcoal-burners, SETH and NEWBY, the latter a bent old man. They are seated on a log, SETH staring at the stack. NEWBY. You'll not be needing me to-night, I think ? (SETH seems not to hear him.) It is main quiet in a copse these days ; Fall's here and no mistake : do you snuff the mould ? A queer good smell 'tis, when the mould is making, And the mist comes bitter with it out of the ground, Good as the brownest beer was ever brewed. Nay, not to you, though, you, a Methody man And sworn off beer and tobacco. Do you get ii The Adder The worth of them, I wonder, in your chapel ? That Mister Startup, that flash parson of yourn, Can daze your wits with preaching, and they say You can deal prayers that smack upon your tongue : But 'tisn't the same as a black pipe and a good tap. Why don't you talk ? You seem all in a mood. You'll not be wanting me to-night, Seth ? SETH (rousing himself). No. A sod or two is all the stack will need ; She's burning gently. But stay here awhile. Squire's come home, they say ? NEWBY. Ay : I suppose He'ld liever die at home. SETH. As bad as that ? NEWBY. If a man like Squire rummages London town For wickedness, all the wild spunk in him Driving him on full hurl, chasing his lust Mad as a trooper swording in a charge, He's bound to shatter. Flesh ain't made for that. Met him myself to-day. You never saw A brow with such a fiendish writing on it. " Hallo, Mud," says he ; " Newby, sir," says I ; 12 The Adder " What does it feel like to be earth," says he, " Damn you ! " I don't see why he damned me ? Lord! The brow of the man ! When he's in hell, he'll curse The brindled devil himself for a tame lamb. SETH. I know, Newby, what's in him. Once, my brow Was sealed like his. How did he look beside ? NEWBY. Oh, his face as hard as a carving ; though, as he talkt, He foisted on his mouth a kind of twitching, A kind of smile, that couldn't help but sneer. But truly I lookt at naught but his hurt brow. SETH. Hurt ! Yes, 'tis hurt indeed. NEWBY. It made me think Of a hound I once saw, that was inwardly scorcht With swallowed poison, and wrencht hard, that brow With lines like two big weals running straight up Pucker 'd on either side ; how comes a man So signed ? Deuce ! I should think his forehead aches ! 13 The Adder You know how a green leaf put upon the fire Twists and bends backwards, till you'd think the heat Tortured it ? Well, somehow his brow's like that. And he scarce gone thirty ! SETH. But he has laboured ! He has wickedly mown the harvest of his life ; Now it's all stubble, and it stabs his feet. But stubble must be burnt ! NEWBY. Ay, gi'e us a prayer ! One of your clockwork rants. SETH. (Taking no notice.) I read the man. His lusts follow him like tame dogs, diseased And full of weeping sores ; and let him rest A moment, all the loving pack yelps up, One or another leaps upon his knee, Vile mange and all, and nestles at his heart. Oh, yes, I know. He's tried to gorge his sin And yet he cannot dull himself ; his brain Is bitterly tired of being always sin, But still he must be imagining new evil ; And it all turns to the same small filthy tricks, The same foul dabbling that he sickens at. I know it all ; my God, don't I know it ! 14 The Adder NEWBY. A queasy hunger, eh ? See now, you were A pretty lot yourself, until you turned Methody ; why don't you try your prayers on Squire ? SETH. Hold your noise, old fool. NEWBY. Well, I'll be crawling. SETH. No. Stay a bit. I want to ask you . . . NEWBY. What ? SETH. O, has he had his milk ? (Pointing to the hut.) NEWBY. The adder ? Why, you gave it him yourself. 'Tis an uneasy worm to-night. He lifts His neck straight up, and keeps his tongue aquiver ; He looks for something. Worms should be sleepy now. Why does he wake ? SETH. Pah ! What should he look for ? You old men think an adder is a spirit. NEWBY. We know the woods and understand their folk. We aren't dazed with grammar. Schools and books 15 The Adder May grind the trade in a man to a Sheffield knife ; But put a scholar in the woods ; he'll make No more of them than a dog would make of a book. (Seizing SETH'S arm.) Listen to the air, Seth ; look around. You fool ! Will you be wiser than these, my Methody ? Will you be telling me man's master here ? But I'll tell you ; this half-light, the fall's quiet, The harmless timber, they all bide their time : They are all sworn together, and against us. Keep still a minute now, and catch your breath, And let the hour have you. Can you not feel The woods crouch like a beast behind your back ? And now look round. Where's the beast gone that croucht ? But we're in the midst of something biding its time. Don't you know men who fear the woods at night Worse than a ghost ? But was there ever one Who kept an adder in his hut, the trees Could have the soul of ? Put your heel on the worm, And in a year the trees will drink you up, Take the man out of you, as a beech drains And spoils the earth he stands in. 16 The Adder SETH. Heathen talk. There's a belief can bless the prowling night, Send off afraid the old terrors that come To craze the soul with leering through its windows. I have the faith. I am secure. NEWBY. Now, Seth, See here. You are the man for Mister Startup, Your brummagem parson, and the Methody lot ; None like you at a prayer. What would they say, Your ranters, if they heard you kept a snake, An aged heathen adder, in your hut, And there's no burner in the country puts Such faith in the worm. SETH. Not I : it's naught to me. NEWBY. Good ; then I'm going to kill him. (He makes for the hut.) SETH (springs up and holds him back). Stop, you fool! NEWBY. Ay, so it's naught to you ? You might have known I wouldn't kill him. SETH. Newby, you'll keep it hid ? B 17 The Adder NEWBY. Why, the man's twittering. No, your chapel-folks Shall have no word from me. What do they know ? What can their silly-fangled hymns and prayers And Startup's teaching tell them of the woods And the old things our trade comes up against ? SETH. O I'm not one of your pagan-witted burners. There is a special bond for me. NEWBY. Ay, so ? Well, let me keep my way. I don't shudder As if the worm were sliding down my neck When there's a mention of it. SETH. Newby, 'tis said, In foreign lands (it is a horrible thing) Women in sleep have suckled snakes they've been Roused by cold, venomous lips drawing their milk. It's worse with me. For 1 am nourishing him, That viper shut up in the box in yonder, I'm nourishing him, Newby, with my mind. NEWBY (laughing). And you the man for a prayer above them all ! 18 The Adder Hark! SETH. What did you hear ? NEWBY. The footing of a man In the long riding. SETH. Who 'Id be rambling now ? NEWBY. Squire, maybe, roaming the fever off him. Sounds reach a long way in this quiet air. But it is time I went, or I'll be missing The best of the evening at the " Hark to Melody." SETH. No, no, don't make me go. NEWBY. What is it then ? SETH (hastily). My girl's come back to me. NEWBY. Well, what of that ? SETH. 'Twas yesterday she came. My sister's dead, She'd nowhere else to live. What shall 1 do, Newby, what shall I do ? NEWBY. What are you gabbling ? You're a queer father. SETH. Newby, but it's the Squire ! NEWBY. Frightened of him, are you ? Well then, warn her. The Adder SETH (starting). Warn her ?. No ; warning wouldn't do. NEWBY. Why not ? SETH. I dreamt my sister came out of her death To me last night, and awfully she spoke : " Seth, the girl's in your keeping now ! " NEWBY. Why not ? Who else should keep her ? What's your fear in the girl ? SETH. I'll tell you : 'tis myself I fear in her. NEWBY. I don't take that. SETH. Why, in my wickedness Was her beginning : out of my rebellion She came ! NEWBY. I suppose she had a mother, though. SETH. We'll leave her out of this. If there is sin Sown in the girl, it is all mine ; there was Enough flourishing in my blood to choke With tares and weeds the innocence of the heart I forced to live. NEWBY. Ay, and it is the truth 'Tis hard to make clean earth of twitch-grown soil. 20 The Adder SETH. And then to love the girl so much. Do you think It can be right to love one of such birth So fiercely O, so terribly to love her ? If lovers have a child, be they right or wrong In loving, they must give the bairn their hearts. But mine came into flesh so wickedly She is a sin ! My sin she is ! My hate Of the Lord God, my scorning of His laws, My mere joy in delighting all my lust ! NEWBY. A child's a child, I think. SETH. You know nothing. I was all made of sin when she was born. But out of the villainous hubbub of my life The good hands of my sister stole my baby ; Took her away and kept her hid from me, And I went on in wickedness. My Lord, I did not want to sin. I would be sickening at the beastliness I'd forced my helpless spirit to devour ; And right into my ailing grief would blaze Lust like a golden trumpet ; and like singing 21 The Adder My blood would leap into its joy again ; And I was drabbing again. NEWBY (not hiding his disgust). And it went on Till the blood was tired in you ? SETH. It may be. No, God forgive you ! Heaven remembered me ! NEWBY. The two things happen together, very often. SETH. The Lord sent down a burning blight upon My mastery of sin, and like a flame Undid the briars that were round my ankles, Crippled the spiny fingers that had hold, With hooked thorns driven into my heart, Upon my life, the wild thickets of sin : He took me out of the devil's wood, and I Have never left to serve Him. NEWBY. And, O Glory, Startup's right-hand man ever since, Amen ! SETH. Yes, I was saved. But then there was this soul Mortally wearing flesh and blood of mine, My girl, my little daughter, my flesh, Newby ! 22 Ay, and there are those sins of mine ! You know When the mercy of God whips off the hunt That is so greedy after a man, they still, His pack of sins, roam somewhere, empty and hungry. My sins are lurking for the flesh they tasted And liked so well, the flesh that is my daughter. NEWBY. Then you'd do well to warn her ears against Their barking, if it's dogs they are, your sins. SETH. We did better than that. Dogs? Nought so fierce, But something sly and quiet and creeping close Upon the earth and waiting for to sting ; Yet they can only live in that dark wood Where the fiend has his cave, and all the things That are unholy crouch away from God : You must go walking in the wicked ground Before the poison of sin can strike at you. (NEWBY shrugs at him.) SETH. When I turned back from wickedness, I and my sister Were of one mind. This little lass of mine 2 3 The Adder Should never know, till she were grown and safe, Where evil lies ; for sure must it not be She could not stray there, if she'd heard nought of it ? Not knowing evil, could she find it out ? That fearful pride in disobeying God At least would have no words to madden her ! My sister reared her, gave her all her schooling ; Her lonely house and the empty moor behind, No more world than that should the girl have. We did it to a marvel. 'Twas a risk, I know ; and I do fear it anger 'd God. For see where we are now. God toucht the sleep Of my good sister, and made it be her death, And to the clumsy keeping of my hands Is put this girl, who knows nothing of evil, Nothing of sins and wiles and temptations ! NEWBY. It's a wonderful sort of girl she is, my word ! What, never heard of Old Horns ? You must have been, You and your sister, wonderly af eared. What, you a proper sweating Methody man, 24 The Adder And let a girl get past you all untaught That a holy nose should sniff hell everywhere ? You with the lungs to bawl the sinners down Upon their knees, and fetch up out of their bellies " I am a worm, I am a worm, Amen," As well as Startup can himself ! Why, this Will stick in my throat like a swallowed stickle- back ; 'Tis all as good as the adder ! What with him And with your daughter, you're a rare Methody ! SETH (jumping up). Curse you, jibing fool ! Put her again In the same speech as as the thing in there, And I'll deal what your wicked head deserves ! (He suddenly stops threatening, sits down, and puts his face in his hands.} NEWBY. Why, what the devil can there be between The adder and your daughter ? SETH (imploring him). Don't say it, man ! O, don't put them together ! Ah, Lord, stop him ! (A short pause. SETH seems to be praying. NEWBY gazes at him astonisht.) 25 The Adder NEWBY. I'll be bound, this is a strange affair. So you've not seen your daughter till just now ? SETH. I've seen her ; but she never lookt on me. Yesterday was the first time that I've kis.t her ; I doubt whether I should have kist her, too. NEWBY. You're a queer father. SETH. What else could I do but hide ? I was afraid there might be in my face Something of evil left ; and then the way I'ld look on her would make her wonder at me. How could I look on her and hold away From thinking on the blood that's in her heart, And all there is of me sleeping in her ? But I must see her, or the years would drown me. There was a little orchard near the house, With a high wall around ; but there a place Where I could hide and watch the girl's young play Among the grasses, and her dancing round The lime-washt apple trees. And I was a man With poison in his brain, to see her go So joyously and be so glad with skipping ! When the lent-lilies had begun their gold In the green sod, the little maid would prink 36 The Adder Before them with a lady's courtesies, Then, petticoats held up, she'd whirl Madly delighted childish reels. How could I tell, whether her wanton games, Her merry tiptoe gait, were not in truth Vile words prettily spoken ? And now, Newby, is it not perilous ? (He looks restlessly towards the hut.) You'ld best be going among the drinkers now. NEWBY. Well, I don't envy you your job with her. But if you'll hear me, tell the lass her feet Are in the world as on a tight-rope slung Over the gape and hunger of Hell. At least That's what you told your chapel-fellows once ; How they'ld grin to hear of your girl's schooling ! (He goes off chuckling. It is dusk. SETH goes into the hut and brings out a box, and pores over it, kneeling.) SETH. They are old wives' tales ! Is it a worship I am making of you, My adder ? Worshipping the evil thing ? 27 The Adder Ay, but what has a beast to do with evil ? They say a snake goes footless from a curse, And all this crooked zed upon his back Is a curse written, could we spell it out, And 'tis the fiend's own spittle in his mouth. Wives' tales ! And yet the man who laughs at them May be more fooled than he for whom they're truth : We can't tell what is going on at all. I have known dawns when the earth, the trees and grasses, Seem as they'd drifted here out of strange travel, And all the creatures like the crew of a ship Late from seeing marvels, and daring not To speak of them. What's to be made of that ? And what does my heart make of you, my adder ? Worship ! why not ? Why not worship the evil in this beast Since, while it has its evil, I am pure ? That evening, when I knelt in agony Here, and the Lord relieved me of my sins, I was like one has suddenly slipt a burden ; And childishly, amazedly, I lookt To find that bulk of sin : and there, in the box, 28 The Adder Coiled and sleeping, the adder ! Then I knew What God had done for me ! My sins, that could not be destroyed, had past Into the adder : I was pure as the sun : There all my evil lay, hid in the adder ! Ay, creeping danger, were you curst before Or not, is nothing to me : but now I can Exult over you, greatly exult ! For now Iniquity you are, iniquity, And my iniquity ! God has anointed with my wrong your head ; And it is mine, this jagged blasphemy Scribbled along your back : my sins that weigh Your body flat, my malice in your eyes ; That flickering tongue has spoken in my heart : O, do you hiss ? Ay, that's my hate of God Shifted on you, fastened into your mind. And I do right to worship you, my sins, Nay, my salvation ! And not I alone, Adder, am safe by what I see in you ! For while God keeps my sins close shut and bound In this cold thing, how can they visit her, My daughter ? 29 The Adder (It is almost dark. SETH is croucht brooding over the box. Without seeing him, NEWBY and a girl come in.) THE GIRL. O, but there's no one here. NEWBY. Hullo, where's he gone ? He won't be long away. Come, sit you down. GIRL. I've not been out of doors in the dark before. What are they doing, all these things ? Asleep ? I think they're wide awake, for all their quiet, Waiting for us to leave them. What will they do, I wonder, when they have the woods to themselves ? NEWBY. Aren't you the lass that's never heard of the devil ? (SfiTH suddenly and angrily leaps up before them.) SETH. Leave her alone, you old limb of the fiend ! Be off, or by the living God, I'll kill you, Old wickedness ! (NEWBY slinks off from his rage.) (To the girl.) What are you doing here ? GIRL. But is there any harm in coming out ? Let me stay with you, father ! 30 The Adder SETH (grim). Yes, my girl, You'll have to stay here now, like it or not. Under my eyes you're safe. GIRL. Why, how you quiver ! Tell me, is he a wicked man, that fellow ? SETH. Ay, one of Satan's own. What do you mean By coming here ? GIRL. I was tired of the house ; And there were thoughts plaguing me like midges. O, I wish I'd known that was a wicked old man ! SETH (in fear). What ? What's behind this ? GIRL. I might have had Something from him I want. I suppose, father, You aren't a wicked man ? SETH (roughly taking her arm). Give me your meaning, And no more foolery. GIRL. Why, but that's it ! I don't know even what my meaning is. Have you seen flowers grown in a cellar ? SETH. Well ? The Adder GIRL. How can they know there is a sun outside ? Yet the pale leaves they have, show they can tell They're cheated out of something. So am I ! Pm cheated. There's a brave colour growing some- where, And I know naught of it, but that my life Has been shut off from it, somehow. Father, sins Are scarlet, are they not ? SETH (scared). Sins ? What do you know Of sins ? GIRL. Why, there again ! I know nothing. I'm like those cellar plants, fooled and cheated. SETH. Satan has had your ear, girl. GIRL (simply). No, father ; No one has told me this ; I just feel it. What is this evil, then ? SETH. Darling, don't ask ! GIRL. Do you not know it either ? Listen, then. Once to our door, on a cold and drenching day, A halt old tramping beggar-woman came, Her lean form lapt in a shabby duffel cloak Tattered with going through the weather, stained With dirt and wear. But when she turned away 32 The Adder I saw that, on the back of her poor cloak, Was a great patch of scarlet cloth stitcht on ; And as she limped off through the rain, indeed That old grey cloak had something fine about it, She 'Id have some pride in wearing it ! And then, I overheard my aunt once muttering " Our sins are scarlet ! " Scarlet ! That was a wonderful thing for me to hear ! And all at once I seemed to be wearing life Like a beggarly cheap cloak : and some know how To clout their drab stuff with a gaudypatch ! Scarlet ! Why, scarlet is for fire ; and look how mild The green and blue and common brown of earth Seem when the day ends in a scarlet light ! Scarlet ! I think it is a kind of power. And blood is scarlet ! Do you know what I did ? I took a thorn and scored my arm, and watcht The blood come beading, loving the colour of it. But then I cried ; for what's the good of blood So shining scarlet, if life takes nothing from it, But I had heard my aunt speak of a thing c 33 The Adder That can in life be scarlet ; and it must be A thing of power and pride. Why don't I know it ? SETH. O God, is this Thy punishment at last ? (He looks round wearily. Then -whispering fiercely) Into the hut ! Quick, into it, and stay hid ! Do you hear me, girl ? (Seizing a stick and threatening her.) Enough trifling ! In there, till I let you out. ( The girl yields frightened ; he pushes her in, and she is not seen. It is quite dark. A pause. Then the SQUIRE saunters in.) SQUIRE. Who's this chap ? Burning charcoal, by the smoke. Is it anyone I know ? (Peering close at SETH.) Yes : and your name is somewhere in my mind. SETH. 'Tis Seth, sir. SQUIRE. I have you ! Seth ! The shame of the parish, Seth ! Ah, but you've lapsed since then. Indeed, I know It is not everyone can keep it up : I'll not reproach you. I suppose you are 34 The Adder Still the reformed lecher ? And do you still Strictly ride your flesh with a martingale ? SETH (giggling). Good even, sir. Yes, thank you, sir, I'm doing pretty well. SQUIRE. Let's talk a little : for what you were you are, However sadly changed, and so we're equals : Lechery is the one thing makes men equal. So come, man to man, lecher to lecher, Let us be honest no one can overhear Let's have it out. Is it worth it, Seth ? Ay, there's the point for both of us. For me, Is it worth while keeping hard at the game ? And then, for you, quite on the contrary, Is it worth while to switch yourself from one Simply to fiddle in another game ? SETH. A game ? Ha, ha ! That's good, sir ! Yes, a game ! SQUIRE. Yes, but I reckon you're no happier In your new game than I am in my old. So here's the point : is your religion worth To you more than my lechery's worth to me ? I'll tell you what I think, Seth. 35 The Adder They're both worth mighty little, mighty little : They've both the worth of diseases, no, they're both A living man's misery about death. Well, we can't help ourselves. To every man His own game ; a man's pleasure is his fate. But I shan't follow you : for in your style There's this offends me. If there's a thing I hate It is these travelling menageries : To see a couple of rusty string-halt geldings Tugging a square-walled cover 'd truck through mud, And to know that, crampt within that clumsy waggon, Lumbering, jolting, unlit, airless, lie Lions, Sahara lions ! And in you Once there were lions, Seth, the lions of sin ; Mangy, perhaps, but still lionish voices. And now you've shut your sins up in a box SETH (startled). A box ? SQUIRE. Yes, in a dirty travelling cage ; You sit on the shafts, and a miserable gelding You call religion, draws you through the world ; A creaking, groaning pace ! And after you 36 The Adder You drag, lockt in a cruel narrow den Those sins had such a free life in you once. Seth, I could never do that ! Something there was The keeper told me about you. Was it poaching ? No, no ; The jackals are all penned up with the lions. What was it now ? I laughed at it. Ah, yes. They say you've got your daughter back. SETH. Who? I? I have no daughter, sir. SQUIRE. What, is she dead ? SETH. I mean she does not live with me, you know. My sister keeps her ; a strong-minded woman, Won't let me see the girl. SQUIRE. Surely I heard Your sister is dead. SETH. O no ! There's a mistake ! I saw her Tuesday last O quite alive. SQUIRE (yawning). So am I, God be curst. Seth, I can feel Your eyes glooming upon me through the darkness. What, you, the leaky pipkin that has lost, 37 176586 The Adder Through flaws, the burning liquor trusted to you, You will be pitying me, a vessel sound And perfect, that has never lost a drop Of the bright wrathful wine I am charged to carry ? What's this thin vinegar that is in you now, The cracks of you caulked with charitable clay, That makes you dare be proud above me, me Brimmed with the ancient vintage I have kept Faithfully mellowing, till I am soaked through With the power of it, with the scarlet fire of it ? (The girl comes out of the hut.) A girl ! A young girl ! My Satan, you begin to weary me. The skill's too noticeable ; you would catch me Easier, if you fumbled a few tricks. Well, who are you this time ? GIRL. I am his daughter. SQUIRE. Aha ! Let's have a look at you. (He strikes a match and studies her face.) Seth, Seth, Would you have kept this from me ? She's the sort One dreams of. But it always comes to this : Religion takes all comradeship from a man. 38 The Adder His daughter, are you ? Then I hope you are The daughter of his wickedness ; that should make you Full of sin as a hive is full of honey. GIRL. I cannot say, sir ; for I don't know at all What sin may be. But I know well there is Something sealed up within me, in my heart, I think ; and it is troubling for its freedom. SQUIRE. Very likely ; and I should say will still Go on kicking and bothering in your heart Unless you help it out. Then, you will find, The grub will hatch into that notable fly Naughtiness ! GIRL. You speak kindly ; will you not help me ? If you saw the Morecambe tide chase a lame man, You on a horse, would you not give him help ? I am a kind of cripple ; and I loathe The plight I'm in. Lift me out of it ! Do let me coax you. Tell me about sin ! For I will get to know. SQUIRE. Are you a fool, Or making a fool of me ? GIRL. It's I've been fooled. 39 The Adder SQUIRE. Seth, you don't seem to be amused at this. GIRL. I heard you say the word ; scarlet, you said ; There is something in you that you feel like scarlet. Is that not sin ? So tell me what sin is. SQUIRE. No, no, no, no ! Satan, it will not do, The show runs far too smoothly, far too like What my desires expect. Somehow, at last Mere skill becomes disgusting. Even a cook Who gives me always everything I want Turns out an odious person. So, my dear, You come so apt, just as my hunger woke, And are so thoroughly spiced with what I want, That I will bid you a good night. GIRL. O, sir, You will not learn me this ? SQUIRE. Why, no, not now ; But I dare say the mood will change : we'll try Some day, if we can find out what sin is. (He looks at her a moment, and then goes abruptly.) 40 The Adder GIRL (dancing round the stack) : O life of mine, I shall love you yet : We shall be changed, my life and I. Dancing will no more be a game Played to pretend we're hearing a tune. There will be singing of tunes enough, To make us dance when we know it not : They'll be living within us, the tunes, Water of brooks in spring for happiness, Scarlet fire for power and pride. SETH (seizing her by the arm as she passes him) : Do you see that stack ? GIRL (breathless). It's only a pile of wood. SETH. Ay, in the dark, that's what it seems ; but listen ! Within it there's a heart, a smouldering heart, Fire is smothered there. GIRL. And smothered in me. SETH. And I'll keep it so ! For look, if I Broke through the sheathing turf and thatch of boughs, And left it open, the hidden fire would come Fiercely darting out on us, turning the whole The Adder Stack, and the whole of the woods, to bellowing flame, No one could quench. GIRL (breaking away). And I shall be alive, Alive in the manner of scarlet and golden flame. SETH (gripping her again) : Listen, my father, climbing on a stack Like this one, to be tending it, trod through The turf and branches, and the fire caught him And charred him to the knees . Girl , there are hearts , Unsafe as heaps of dried wood, and within Mined by eating fires. And I, your father, Worse than my father fared ; for into the hot Heart of my heart I broke, and I was caught, The whole of me, in the blazing rage of hell. And as my heart is, so is yours ; a thing To choke and stifle ; or, once set it free, The flaming of your heart will seize you and Everlastingly burn you. GIRL. This is talk I can make nothing of. Who would refuse A splendid thing ? I know there is a power Can make my life seem as if it were scarlet. 42 The Adder And it is like to fire, you say. Why, then, That is the splendour 1 have dreamt about ; What should I do refusing it ? What gain Choking it down, but the old dull want I have ? SETH. Watch now, while I kick a hole in the stack. Do you mark the glowing danger, the red lust Biding within ? See, all the dark's ashamed That such hot mischief lights it up. A sod Plugs the hole now ; but had I left it open, The stack were gone in a ravage of wild flame. You've lookt into your heart now : are you not feared ? GIRL. 1 say, I can make nothing of this. My heart ? Is my heart stored with such a glowing light ? And I must be afraid of it ? I will not ! But if this power is in me, it shall burn To freedom, yes, and fill me with the burning. SETH. O girl of mine, if you knew how I loved you ! Promise me now, you won't go near the Squire. GIRL. Why not ? SETH. Darling, believe me ! O, he would 43 The Adder Treat you fiendishly, God, and laugh to do it ! GIRL. Father, let's have this out. What right have you To cheat me of a knowledge all folks have ? Is it for sin that my heart so desires ? SETH. It cannot be that ; no, it cannot be that. GIRL. So then what harm in finding what sin is ? SETH. Yes, it is sin you want ! But stifle it. GIRL. And why ? And why ? You cannot show me that. I tell you I mean to find this out ! SETH (letting her go and standing bemused) : What do I, fighting with the evil heart She has from me ? If God has any mercy He'll fight it down in her now, once and for ever. You 'Id know what sin is ? Well, I can tell you. GIRL. You can, father ? SETH. The very spirit of sin I can show r you ; for I have it with me. Show it you ? You can handle it, play with it. GIRL. Where have you got it ? SETH. Here, in the midst of us. 44 The Adder GIRL. 'Tis something I can touch ? SETH. Come you and try. Bend down. Do you see ? It is in here I keep it. Undo the sneck of the lid, put in your hands, And grope, search it thoroughly. GIRL. In this box ? SETH (over her). Lord, I perceive you will not let my sins Go past her. There is no escape for her But through my torments ; but, O God, my sins Will come too strong upon her ; and already Her blind heart fills with longing for my evil. Give her the whole of it now, O Lord my God ! Satisfy all her longing at once ; and let The evil which her hands discover, Lord, Be death ! GIRL. Ah, it is wet, no, but how cold ! (She cries out.) O, I am bitten, father. There is some anger Hid in your box. And it has bitten me. SETH. Show me. Let's have some light. (He makes a small hole in the stack. The red glare again leaps out.) 45 The Adder Ay, on the wrist. Both fangs right on a vein. They must have sunk Up to the gums in her flesh. GIRL. Shall I suck the bite ? SETH (seizing her arm). No need : sit down by me, and keep you quiet. How does your arm feel ? GIRL. Strangely : very numb And as if 'twere swoln. SETH. Cold ? GIRL. Icy : is it all right ? SETH. All right, darling. GIRL (struggling a little). Why must you hold my arm ? SETH. 'Tis better so. Bide you still awhile. Very soon it will be in the heart of her. (He plugs up the hole in the stack.) (Darkness.) CURTAIN. The Staircase A small room in an empty cottage, without furniture. Stone floor ; dirty ragged paper on walls. The room is littered with bits of sawn wood, shavings, tools ; a joiner's frail lies on the floor. Door to the open air on right ; in the back wall an old kitchen range, with a good fire burning. A young joiner is alone in the room ; he has been putting in a new staircase, which is all but finished ; the new wood, clean and white, shows up amid the dingy room. The JOINER (looking at his work : in a sort of chant) Hammer and nails, gimlet and screws, Bradawl, chisel, mallet and plane, A will to work, and health in my thews, And season'd wood of a good clean grain Shaping under my hands and skill, And obeying my master-will . . . (Speaking) D 49 The Staircase And I alone : that's the best of it here. These book-read folks won't beat that song of mine, I warrant. I'll have a right tune for it some day : Hammer and nails, gimlet and screws, Bradawl, chisel, mallet and plane, A will to work . . . (The outer door is pusht open, and a woman comes in, tired and worn, wet through, with a long shabby cloak on her. She stands a moment gazing round the room.) WOMAN. Alone ? Was it you buzzing to yourself I heard ? Grumbling for company ? (The young man stares at her and answers mechanically.) JOINER. For company ? Fid liever keep to myself. WOMAN. Dreaming aloud, then ? Ay, cleverest thing To do against the world, for sure, is dreaming. But it needs shelter. Well, go on dreaming. 50 The Staircase I'll borrow your warmth awhile ; the drench of the rain Is dribbling down my skin inside my clothes Cold as worms. (She sits by the fire, opens her cloak, and shows she is holding a baby. She begins to suckle it.) JOINER. You've got a baby ! WOMAN. Well done, young man ! You know a thing or two : a baby it is. Finish your job, and I'll keep on at mine. JOINER. I'm all but done here now. WOMAN. What were you at ? JOINER. Framing the new stairs. Are you travel- ling ? WOMAN. Travelling and travelling ; still walk- ing. JOINER. A strange place for you to be walking, here. WOMAN. I'll swear to that : strange and miser- able. Not such another road in Christendom The Staircase For wind that's carrying a cruel rain To get the better of your heart. JOINER. I mean, The road goes nowhere, but to these few huts That stick against the hillside. WOMAN. I know that Now I am here I know it. But at least The road has brought me to your fire. Young man, Why do you stare so ? Do you know my face ? You don't belong here ? JOINER. Five miles off I live. WOMAN. Ah . . . (Her talk seems meant to cover some feeling.) They are pretty work, your stairs : They look too white in this curst filthy room ; Like a mind where the dirty world has lived and slept, But still remembering in midst of the soil Some childish morning spent in games and laughter Under a blowing orchard. (As he is still silent.) Ay, queer to find fresh work in such a place. Is the house set then to a new-comer ? 52 The Staircase Who will first climb your stairs ? A girl, maybe, Upon her wedding night. She'll slip away From off her husband's knees, and dance up swift, Giggling shy and happily afraid, And the house falls quiet of their talk ; and then The old joists creak as she moves in her undressing ; Then the lad slinks up after, like a robber. JOINER. It's strange ! A little while before you came, It was with just that fancy I was idling. WOMAN. I warrant, you yourself were the lad, then. JOINER (simply). Yes. WOMAN. And the girl ? JOINER. I don't know rightly WOMAN. Which to choose ? JOINER. O long ago I made my choice : and yet I have not seen her. WOMAN (after a little pause). I could dream once myself. (Then amused at his simplicity.) But will you know her ? What would you say if I Went up those stairs of yours ? 53 The Staircase JOINER (startled, staring at her). You ? You ? I did not think you were putting fun upon me. WOMAN (looking back at him with amused bitterness). Indeed, you are in the right : I am naught to visit a young man's dreams. But I was gibing at myself, not you : I mind my manners : beggars thrive by them. JOINER (gently). Are you begging your way ? WOMAN. Yes ; I want food. JOINER. If you'll come home with me WOMAN. Five miles away ! No, I will warm myself, and something dry The heavy moisture that has made my skirts Rasp the skin off my ankles. Were the old stairs Rotten past mending ? JOINER. Crumbling into holes. No nature left in the wood but must and dry-rot : I knockt 'em into powder. The old man, Who lived here by himself, was coming down, And caught his heel at top ; the tread broke through, Tript his footing WOMAN (repressing eagerness). And he hurt him- self ? 54 The Staircase JOINER. Smasht his wicked old back bone. WOMAN. Why, you seem To hate the man. JOINER. A gallows snarling tyke. WOMAN. What had you against him ? JOINER. He would have known what If I'd had chance to bring his wicked blood Blushing about his ears. WOMAN. There's a bold fellow ; To wish he could have boxt an old man's ears ! JOINER. No ; but I would have had such words for him, His wizened heart had been ashamed. WOMAN. Why, then, Happen the old man might have boxt your ears ! JOINER. Ay, have your game with me : but if he'd been A giant with a rage like a burning demon's, I would have faced his wildness. WOMAN. Well, he's dead, And talk's an easy thing. But I've heard tell For on the road, young man, your ears find out 55 The Staircase Noises from every corner in the land I've heard he was a terrible fierce old fellow. JOINER. Likely enough. You 'Id hear, too, of the scoundrel thing he did Upon his daughter : you could scarce miss that ; The villainous sound of it must be ranging still. WOMAN. But what seems loud to you among these hills, And a rough splash in a quiet creek of life, Will hardly push a little shaking whisper Into the air of the broad troubled world. Was it a pretty wench ? JOINER. Why, you'ld be bound, If she were here, to think there's none in all The room of the land could show their beauty off, But only as lighting matches in the sun. WOMAN. I would be bound to think so ! JOINER. Yes : she 'Id come, Like you, suppose now, out of the windy rain ; She 'Id have been tussling with its force against her Like a young girl laughing with her brother Because he plays mock-ruffian ; and the game Would shine still in her eyes as she came in ; 56 The Staircase And she 'Id be walking lightly with the glee Would seem to sing in her body, all so thrilled From the wind's pouring through her dress. It would Be strange to see her, a strange and lovely thing To see her coming back here after all. WOMAN (laughing). This is a wonder ! And so she's your fancy, The girl so friendly to your loneliness ! I'll hurt myself with laughing ! This is the girl Who slipt away from whispering in the firelight To run with pretty laughter up your stairs ? JOINER. Well, if she is ? WOMAN. Isn't it queer you know Just how the girl would look ? JOINER. I'ld swear to her ! WOMAN. And it's a minute gone, you said your eyes Had never lived upon her ! JOINER. You've made me a fool now, I suppose. You're welcome. But I was bound to talk so, being so long Here in the house, that somehow must, I'm sure, 57 The Staircase Remember her the timber and the stone That felt the sound of her laughter and her ways WOMAN. O let's have little of that. Why did you play This lying game on me ? JOINER (amazed). Why did I play ? WOMAN (standing up). Lies ! Lies ! What were all your lies for ? JOINER (catching her anger). How will a roadster know the lies from truth, Who has to lie for her eating, lie for her lodging, And the whole gear of her life is lies ? WOMAN. It's true : We lie for needs : you for a fleering scoff. JOINER. You've had no harm from me ; and let your tongue Make sure of this, so long as we're in talk : This girl, and the way the thought of her has grown Within my brain O, like rivers pouring Full from the flooded hills, WOMAN. You'll lose yourself Bragging her up so handsome ; I'll help you out : This is the thing you mean ? 58 The Staircase It would be like a hand with grimy fingers Meddling in the fine make of a clock, to let Talk common as mine touch your fancying That goes so smooth and chimes to you so dainty. Well, I'll believe 'tis fancies, and not lies : But I must have my laugh at them. JOINER. Yes, laugh, laugh ; It's pretty joking. There's a girl grows up Beautiful and sweet hearted : and there comes A rogue sneaking into her innocence, Wheedling and living there ; and she, dear fool, Comforting him ; and he blabbing abroad The simple way her love had askt him in. WOMAN. Did he do that ? JOINER. Yes, such a blackguard he was. But how would a girl so happy know his mind Was just a muddy puddle ? She 'Id only see The face of her own love there, looking back. WOMAN. The pitiful fool. Ah, but it's fools you like. JOINER. You 'Id like the folk who went about to stir That wild brute of anger in her father, 59 The Staircase And pitcht their buzzing jeers just loud enough To startle it, and make it savage her. They quickly had him crazed. Soon as he hears The village sniggering its dirty gossip, And knows his daughter's come to trouble and danger WOMAN. Through being a pitiful fool JOINER. He thrashes her, Thrashes her, and rails her out of the house, Childing as she was : and heavily To trudge after the slinking runagate Who fouled her, the poor lass must go alone. Five years ago it would be. O, if I'd heard, She need not have gone crying into hiding ! And lightly I learnt the tale of it all at first : But it slipt over my mind like a noosed wire That snares a rabbit's neck, and the peg fails, And puss goes free : the gin has not left go, But tightens still and cankers into her life. Just so the story of how they shamed the girl Clung like a loop of wire and gnawed its hold Upon my mind : whenever I work alone, I'm thinking of the world breaking her spirit, 60 The Staircase And turning into misery the heart That was so blithe and singing. Well, here's for you to laugh at. Why don't you laugh ? WOMAN. I'm thinking of that old man, left alone With shame upon his age, and dying alone. JOINER. And she has none to think of her but me ! Even the thought of kindness keeps itself Safe from a life like hers, as rats will jump In harbour from a boat fierce weather has strained. WOMAN. Somebody told you that too ? You have the brave life, always among notions ! But you're not fair to rats. What have they done That you should liken them to charity ? This would be better : Vermin crawling out From the clothes of a beggar's corpse, soon as they feel The warmth of their lodging chill. I have not lived In notions, but in seeing things ; that's one : Cold morning, a white road, and at the side A tramp lies dead of starving, and all round him . . . Ugh ! (Her voice begins to accuse him.) And I've a mind to stop you cockering 61 The Staircase Your halfling blood. What right have you to be So brave and comfortable with your dreams Of that lost fool you always in a house While she, the truth of them, goes broad awake In agony ? JOINER. Wouldn't I do her all The good a man can think of ? Why must you gibe ? It's only that she's gone, she's never heard of. WOMAN. She might come back. JOINER. Be sure I'll know of it. WOMAN. Yes, I believe you will. Then what will you do with her ? JOINER. What's that to you ? WOMAN. Why, I should know what you will do with me. Come now ; you must have thought it out. JOINER. With you ? You mean . . . ? Are you for fooling me again ? WOMAN. And bitter fooling now. I am the girl. JOINER. You're not. You can't be. Often I've heard tell 62 The Staircase WOMAN. Of pretty looks and laughing ways. Five years Of following a tramping labourer Will alter that. This baby's not the first, The other two are dead. And I've been chapt, And I've been tired out, and clemm'd and burnt With walking through the winds and the hot days ; It's just a frame I am beneath my clothes. You made your fancy of my spirit breaking ; The fancy would have been too wise to live If it had heeded how my body fared Out there on the road, ageing and grieving. Wonderful, isn't it, how dreams come true ? JOINER. You're clever with your wiles. You've tript me up Once already ; but I'm not caught this time. WOMAN. Ay, but you are ; you're trapt and floundering. Listen : I'll prove myself. What would bring me here ? The road ends in the nowhere of the hills ; A blind man's feet could tell that from the ruts 63 The Staircase And the sward that's all across it. Why should I come Such an unlikely way, with hunger on me No longer anguish, but a load, a load ? I came to find my father. O my pride I've eaten long since ; and poor meat it was, No stay in it for me or for my bairn. I thought my dad might pay a shilling or two For the sight of me still in my misery ; Or maybe only a morsel ; that would do Stop me starving my baby. Nowhere else Dare we be asking, or chance showing ourselves ; For we go cunning as stoats, my man and 1 : Anyone looking at us may be the law. JOINER. You're escaping the law ? It was not you, I'll vow, that did the wrong. WOMAN. I did my share. You mind these rick-fires, kept the nights aglow For near a week, until the rain set in ? It might have been the nights they have in the north Among the foundries, where they smelt the iron, And furnaces keep glaring at the clouds The Staircase Till it's like red-hot weather above the darkness. I reckon we had you watching the sky ! Each night A blazing rick, ten or twelve miles from the last ! He swore he 'Id rouse the land. No one at all Would give us jobs a tramp and his homeless doxy. And a queer time I had with him and his fists ; Till the rage seemed to addle in his brain, And he could think of naught but stacks to fire. But he'll be tried for blood as well as burning, If it's the truth we heard. A shippen caught And sent the blaze along its thatch to the house ; And in the scare there was a child forgot That slept alone in the attic. Well, my boy Is like to be clemm'd for his death : it's all one, Hunger and cold, or fire. I hope the lad Was stifled first, though ; I've been praying that. JOINER. And it's you telling me this, as calm as news Of prices at the market ! WOMAN. Now do you see ? I've put myself clean into your mercy. Would I have riskt your mind, without I were Your own fine dream rousing you into daylight ? E 65 The Staircase This takes you down from your fool'd life, I think ! So will you give us up, my man and I ? He's known for his talk : there'll be a cry abroad After us, I'll be bound. You'll not, I know ; Because I am your lovely dream come true. Surely 'tis time you were pleased. JOINER. O let me be ! Give me a little while to breathe myself. WOMAN. Indeed It goes up hill, out of a dream to truth. But I've come down a little ; I thought to find My old angry father ; and I find you ! Now, are we right yet ? Or shall I tell you where The stairs were rotted worst ? Third from top : Half of it flimsy and soft as blanket, half Gaping open. JOINER. Ay, there the old brute tript. WOMAN. And with him died our last poor chance of food. We'd best be off now, baby. (But she makes no attempt to go. A short pause ; then she laughs.) 66 The Staircase JOINER. Will you forgive me ? WOMAN. What, for making me Your fancy game ? I've had worse things to carry. JOINER. O make an end of that talk ! It's the truth I have at last, after all my dreaming. WOMAN. I'll lay, it seems like when they scorch a pig After a killing ! Rubbish of straw and waste Flares high and bold in a wind of golden flame And streaking sparks a young man's mind of fancies. Then 'tis a mound of smoulder, crumbling in To show parcht awkward trotters sticking up, Flap ears and senseless snouted head, and all The poor pig's blacken 'd hulk : and there's the truth Was hid inside a young man's burning dreams ! Well, I am not the sop I was ; there is A dry side to me now. So I'll be kind And take the truth I am out of your sight. JOINER. I let you go ? You think that's likely yet ? WOMAN (uneasy). Are you for doing like the fool shown up The Staircase Who braves his folly out by staying in it ? JOINER. You shall stay in it, too ! It goes up hill, You said, the way out of my dream ; up hill And the sun behind the hill ! And now I've climbed Where nothing stops the light, not even dreams. We'll not get higher than this, either of us. If we can't hold now to our meeting here, Here on the top of life, where every side Is a slope falling, 'tis for both of us, From this on, going downward into shadows, Never again to be in sight or hail. WOMAN. If I'm not gone quickly, we're both in danger. JOINER. Will you not dare believe my meaning ? WOMAN. No. I'll only think, " Suppose, suppose he meant it ! " JOINER. Why, we're awake, and the dream still crying aloud ! WOMAN. You close your mind to it. No hurt in dreams : But this that sounds so drawing safer would be 68 The Staircase A viper hissing. 'Tis the truth of the world Persuading you to come into its reach. JOINER. And the sound's drawing you ! WOMAN. O, I must hear Everything I have lost everything That is not the old cunning torturer, The world's merciless truth ! You 'Id never keep me Safe from the world in hiding of your dreams ; The world would come for me, and strike you there. I to be looking for a dream again, And you for truth to please you like your dreams It would be a wild-hearted game to play ! JOINER. I did not mean it for a game, the while I've been as good to my mind as to the steel I work with, all for the sake of finding you : Rusted metal, you know, may be wrought clean As glass, but the rust lies within, for ever Spoiling the finest temper. WOMAN. Can you not see The rust of the world has eaten to my heart ? The Staircase JOINER. Can you not see that my main life has been Knowing of you held by the handling world All as it likes, and I the one to wring The vile grasp off from you ? Don't make my life Break its promise to me, so nearly kept ! I have gone hungry for this hour. WOMAN. And I, Have I not hunger 'd ? Thank your God you kept Your hunger empty. I famisht, and was fed On filthy poison, worse than being starved. I never thought to have a mind again That need not be ashamed of being alive ! You do not mean I should love you ? JOINER. No, no ; We are not bargaining. WOMAN. I doubt I could not, Even if I were wishing to. Listen to me. Think God is eyeing you, And tell me fairly, 'tis a man's set mind You have to help me. JOINER. I'll make you another life ! 'Tis your say now. 70 The Staircase WOMAN. Sometimes it might be, In the hot dusty drouth of afternoon, We 'Id pass a byre, and hear the milkers chat, Girls laughing, and spirted milk ring in the cans. Or plodding stupidly on in windy dark, Our steps would sound against a cottage wall Sleeping beside the lane : Fid lean on it ; Warmth would be in it ; I 'Id think of a drowsy fire Inside the house, and hear the crickets chime. Young man, I'll risk you ! Let us be off, quick, Else he'll be coming in on us. JOINER. He ? Who ? WOMAN. The man that was my man. JOINER. He's nothing now. WOMAN. He was my man. JOINER. No need to think of him. I've naught to say but thank you. WOMAN. Thank me ? JOINER. Yes ! Now I've a thing to do at last. WOMAN. But you, Never you look to have me thanking you ; For that might set me telling what I've been, The Staircase The shame I have been, the dirt ! You must not know it. (With a gesture.) O but if there is something in the world That can do good, and listens when 'tis called, I shall be asking it to stay with you ; You have made room for me where never again I thought to live. It goes beyond my thanks. JOINER. There's stumbling outside, coming up the path. WOMAN. We should have gone before this ! 'Tis my man. (The TRAMP comes in.) TRAMP. Now where 's the food ? WOMAN. My father's dead, they tell me. TRAMP . I don't want your father ; I 'm for eating. You said there 'Id be food here. WOMAN. 'Tis not my fault ; How could I know if he were gone or living ? TRAMP. O, you keep on like a parrot. Food's the thing. WOMAN. A thing you'll have to walk some further for. 72 The Staircase TRAMP. Why did you turn us here ? To play hot-cockles Safe with a lad ? JOINER (to the WOMAN). You're not to talk with him. TRAMP. Not talk ? She'll have to talk about the food She made out we 'Id be having here. Where is it ? WOMAN. Are you fuddled ? There's none here. TRAMP. None, by God ! Not a bite ? WOMAN. Not a bite. TRAMP (going towards her). Then take your lesson ! You'll feel my ten commandments now : you'll learn The way of them by heart. (The woman, standing up, instinctively picks up the baby and holds it as her protection.) Lay the brat down ! Put down that bastard, or he'll grow up lame As you'll be when I've done you. (She lays the baby down and faces him.) Ay, that's wiser : 73 The Staircase You mind what came of that trick once ? And now I'll twinge your arm till it crackles. WOMAN. No, not that ! JOINER. I've payed out rope enough. I'll fasten it now Taut, and you've hung yourself. Round on your heels And out of doors ! TRAMP. This isn't your ado ; Keep out. JOINER. You march now : I'll not bid you again. TRAMP. Have I to down you first before I tan My woman ? Do you call that fair ? It's low. I'm hunger-starved and done just enough heart Left in me for lathering her ; and you Push in, you with your belly crammed and good : It's low ! Stand off and be an Englishman. JOINER. You're too long standing. Will you have your teeth So quaked in your head, you'll never chew again Happily ? Off out of this ! TRAMP (half whimpering with weakness and anger). Mate, fair play. 74 The Staircase Too bad it is. She cheats me of a meal And should be taught right. Ay, and you 'Id have seen, If she had kept her word and found me meat, I am a man when I'm fed could do for you And lick her finely as well out of her lies : A job for each hand that. But now There's nothing fair in the world, after this ! JOINER. You'll have it then ? TRAMP (in a rage). And empty as I be I'll match you : win or lose, she'll pay me for it When we're alone. WOMAN (looking out through the open door). Have you been showing yourself ? TRAMP (apprehensive at once). What is it now ? WOMAN. Three men, mighty cautious, And almost here. TRAMP. They'll not find me. (Making for the door.) WOMAN. You fool, They're right in front. TRAMP. You bitch, you have me trapt ! 75 The Staircase I will need to go into hard training If I'm to pay you the fair price for this ! WOMAN. Ay, shout to them " Here's your man ! " TRAMP. What will I do ? Up the stairs and out of a window and off, That's my road. (He goes upstairs.) WOMAN. There's the first to take your stairs ! JOINER. And a good use for them ; it quits us of him. (Three Men come in i, 2, & 3.) 1 . Ay, there he is ! 2. The man ! 3. The very man ! 1 markt him well, nosing the taproom whiff Beside the door, and fearing to go in. 1 . You see his cunning ? 2. Why, he's washt his face ! 3 . 'Tis that ! I thought he lookt another man ! i. But not this way you'll put off eyes like ours. WOMAN. O will they take him ? I'd not plotted that ! 76 The Staircase JOINER. Ay, the thing plans itself, once we can hold Their crazy pother. WOMAN. Keep them blundering A while, a little while ! 2. We'll have to go Carefully about him. 3 . Ay, 'tis a face With gallows in it. When I saw him leant Beside the taproom door, with his eyes cadging, I thought, " There's a slaughtering visnomy ! " 1. I've no notion at all of seeing him hanged For murdering me. 2. Young fellow, own to yourself ! You're the rick-burner. 3. Ay, and he burnt a lad. JOINER. Do hold your blathering a bit and hear me. Or if you won't, see this. (Holding up a hammer.) 1 . He means battery ! 2. Dreadful things can be done with a hammer. 3. When he That uses it is wild and knows the way Through your skull and into your brain. 77 The Staircase JOINER. Do stop ! I am the joiner here. Yonder's my work, The staircase. And the man you want has bolted Up to the loft, and you have him caged and safe. 1 . Are there weapons upstairs ? JOINER. Go on and take him. The room's bare boards and walls, and he's as weak With famishing as a fly. 2. Well, if you're sure You're not the man 3. No, no ; I saw right off He had the look of someone else. i (Marshalling them at the staircase). Now for it ! 2. Mind the reward that's posted for him ! 3. Charge ! (They rush up the stairs.) JOINER. This falls out well. Here's an easy riddance, And the way smooth from here. WOMAN. Were you not told To break out larger windows in the attics ? They're cruel small ! 78 The Staircase JOINER. Cruel and small indeed To one who thinks of squeezing his escape Through any of them. But I can hear they have him. (The three men come down with the TRAMP.) i. The man for certain this time. TRAMP. Copt ! copt ! WOMAN. We couldn't flee for ever. Is it far, The way to the jail ? They'll give us food there, likely. 2 (to the WOMAN). What, are you coming too ? WOMAN. Yes, I'm coming. 3 . Were you in with his burnings ? WOMAN. They are mine As much as his. I screened his light from draughts. JOINER. He made her do it ! (to the WOMAN) There's no need for this ! TRAMP. Copt is the word ! WOMAN. And I am glad it's over. JOINER. It's over right enough ; the whole black time 79 The Staircase Is over now. Must you see him to jail ? How can you make your duty such a thing ? WOMAN. You'll never want a flatterer, young man, Not while your own tongue lives. Who said I made Going with him my duty ? i . Settle your mind And choose your man, missis : come on or stay. WOMAN. And you talk civil, mister ! Choose my man ! JOINER (to the TRAMP). You will not drag her with you ? WOMAN. O, you have Queer sense in you ! Who's dragging me at all ? JOINER (to the TRAMP). Have you not had enough of injuring her ? Go off from her at last ! TRAMP. Copt ! Fair copt ! WOMAN. Thank you for lending me your fire, young man. (To the men.) Not budging yet ? (They begin to go out.) 80 The Staircase Bless my wits, I was leaving you the brat ! Is it still raining ? I must lap him well : There is a trouble in his breath already. (When the JOINER is left alone and the door closed, the curtain comes dozen.) 81 The Deserter In front of a cottage in the country. Early morning. The door of the cottage opens and several men and women come out ; they stand talking on the flagged garden path, before they disperse. IST WOMAN. Why, it's bright morning ! IST MAN. And a fresh air 'tis ! 2ND WOMAN. Like coming out of a tunnel such a noise The night has been. IST WOMAN. And such a stifle of folk ! My head's bewilder'd. IST MAN. Wash you in the dew, The same as when you were a young thing. IST WOMAN. Nay ! I've all my age just now, and a deal more : As likely to be skittish as if I'd seen My own time dated in the almanac, As settled as the assizes. 85 The Deserter 2ND MAN (a very old man.) Well, what a mood For a fine morning ! You keep too soft a heart, A heart like dough, no sad affair can touch Without it pinches. You should have a heart Like mine, crisp as a quartern loaf new-baked With the warmth lively in it to feel the morn Kindle your senses again after you've seen Another fellow's candle-light snufTt out. IST WOMAN. Well, I'm just daunted, when I've seen death busy. 2ND MAN. And we left still alive to smell the air ! Never a death now, but I feel as if It took a parcel of years from off my back : I'll have a spine like a sapling soon. My word, This garden favours pinks ! Better than mine ! Look what a flourish of pinks ! 2ND WOMAN. When I'm to die, I'll not have windows closed and a blinded room ; I'll have the morning blow right in on me, And have some gleam of green things in my eyes. You mind, all of you : else I'll die so loud, Peter's noise would be a buzzing to it. 86 The Deserter IST WOMAN. And I'll not have my dying day a show For all the swarming neighbours. 2ND MAN (the old one.) I'll be there : I'll give you a send-off. IST WOMAN. You old jackal ! You'll have your proper gait by then ; you'll be Going about four-footed. IST MAN. You won't take, We'll hope, missis, such a wild way of dying As Peter took ; there'll be no call for us To come and manage you. 3RD MAN. I thought, one while, He 'Id fight us down. IST MAN. He gave my neck a wrench Will keep me minding him all day, poor man ; Specially as 'tis hoeing turnips for me. 2ND WOMAN. I had my mind made up and my skirts gathered To clear the stairs in a jump, and chance my legs, When he seemed freeing himself : I never saw Such vengeance in a man's eyes. IST MAN. Ay, you mean The Deserter The fit he had of taking Turpin's face For the Kayser looking in on him ? Indeed, He bounded under the clothes same as a salmon Leaping a waterfall. IST WOMAN. Anyone would suppose His glare was on some great marauding face, The picture of foreign wickedness and murder, He did take Turpin's looks to heart so bad. Yet it's a homely make of face ; you'ld say, Surely, if there's plain English anywhere, It's Turpin's face. 3RD MAN (Turpin). Never you mind my looks. IST MAN. Peter minded them, worse than a slug minds salt : A glance of you made him a foaming man. " I'll give you Belgium," says he : and I'm sure He 'Id have had Turpin's face ript from his head If I'd been slack a jiffy. 2ND WOMAN. Then 'twas hell : Hell was under the bedstead, burning for him. IST WOMAN. You could nigh see the flames come groping up, He dodged them so. The Deserter 2ND MAN (the old one). But what is hell for him now, Is thinking of us alive with the sun in our eyes, And air and the taste of morning in our mouths ; And me noting the larkspurs and the lupins, And how I beat him there, for all his pinks Do wonders thinking of this and knowing himself A dead thing from now on : that's hell, I'm sure ! IST MAN. He ought not to have gone so quick by rights ; The doctor gave him longer. 3RD MAN. He 'Id never bide By doctor's talk. " No drink " that was the word : But Peter 'Id not be meddled with, not he. 2ND WOMAN. And lying abed never to dress again He drove his wife to keep the whisky pouring A terrible foolhardy drink for him, As well he knew. IST WOMAN. Indeed, she would be driven, Poor girl, if he miscall'd her half as much As he miscall'd Jack Turpin's face to-night. The Deserter 3RD MAN (Turpiri). O let it be. IST MAN. Well, now the next affair Is breakfast, I suppose. 2ND WOMAN. Mine will be cheap. Breakfast ! when I 'Id be chawing to the din Of a dead man shouting like a monster at me : ;< I say they might as well cut off my head As do the things inside of me they're doing ! " IST WOMAN. " Catch my head," he cries to me, " catch my head : There it goes bouncing past you down the stairs, And every bump a souse of my best blood." I'll dream to-night of lobbing Peter's head Up the staircase to him on the landing : And he to catch it there and clap it down Splash on his shoulders, and grin down to me. 2ND MAN (the old one). Don't ! You will start a mischief in my brain, To rouse in the night and sneak out, filling my sleep With dreams of blood. IST WOMAN. If it's of your own blood, It will be dreams of vinegar. 2ND MAN. Be quiet ! 90 The Deserter To dream of blood would mean I'm going to die, Certain as stabbing. And I don't want to die. IST MAN. Nor I ; so let's be shambling. I'm half clemm'd. 2ND WOMAN. Ay, go about your breakfast, do ! -That's all The trouble a man has, to scoff his meals. 3RD MAN (moving off). So Peter's gone ! Gone off like gunpowder ! A flaring way to die ! IST MAN. We used to call him Old Jolly-Nose, at the inn. IST WOMAN. And you may say His best friend killed him. IST MAN. Ay, 'tis things like this Give drink a bad name . . . (They go off severally and leave the stage empty awhile.) (Presently LUTHER strolls in : he is a tall, loose-limbed, cheerful, good-natured looking man ; bearded, slovenly, somewhat older than middle-age.) 9 1 The Deserter LUTHER. Quiet, eh ? That should mean he's made his end. Now what's the mood, I wonder ? Hi ! In there ! Missis ! (A little girl runs out of the house and flings into his arms.) Why, sweetheart, you're about betimes ! Where will your mother be ? THE GIRL. Upstairs. LUTHER. Alone ? THE GIRL. I'm frightened. LUTHER. No, not frightened now ? THE GIRL. The house Has gone so quiet. LUTHER. Not frightened now, though, honey ? THE GIRL. Mother says Daddy's dead. O let's go off And play at something. LUTHER. I've a word or two First for your mother. What is she doing ? Crying? THE GIRL. Saying her prayers. LUTHER. That will not help her much. 92 The Deserter Run you and fetch her here. THE GIRL. No, no, I won't ! I'll not go into the house again. LUTHER. You shan't : An idle-witted chap I was to say it. Why, Fid not go in there myself ! So now Let's try if hollaring will bring her out. Missis ! Join in. Missis ! THE GIRL. Mother, mother ! LUTHER. We have moved something. I heard a door shut to. How would you like to have me for your daddy ? THE GIRL (reproachful, pushing away from him). O now you go and spoil it ! LUTHER. What's to do ? And you such friends with me ! THE GIRL. But if you were My daddy, you would be slapping me, I know. LUTHER. Slapping ? . . . Good God, the stuff they make men of ! No ; I can tell you, 'twill be games all day When I'm your daddy : slapping's done with now. (MARTHA comes out of the cottage door.) 93 The Deserter MARTHA. What are you putting in her mind ? LUTHER (to the GIRL). Run off. I'll find you soon. Think how '11 we'll spend the morning. Wading the stream for loaches ? THE GIRL. O yes, that ! LUTHER. Be scarce then for a while, little sweet- heart. (THE GIRL runs off.) That's an old promise. She's agog to feel Her first loach under her toes, squirming and slip- ping* Trapt on the gravel. Have no thought for her ; I'll give my day to her and keep her cheered. I'm very sure it's wrong, out-and-out wrong, To let a child be startled with the gliff Of the real thing inside our talk of death. MARTHA. So I'm to have the child against me too ? LUTHER. If I can ply you anyway with her, I'll see I have her mind and let my will Strain upon you through her : that's only sense. But she's the weakest of the ropes I've hitched About you. You are muddled, I dare say, 94 The Deserter With Peter dying ; the fuss still goes on About your wits like a flood pushing past A willow, tugging at the branches, long After it has done raining : you may forget How firm I've fastened you to what I mean. So here I've done the friendly thing, and come To give you the mere hint the ropes still hold I have had rigged about you this good while. MARTHA. 'Twas kindly thought of. LUTHER. Only a slight twitch, A tingling jerk or two : you will soon feel The purchase I have got on you. And then, Soon as the ropes begin to tell on you, You'll come my way, I hope, of your own motion, Before I need to start winding them in. MARTHA. It would be best to say out what you want. LUTHER. What I want ? Whose is that house ? MARTHA. 'Tis mine Now, I suppose. LUTHER. And I suppose it's mine. And that's the very thing the law supposes. Why, if I took your house, your traps and sticks, 95 The Deserter Everything sent you off stript like a nigger- Would that half fill, ay, or a quarter fill The rummage Peter has made in my affairs, Scattering money of mine as a terrier kicks The earth behind him, burrowing in a warren ? MARTHA. Is so much owing ? I could work it off, Maybe ; and I've some money hid. LUTHER. You've not : It is my money you've in hiding, mine. Just let me hammer that into your brain, Clean through, and rivet it on t'other side. I say you're naught, naught but body and soul, Just your own nature : all your belongings now Are packt up in your skin. There : is that clencht ? Bless you, Peter was in and out of my purse Like playing at lucky bag : half-crowns and tizzies, Ten pound notes and sovereigns all one to him. And it's all written down, what Peter fingered, Written and fairly signed fair as he could : I've seen him sign half on the paper and half On the deal table top, when he was owlish. But it's a book I have, a regular bible, The Deserter Of I O U and Peter's name O, pages ! Well : the world round about knows, and you know, My money goes from me to bring in gain. There's other gain than cash, though ; I've a mind To marry. MARTHA. You should have all there is to know Of marrying by heart. LUTHER. Why, not quite all. The twice I've married so far, you may say, Has been just doing business : good strokes, both. But too much business stiffens upon a man Till he is shell 'd tight as a tortoise : I'm strong On a man marrying once in his life at least For pleasure. And it's you I'll have for pleasure. MARTHA. And I'm a dummy in this bargain ? LUTHER. Yes : I don't see what you'ld have to say ; it's struck. But once we can look back on the deal made good, You'll find me the easiest temper in the parish ; It's just that I must have my way. MARTHA. You won't ! You sell me up and see if I care a wink ! G 97 LUTHER. I know what's speaking now ; I've a good ear : You have your fancy still for that young fellow. Well, turn it out. He's off to the war, and that Will keep him doing for a smart spell yet. You've him to thank, though, that I took this gait, Spinning my money into a tackle upon you ; I've seen him eyeing you. Well, the last knot That wanted tying was Peter's death ; so now, Shall I not start the pully-haul before Johnny comes marching home a sergeant-major ! MARTHA. I'ld laugh at this in a tale. LUTHER. What's the strange thing ? MARTHA. You so cheering yourself with wicked- ness And relishing the injuries you've done And mean to do still ; and the man you set Death tracking after, like a dog on a hare, Lying within a stride of you ! LUTHER. I set Death on his track ? MARTHA. What else was your money But death hot-foot after him ? Then to come here The Deserter With a brag about it all ! Ay, and bidding Me to stand in with you ! LUTHER. Don't make it out Such mighty news ! I dare say it has been A long time winding in and out of your thoughts, Much like a taking tune that will keep humming. Why, Peter meant it himself. MARTHA. Peter meant it ? LUTHER. We had it square as if a lawyer wrote it. He 'Id come with his palm held out, easy and brazen, The figure of churchwarden handing the plate. ' Time for another payment," he would say ; * You know the pledge ; and all I bargain for Is this : keep cool about her till I'm dead. But if you saw the years I'm going to live, You 'Id have a turn." Well, he's had the turn. Come : you are known for duty. 'Twas a good wife Who stuck so nobly to her man's dying wish For liquor : stand by him now in this thing too. MARTHA. And if he 'Id said, in one of his snarling whimsies, ;< Sup poison when I'm gone : dose yourself full 99 The Deserter Of sheep-dip," I'ld be meek about that too ? And I'ld as lief do that as go with you. LUTHER. O you're the kind for me ! Let's have a flare, Brave me ! I cannot away with quiet women ; I'm for the fire- works. I've had this to do Twice already. MARTHA. Had what to do ? LUTHER. Why, tame A woman's mind. I make no more of it Than brushing the nap of a tall hat shiny again. It seems as if there's something living in me Women have to obey. MARTHA. My mind's my own. LUTHER. Is that why you daren't look me in the face ? MARTHA. Pooh, daren't I ! LUTHER. But in my eyes ? No, that you daren't ; Dare you, Martha ? Martha, look in my eyes ! (Speaking very gently, with his hands on her shoulders.) Look in my eyes and don't blink till I tell you. 100 The Deserter Now you see how it is. You'll banter me Just as much as you please, say you ? But no ; It's just as much as I please, isn't it ? Isn't it, Martha ? Those keen scorning thoughts, It's I who let them cluster in your brain, Isn't it, Martha ? Your mind's in my grasp As if I held a dandelion-clock Before me in my fingers : one good puff, And the pretty down's adrift, loose in the air : The very way I'll scatter, when I choose, The dearest thoughts you have. Now you may blink. (Letting her go .) You saw the picture, though. MARTHA (dully). My mind's my own. LUTHER. Why, say that, if you like, over and over. But every time the words bob up to be said, Think you can see me smiling to myself, Holding a dandelion-clock before me And musing, Shall I blow ? Shall I blow now ? MARTHA. O don't ! don't ! LUTHER. And you'll remember how you lookt in my eyes : 101 The Deserter You'll feel my hands weighing on your shoulders, And you not able to blink against my gaze, And being steept in what looks out of me, Like a white cloth steeping in scarlet dye. MARTHA. I hate you : you know that. LUTHER. That's your affair. Much better love me. The thing is, you're fast, You're mine. Be sure, though, I shan't trouble you : Nor need to trouble myself. You can stay here And act the widow handsomely awhile. All you will feel will be a kind of drowze Settling down on you, gently, very gently Like sleepiness, when you're awake too long, That seems to fasten cobwebs, thousands of them, Round your limbs, softly clinging and tingling, Until the flossy threads have wound you tight, Lapt hand and foot in a cocoon as firm As rope ; and sleep can suck your spirit out. But you are the one to know, after these nights, Who wins at last, when it's a fight with sleep. Well : so you'll feel me spin my silky thought About your mind, and hold you in the end Graspt and helpless, and handling you like steel. 102 The Deserter MARTHA. Is that what those two other women felt? LUTHER. Very likely. MARTHA. And I am to be the third To go the way they went ? LUTHER. Why, yes : to church. MARTHA. To church feet foremost, yes. Where are they now ? LUTHER. Well, they are dead ; and come to think of it, Where is your husband ? And dead as my wives are They didn't drink themselves dead : they went off In sound respectable diseases both ; The doctor guaranteed them. MARTHA. I dare say He'll do the same for me. LUTHER. When the time comes. MARTHA. And that's for you to say ? LUTHER. Pull up ! Fancy's running away with you. Turn her into the lane that leads to church ; That's where a widow likes to think of going. So ! Nothing like a chat for straightening things ! 103 The Deserter We know where we are now, Martha. I'll go find The lass, and make a ploy up for the day. She shall be blithe, I promise ! I can touch Her little mind like harping on it, and keep A tune of laughter chiming there as bright As sunny water. She'll tell you I'm the one To make her happy, Martha : and you, too ! The only thing is I must have my way. (He goes.) MARTHA. Must you ! Not this time. (She goes to the door of an outhouse, opens it and peers in.) Sound asleep, poor boy ! He said he'd had to walk most of the way. (She goes in ; and shortly after comes out with a young soldier.) MARTHA. Well, and what if they do see ? You're on leave. SOLDIER. I'm not. MARTHA. Then how . . . ? SOLDIER. You said I had to come. There is no leave : we're going out I mean They are. I'm a deserter. 104 The Deserter MARTHA. What's the right name For me, I wonder ? SOLDIER. Nay, they won't touch you. You made me do it, but it's me that did it ; And it is me they'll lag. MARTHA. We'll get round that ; You'll see. SOLDIER. And how will I get round it, Martha ? Can you see that ? They're going out, and I Deserted. Well ? You said I had to come ? Nobody ever gave a woman aught That cost the same as this ! But let that be. It was for you. MARTHA. O, but for both of us ! And we will put it right. We'll put all right ; There's a deal more than this. But you don't know. We're safe now. SOLDIER. Where is a deserter safe ? MARTHA. O that's easy. SOLDIER. Is it ? You made me come, And now you slight it. MARTHA. O, I don't, I don't ! 105 The Deserter But worse might be. I had to have you here : I durstn't let you go to France just now ! SOLDIER. What is it ? How's that drunken . . . MARTHA. He's . . . he's dead. SOLDIER. Good Christ ! Why didn't you say ? MARTHA. I was going to tell you. SOLDIER. When did he die ? MARTHA. This morning. SOLDIER. Was it your guess That this was nearing made you write so wild ? MARTHA. Suppose you'd gone to France ! That was the terror You would be gone, before . . . SOLDIER. And not come back ? It does no good, letting such thoughts run on. MARTHA. But it's not only that. If he had died While you were overseas ! Doesn't it sound Wicked to say, Thank God for such a thing ! SOLDIER. This morning ! While I was asleep in there ? MARTHA. The wonder is, you could sleep through last night. 106 The Deserter SOLDIER. The wonder is your letter had no word That this was coming ; and not a word of this When you were smuggling me away in there. MARTHA. You were too tired. But all this is nothing. We'll go away to-night : the road's clear now. SOLDIER. I've only one clear road the way I came : Give myself up. MARTHA. O but I've planned it all. Everything will be safe, you'll see. We'll start Tramping to-night SOLDIER. Where to ? MARTHA. Why, anywhere ! Three days' hard going a hundred miles away You take another name and marry me I have the money by and the next day Enlist again. You're straight then with the army, And I'm safe out of here. O we must do it ! SOLDIER. And what would all this crazy work be for? MARTHA. But what else can you see ? 107 The Deserter SOLDIER. I've told you once : Give myself up. MARTHA. O where 's the gain in that ? Why not go smooth and easy when you can ? SOLDIER. A fine smooth thing, to be called a deserter ! MARTHA. But you'll enlist again : that's not deserting. SOLDIER. Won't it be, if I meet one of my mates ! You've made me a pretty figure and for why, I'm puzzled. MARTHA. Well, not for fun. SOLDIER. For all the sense I see in it, it might be that. MARTHA. You don't See, I suppose, I've made myself all yours ? SOLDIER. O Martha, was there any need to shame me ? He's gone, the staggering sot who fleered between us ; Could we not wait ? MARTHA. No ! Do you want me still ? 108 The Deserter SOLDIER. Well, I've deserted for you : I've sneakt off Cringing away from men who were my sworn friends Just when the danger's sighted. Don't I know How, when their talk happens upon my name, They'll spit it out as if they tasted dirt ! And you say, do I want you ? I wish I didn't ! MARTHA. You've done this for me. Now there's more to do. And if it were ten times worse than what you've done Fid ask you for it. SOLDIER. I'll be bound you would ; And I suppose Fid do it. MARTHA. You 'Id have to do it. You don't know what the work's been here, while I Have been alone, and you've been smartly soldier- ing. You don't know what it is to feel the chance Of what may happen to you, like a live thing Watching you sitting there quietly, with bright eyes Smouldering like a fiend's, hungering at you, 109 The Deserter Croucht there waiting, set like the spring of a trap, Eyeing the strain you make to keep away ; And still you are pusht sideling nearer and nearer ; Until it comes to him, the panther's moment, To leap and hug me against his loathsome breath ! SOLDIER. Why, what's all this ? MARTHA. It's Luther, Luther ! He means To have me : and there's one person in the world Who is to say whether he shall or no. SOLDIER. That should be you. MARTHA. Me ! Nay, Peter has made All his belongings over to his old friend ! SOLDIER. That's not a way to talk. And do you mean You've brought me here with my brain buzzing the word Like clockwork . . . MARTHA. What word ? SOLDIER. Deserter, deserter ! Whatever I hear now, there'll be that word in it ! And all because an old blackguardly man no The Deserter Shows you he has a mind to marry you. Why, it's a joke. MARTHA. I'll make you understand Some day. I 'm pawned to him but that is nothing ; I've not a thing of my own : everything here Is charity, Luther's charity ; and still I make nothing of that. But you would think I'ld have a right to my own mind ! And even That he has taken. SOLDIER. How can you talk so trifling ? MARTHA. I'm in his hands like but you'll think that silly : Only it is so ; as long as I stay here He need no more than breathe and all I am, All that my life knows for its very own, Would scatter like flighty down. But I'll try this. There was a story in the papers : how a woman Was walking in the tropics by herself, And one of those huge monkeys carried her off. They got her back ; she said, as the beast came close, Snarling with pleasure to be handling her, The life in her stood fixt : her flesh set hard As gritstone at his twitching fondling paws, in The Deserter And yet she was all one nerve of blinding horror. The story is me and Luther. And there's worse : I have the notion of him reaching out A grasp upon my mind, plucking it like O like plucking a dandelion-clock To blow it away with " Loves me loves me not." SOLDIER. There's more in this than I can well make out. MARTHA. More than anyone can : let it alone. You've come ; that's the main thing. Don't make it now All for nothing ! Take me away from here ! Marry me, make me your own property Nobody else can touch then, what you please : Everything after that is all yours, yours. But away from here, away from here ! SOLDIER. All right. Since you have got me here, I may as well Go through. MARTHA. We'll start to-night ; you'll hide till then. SOLDIER. Hide ! Yes, I'm getting clever now at hiding ! 112 The Deserter MARTHA. And I'll creep round to my sister's, and make sure The child will be well used. Is it so hard To give me this ? The choice you have is not My life or death ; but am I to live clean flesh Or foul as a weeping sore full of maggots. SOLDIER. You needn't go on telling me ; I believe you. I had the choice of being a passable man Or a swindling sneak-thief lily-livered deserter. I've chosen as you askt me ; and why not Go on that way ? It will not harm me now. MARTHA. Why, but you talk as though I only take And cannot give. SOLDIER. Well, that's how it is, it seems. I am not grumbling. What is there you can give ? It's been a cruel price, and I'm right glad It's been all mine to pay. MARTHA. O I am sure This will be rankling soon. SOLDIER. You're hard to please. H 113 The Deserter I've paid the shot for both of us, and make No grudge of it. MARTHA. Then we start out of tune, And you will come to hate me. SOLDIER. Have I not proved I love you ? Have I not made myself for you A thing I loathe ? What is it now you want ? Am I to cheer about it ? MARTHA. I have not asked For what I'd shirk myself for both of us. SOLDIER. I know, I know. I am all out of tune. MARTHA. The giving has not all been yours. SOLDIER. I know. You've had vile things to bear. MARTHA. But you are glad Our lives at last are our own ? SOLDIER. Yes, yes ! MARTHA. And that Is what it has been mine to give. SOLDIER. You gave it ? But it was Peter's death ! My God ! I had Forgotten the poor beast is lying in there ! 114 The Deserter MARTHA. Ay, it's a marvel what you can forget When you are put to it everything you've grown up with. SOLDIER. What made him die ? MARTHA. The neighbours say it was The way he drank : he 'Id sooner drink than live. SOLDIER. Do you say that ? MARTHA. I know he wisht to live. O horribly he wisht to go on living ! SOLDIER. And yet his demon made him kill himself ! MARTHA. Yes. I was his demon. There had to be an end ! And Luther always strolling by the house, Pleasantly scanning around at crops and meadows, But never a flicker of looking for me, as though He past a thing here too familiarly His own, to bother with a glance at it ! There had to be an end ! And with you here ! Well, I have done it. Is this not giving something ? SOLDIER. My God ! What have you given me ? A murder ? You killed him ? "5 The Deserter MARTHA. Nobody could call it murder. I let him kill himself. SOLDIER. He did not want to die : You were just saying so. MARTHA. That's true ; it was A thing so hideous, I wonder I don't laugh To think of it. Longing to live he was ; And whimpering to himself to stop, he 'Id reach To grope if there were liquor handy. O, The bottle was always there ! SOLDIER. Where you put it. MARTHA. There were two things. Peter would take his time A month six months how should I know ? and die. You 'Id be in France, and I'ld go down alive Into the filth of hell : O I have felt As if to flay myself where Luther's toucht me Would make me laugh like a child at being tickled, If it would take the sickening sense of him off me ! That was one thing I saw. And there was this Peter might die before you went to France, 116 The Deserter And very soon you would be going, you said. You 'Id come for me ; and I need not be the pleasure Of a fiendish monkey, if Peter would die soon. SOLDIER. And so you plied him. MARTHA. I tell you, you can't blame me. He 'Id promised me to Luther. And what great thing Is a dram more or less to a dying tippler ? SOLDIER. 1 am not blaming you ; but I am going. MARTHA. Going ? Where to ? SOLDIER. The way I came. I know What I shall have there ; it's clean black or white, The offer there : you live or else you're killed. But here well, I can say this for the war : It does get you away from living at home. MARTHA. I've killed your love for me. SOLDIER. I can't tell you. When I'm in clink, and feel a decent man, I shall know that. Now all I know is this I will not let the life that you belong to Touch me. MARTHA. So I should soil you ! SOLDIER. It's no good, 117 The Deserter Martha. A man's not dainty if there are things He cannot eat. MARTHA. You are not really going ? leave love out ! For pity's sake SOLDIER. I can't ! MARTHA. You will let Luther put his clutch on me ? SOLDIER. You'll have me weakening ; I must go now. 1 should feel safe if I could see the bayonets Coming to take me : and likely I'll meet them. (He goes.) MARTHA. You are not leaving me here ? (A pause. MARTHA is seated with chin in hands, staring at the ground.) (The little girl runs in.) THE GIRL. O mummy ! Do you know what Luther says ? He's going to be my daddy from now on ! Will it come true ? MARTHA. I dare say. Have you been happy ? 118 The Deserter THE GIRL. I always am with him. And he's to be Quite a new sort of daddy. And he's sent A present to you. MARTHA. To me ? THE GIRL. I was to hold it Behind my back, and say, " A present for you From Luther." MARTHA. Show me. THE GIRL. A dandelion-clock ! I don't think that's much of a present, do you ? CURTAIN. 119 The End of the World PERSONS HUFF, the Farmer SOLLERS, the Wainwright MERRICK, the Smith VINE, the Publican SHALE, the Labourer A DOWSER MRS. HUFF WARP, the Molecatcher Men and Women of the Village ACT I SCENE. A public-house kitchen. HUFF the Farmer and SOLLERS the Wainwright talking ; another man, a stranger, sitting silent. HUFF. Ay, you may think we're well off SOLLERS. Now for croaks, Old toad ! who's trodden on you now ? Go on ; But if you can, croak us a new tune. HUFF. Ay, You think you're well off and don't grab my words Before they're spoken but some folks, I've heard, Pity us living quiet in the valley. SOLLERS. Well, I suppose 'tis their affair. HUFF. Is it ? But what I mean to say, if they think small Of us that live in the valley, mayn't it show That we aren't all so happy as we think ? 123 The End of the World (MERRICK the Smith comes in.) MERRICK. Quick, cider ! I believe I've swallowed a coal. SOLLERS. Good evening. True, the heat's a wonder to-night. (SMITH draws himself cider .) HUFF. Haven't you brought your flute ? We've all got room For music in our minds to-night, I'll swear. Working all day in the sun do seem to push The thought out of your brain. SOLLERS. O, 'tis the sun Has trodden on you ? That's what makes you croak ? Ay, whistle him somewhat : put a tune in his brain ; He'll else croak us out of pleasure with drinking. MERRICK. 'Tis quenching, I believe. A tune ? Too hot. You want a fiddler. HUFF. Nay, I want your flute. I like a piping sound, not scraping o' guts. MERRICK. This is no weather for a man to play Flutes or music at all that asks him spend His breath and spittle : you want both yourself These oven days. Wait till a fiddler comes. 124 The End of the World HUFF. Who ever comes down here ? SOLLERS. There's someone come. (Pointing with his pipe to the stranger.) MERRICK. Good evening, mister. Are you a man for tunes ? STRANGER. And if I was Fid give you none to-night. MERRICK. Well, no offence : there's no offence, I hope, In taking a dummy for a tuneful man. Is it for can't or won't you are ? STRANGER. You wouldn't, if you carried in your mind What I've been carrying all day. SOLLERS. What's that ? STRANGER. You wait ; you'll know about it soon ; O yes, Soon enough it will find you out and rouse you. HUFF. Now ain't that just the way we go down here ? Here in the valley we're like dogs in a yard, Chained to our kennels and wall'd in all round, And not a sound of the world jumps over our hills. 125 The End of the World And when there comes a passenger among us, One who has heard what's stirring out beyond, 'Tis a grutchy mumchance fellow in the dismals ! STRANGER. News, is it, you want ? I could give you news ! I wonder, did you ever hate to feel The earth so fine and splendid ? HUFF. Oh, you're one Has stood in the brunt of the world's wickedness, Like me ? But listen, and I'll give you a tale Of wicked things done in this little valley, Done against me, will surely make you think The Devil here fetcht up his masterpiece. SOLLERS. Ah, but it's hot enough without you talking Your old hell fire about that pair of sinners. Leave them alone and drink. HUFF. I'll smell them grilling One of these days. MERRICK. But there'll be nought to drink When that begins ! Best keep your skin full now. STRANGER. What do I care for wickedness ? Let those 126 The End of the World Who've played with dirt, and thought the game was bold, Make much of it while they can : there's a big thing Coming down to us, ay, well on its road, Will make their ploys seem mighty piddling sport. HUFF. This is a fool ; or else it's what I think, The world now breeds such crowd that they've no room For well-grown sins : they hatch 'em small as flies. But you stay here, out of the world awhile, Here where a man's mind, and a woman's mind, Can fling out large in wickedness : you'll see Something monstrous here, something dreadful. STRANGER. I've seen enough of that. Though it was only Fancying made me see it, it was enough : I've seen the folk of the world yelling aghast, Scurrying to hide themselves. I want nought else Monstrous and dreadful. MERRICK. What had roused 'em so ? Some house afire ? HUFF. A huzzy flogged to death For her hard-faced adultery ? 127 The End of the World STRANGER (too intent to hear them). Oh to think of it! Talk, do, chatter some nonsense, else I'll think : And then Fm feeling like a grub that crawls All abroad in a dusty road ; and high Above me, and shaking the ground beneath me, come Wheels of a thundering wain, right where I'm plodding. SOLLERS. Queer thinking, that. STRANGER. And here's a queerer thing. I have a sort of lust in me, pushing me still Into that terrible way of thinking, like Black men in India lie them down and long To feel their holy wagon crack their spines. MERRICK. Do you mean beetles ? I've driven over scores, They sprawling on their backs, or standing mazed. I never knew they liked it. SOLLERS. He means frogs. I know what's in his mind. When I was young My mother would catch us frogs and set them down, Lapt in a screw of paper, in the ruts, 128 The End of the World And carts going by would quash 'em ; and Fid laugh, And yet be thinking, " Suppose it was myself Twisted stiff in huge paper, and wheels Big as the wall of a barn treading me flat ! " HUFF. I know what's in his mind : just madness it is. He's lookt too hard at his fellows in the world ; Sight of their monstrous hearts, like devils in cages, Has jolted all the gearing of his wits. It needs a tough brain, ay, a brain like mine, To pore on ugly sin and not go mad. STRANGER. Madness ! You're not far out. I came up here To be alone and quiet in my thoughts, * Alone in my own dreadful mind. The path, Of red sand trodden hard, went up between High hedges overgrown of hawthorn blowing White as clouds ; ay, it seemed burrowed through A white sweet-smelling cloud, I walking there Small as a hare that runs its tunnelled drove Thro' the close heather. And beside my feet I 129 The End of the World Blue greygles drifted gleaming over the grass ; And up I climbed to sunlight green in birches, And the path turned to daisies among grass With bonfires of the broom beside, like flame Of burning straw : and I lookt into your valley. I could scarce look. Anger was smarting in my eyes like grit. the fine earth and fine all for nothing ! Mazed I walkt, seeing and smelling and hearing : The meadow lands all shining fearfully gold, Cruel as fire the sight of them toucht my mind ; Breathing was all a honey taste of clover And bean flowers : I would have rather had it Carrion, or the stink of smouldering brimstone. And larks aloft, the happy piping fools, And squealing swifts that slid on hissing wings, And yellowhammers playing spry in hedges. 1 never noted them before ; but now Yes, I was mad, and crying mad, to see The earth so fine, fine all for nothing ! SOLLERS (spits). Pst ! yellowhammers ! He talks gentry talk. That's worse than being mad. 130 The End of the World STRANGER. I tell you, you'll be feeling them to-morn And hating them to be so wonderful. MERRICK. Let's have some sense. Where do you live ? STRANGER. Nowhere. I'm always travelling. HUFF. Why, what's your trade ? STRANGER. A dowser. HUFF. You're the man for me ! STRANGER. Not I. HUFF. Ho, this is better than a fiddler now ! One of those fellows who have nerves so clever That they can feel the waters of underground Tingling in their fingers ? You find me a spring in my high grazing- field, I'll give you what I save in trundling water. STRANGER. I find you water now ! No, but I'll find you Fire and fear and unbelievable death. (ViNE the Publican comes in.) VINE. Are ye all served ? Ay, seems so ; what's your score ? The End of the World MERRICK. Two ciders. HUFF. Three. SOLLERS. And two for me. VINE (to DOWSER). And you ? DOWSER. Naught. I was waiting on you. VINE. Will you drink ? DOWSER. Ay ! Drink ! what else is left for a man to do Who knows what I know ? VINE. Good. What is't you know ? You tell it out and set my trade a-buzzing. SOLLERS. He's queer. Give him his mug and ease his tongue. VINE. I had to swill the pigs : else I'd been here ; But we've the old fashion in this house ; you draw, I keep the score. Well, what's the worry on you ? SOLLERS. Oh he's in love. DOWSER. . You fleering grinning louts, I'll give it you now ; now have it in your faces ! SOLLERS. Crimini, he's going to fight ! DOWSER. You try and fight with the thing that's on my side ! 132 The End of the World MERRICK. A ranter ! HUFF. A boozy one then. DOWSER. Open yon door ; 'Tis dark enough by now. Open it, you. VINE. Hold on. Have you got something fierce outside ? MERRICK. A Russian bear ? SOLLERS. Dowsers can play strange games. HUFF. No tricks ! DOWSER. This is a trick to rouse the world. (He opens the door.) Look out ! Between the elms ! There's my fierce thing. MERRICK. He means the star with the tail like a feather of fire. SOLLERS. Comet, it's called. HUFF. Do you mean the comet, mister ? DOWSER. What do you think of it ? HUFF Pretty enough. But I saw a man loose off a rocket once ; It made more stir and flare of itself ; though yon Does better at steady burning. DOWSER. Stir and flare ! 133 The End of the World You'll soon forget your rocket. MERRICK. Tell you what I thought last night, now, going home. Says I, "Pis just like the look of a tadpole : if I saw A tadpole silver as a dace, that swam Upside-down towards me through black water, Fid see the plain spit of that star and his tail. SOLLERS. And how does your thought go ? DOWSER. It's what I know ! A tadpole and a rocket ! My dear God, And I can still laugh out ! What do you think Your tadpole's made of ? What lets your rocket fling Those streaming sparks across the half of night, Splashing the burning spray of its haste among The quiet business of the other stars ? Ay, that's a fiery jet it leaves behind In such enormous drift ! What sort of fire Is spouted so, spouted and never quenching ? There is no name for that star's fire : it is The fire that was before the world was made, The fire that all the things we live among Remember being ; and whitest fire we know Is its poor copy in their dreaming trance ! 134 The End of the World HUFF. That would be hell fire. DOWSER. Ay, if you like, hell fire, Hell fire flying through the night ! 'Twould be A thing to blink about, a blast of it Swept in your face, eh ? and a thing to set The whole stuff of the earth smoking rarely ? Which of you said " the heat's a wonder to-night " ? You have not done with marvelling. There'll come A night when all your clothes are a pickle of sweat, And, for all that, the sweat on your salty skin Shall dry and crack in the breathing of a wind That's like a draught come through an open'd furnace. The leafage of the trees shall brown and faint, All sappy growth turning to brittle rubbish As the near heat of the star strokes the green earth ; And time shall brush the fields as visibly As a rough hand brushes against the nap Of gleaming cloth killing the season's colour, Each hour charged with the wasting of a year ; And sailors panting on their warping decks Will watch the sea steam like broth about them. You'll know what I know then ! That towering star 135 The End of the World Hangs like a fiery buzzard in the night Intent over our earth Ay, now his journey Points, straight as a plummet's drop, down to us ! HUFF. Why, that's the end of the world ! DOWSER. You've said it now. SOLLERS. What, soon ? In a day or two ? MERRICK. You can't mean that ! VINE. End of the World ! Well now, I never thought To hear the news of that. If you've the truth In what you say, likely this is an evening That we'll be talking over often and often. " How was it, Sollers ? " I'll say ; " or you, Merrick, Do you mind clearly how he lookt ? " And then " c End of the world,' he said, and drank like that, Solemn ! " And right he was : he had it all As sure as I have when my sow's to farrow. DOWSER. Are you making a joke of me ? Keep your mind For tippling while you can. VINE. Was that a joke ? I'm always bad at seeing 'em, even my own. 136 The End of the World DOWSER. A fool's ! 'Twill cheer you when the earth blows up Like as it were all gunpowder. VINE. You mean The star will butt his burning head against us ? 'Twill knock the world to flinders, I suppose ? DOWSER. Ay, or with that wild, monstrous tail of his Smash down upon the air, and make it bounce Like water under the flukes of a harpooned whale, And thrash it to a poisonous fire ; and we And all the life of the world drowned in blazing ! VINE. 'Twill be a handsome sight. If my old wife Were with me now ! This would have suited her. " I do like things to happen ! " she would say ; Never shindy enough for her ; and now She's gone, and can't be seeing this ! DOWSER. You poor fool. How will it be a sight to you, when your eyes Are scorcht to little cinders in your head ? VINE. Whether or no, there must be folks outside 137 The End of the World Willing to know of this. I'll scatter your news. (He goes.) (A short pause : then SOLLERS breaks out.) SOLLERS. No, no ; it wouldn't do for me at all ; Nor for you neither, Merrick ? End of the World ? Bogy ! A parson's tale or a bairn's ! MERRICK. That's it. Your trade's a gift, easy as playing tunes. But Sellers here and I, we've had to drill Sinew and muscle into their hard lesson, Until they work in timber and glowing iron As kindly as I pick up my pint : your work Grows in your nature, like plain speech in a child, But we have learnt to think in a foreign tongue ; And something must come out of all our skill ! We shan't go sliding down as glib as you Into notions of the End of the World. SOLLERS. Give me a tree, you may say, and give me steel, And I'll put forth my shapely mind ; I'll make, Out of my head like telling a well-know T n tale, A wain that goes as comely on the roads As a ship sailing, the lines of it true as gospel. 138 The End of the World Have I learnt that all for nothing ? O no ! End of the World ? It wouldn't do at all. No more making of wains, after I've spent My time in getting the right skill in my hands ? DOWSER. Ay, you begin to feel it now, I think ; But you complain like boys for a game spoilt : Shaping your carts, forging your iron ! But Life, Life, the mother who lets her children play So seriously busy, trade and craft, Life with her skill of a million years' perfection To make her heart's delighted glorying Of sunlight, and of clouds about the moon, Spring lighting her daffodils, and corn Ripening gold to ruddy, and giant seas, And mountains sitting in their purple clothes O life I am thinking of, life the wonder, All blotcht out by a brutal thrust of fire Like a midge that a clumsy thumb squashes and smears. HUFF. Let me but see the show beginning, though ! You 'Id mind me then ! O I would like you all To watch how I should figure, when the star 139 The End of the World Brandishes over the whole air its flame Of thundering fire ; and naught but yellow rubbish Parcht on the perishing ground, and there are tongues Chapt with thirst, glad to lap stinking ponds, And pale glaring faces spying about On the earth withering, terror the only speech ! Look for me then, and see me stand alone Easy and pleasant in the midst of it all. Did you not make your merry scoff of me ? Was it your talk, that when yon shameless pair Threw their wantoning in my face like dirt, I had no heart against them but to grumble ? You would be saying that, I know ! But now, Now I believe it's time for you to see My patient heart at last taking its wages. SOLLERS. Pull up, man ! Screw the brake on your running tongue, Else it will rattle you down the tumbling way This fellow's gone. MERRICK. And one man's enough With brain quagged axle- deep in crazy mire. We won't have you beside him in his puddles, And calling out with him on the End of the World 140 The End of the World To heave you out with a vengeance. HUFF. What you want ! Have I not borne enough to make me know I must be righted sometime ? And what else Would break the hardy sin in them, which lets Their souls parade so daring and so tall Under God's hate and mine ? What else could pay For all my wrong but a blow of blazing anger Striking down to shiver the earth, and change Their strutting wickedness to horror and crying ? MERRICK. Be quiet, Huff ! If you mean to believe This dowser's stuff, and join him in his bedlam, By God, you'll have to reckon with my fist. (SHALE comes in. HUFF glares at him speech- less, but with wrath evidently working.) SHALE. Where's the joker ? You, is it ? Here's hot news You've brought us ; all the valley's hissing aloud, And makes as much of you falling into it As a pail of water would of a glowing coal. SOLLERS. Don't you start burbling too, Shale. SHALE. That's the word ! 141 The End of the World Burbling, simmering, ay and bumpy-boiling : All the women are mobbed together close Under the witan-trees, and their full minds Boil like so many pans slung on a fire. Why, starlings trooping in a copse in fall Could make no scandal like it. MERRICK. What is it, man ? SHALE. End of the World ! The flying star ! End of the World ! SOLLERS. They don't believe it though ? SHALE. What ? the whole place Has gone just randy over it ! MERRICK. Hold your noise ! SOLLERS. I shall be daft if this goes on. SHALE. Ay, so ? The End of the World's been here ? You look as though You'd startled lately. And there's the virtuous man ! How would End of the World suit our good Huff, Our old crab-verjuice Huff ? HUFF (seizing the DOWSER and bringing him up in front of SHALE). Look at him there ! 142 The End of the World This is the man I told you of when you Were talking small of sin. You made it out, Did you, a fool's mere nasty game, like dogs That snuggle in muck, and grin and roll themselves With snorting pleasure ? Ah, but you are wrong. 'Tis something that goes thrusting dreadfully Its wilful bravery of evil against The worth and right of goodness in the world : Ay, do you see how his face still brags at me ? And long it has been, the time he's had to walk Lording about me with his wickedness. Do you know what he dared ? I had a wife, A flighty pretty linnet-headed girl, But mine : he practised on her with his eyes ; He knew of luring glances, and she went After his calling lust : and all since then They've lived together, fleering in my face, Pleased in sight of the windows of my house With doing wrong, and making my disgrace. O but wait here with me ; wait till your news Is not to be mistaken, for the way The earth buckles and singes like hot boards : You'll surely see how dreadful sin can be The End of the World Then, when you mark these two running about, With raging fear for what they did against me Buzzing close to their souls, stinging their hearts, And they like scampering beasts when clegs are fierce, Or flinging themselves low as the ground to writhe, Their arms hugging their desperate heads . And then You'll see what 'tis to be an upright man, Who keeps a patient anger for his wrongs Thinking of judgment coming you will see that When you mark how my looks hunt these wretches, And smile upon their groans and posturing anguish. O watch how calm I'll be, when the blazing air Judges their wickedness ; you watch me then Looking delighted, like a nobleman Who sees his horse winning an easy race. MERRICK. You fool, Huff, you believe it now ! HUFF. You fool, Merrick, how should I not believe a thing That calls aloud on my mind and spirit, and they Answer to it like starving conquering soldiers Told to break out and loot ? SHALE. You vile old wasp ! 144 The End of the World SOLLERS. We've talked enough : let's all go home and sleep ; There might be a fiend in the air about us, one Who pours his will into our minds to see How we can frighten one another. HUFF. A fiend ? Shale will soon have the flapping wings of a fiend, And flaming wings, beating about his head. There'll be no air for Shale, very soon now, But the breathing of a fiend : the star's coming ! The star that breathes a horrible fury of fire Like glaring fog into the empty night ; And in the gust of its wrath the world will soon Shrivel and spin like paper in a furnace. I knew they both would have to pay me at last With sight of their damned souls for all my wrong ! SHALE. Somebody stop his gab. MERRICK (seizing the DOWSER and shaking him) . Is it the truth ? Is it the truth we're in the way of the star ? SOLLERS. O let us go home ; let us go home and sleep ! K 145 The End of the World (A crowd of men and women burst in and shout confusedly.) 1 . Look out for the star ! 2. 'Tis moving, moving. 3. Grows as you stare at it. 4. Bigger than ever. 1. Down it comes with a diving pounce, As though it had lookt for us and at last found us. 2. O so near and coming so quick ! 3 . And how the burning hairs of its tail Do seem surely to quiver for speed. 4. We saw its great tail twitch behind it, 'Tis come so near, so gleaming near. 1 . The tail is wagging ! 2. Come out and see ! 3 . The star is wagging its tail and eyeing us 4. Like a cat huncht to leap on a bird. MERRICK. Out of my way and let me see for myself. (They all begin to hustle out : HUFF speaks in midst of the turmoil.) HUFF. Ay, now begins the just man's reward ; And hatred of the evil thing 146 The End of the World Now is to be satisfied. Wrong ventured out against me and braved : And I'll be glad to see all breathing pleasure Burn as foolishly to naught As a moth in candle flame, If I but have my will to watch over those Who injured me bawling hoarse heartless fear. (They are all gone but HUFF, SHALE and the DOWSER.) SHALE. As for you, let you and the women make Your howling scare of this ; I'll stand and laugh. But if it truly were the End of the World, I'ld be the man to face it out, not you : I who have let life go delighted through me, Not you, who've sulkt away your chance of life In mumping about being paid for goodness. (Going.) HUFF (after him). You wait, you wait ! (He follows the rest.) DOWSER (alone). Naught but a plague of flies ! I cannot do with noises, and light fools Terrified round me ; I must go out and think Where there is quiet and no one near. O, think ! The End of the World Life that has done such wonders with its thinking, And never daunted in imagining ; That has put on the sun and the shining night, The flowering of the earth and tides of the sea, And irresistible rage of fate itself, All these as garments for its spirit's journey now this life, in the brute chance of things, Murder 'd, uselessly murder 'd ! And naught else For ever but senseless rounds of hurrying motion That cannot glory in itself. O no ! 1 will not think of that ; I'll blind my brain With fancying the splendours of destruction ; When like a burr in the star's fiery mane The crackling earth is caught and rusht along, The forests on the mountains blazing so, That from the rocks of ore beneath them come White-hot rivers of smelted metal pouring Across the plains to roar into the sea. . . . (The curtain is lowered for a few moments only.) 148 The End of the World ACT II As before, a little while after. The room is empty when the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces about, but stops short when he catches sight of a pot dog on the mantelpiece. SOLLERS. The pace it is coming down ! What to do now ? My brain has stopt : it's like a clock that's fallen Out of a window and broke all its cogs. Where's that old cider, Vine would have us pay Twopence a glass for ? Let's try how it smells : Old Foxwhelp, and a humming stingo it is ! (To the pot dog.) Hullo, you ! What are you grinning at ? I know ! There'll be no score against me for this drink ! O that score ! I've drunk it down for a week With every gulp of cider, and every gulp Was half the beauty it should have been, the score So scratcht my swallowing throat, like a wasp in the drink ! 149 And I need never have heeded it ! Old grinning dog ! You've seen me happy here ; And now, all's done ! But do you know this too, That I can break you now, and never called To pay for you ? (Throwing the dog on the floor.) I shall be savage soon ! We're leaving all this ! O, and it was so pleasant Here, in here, of an evening. Smash ! (He sweeps a lot of crockery on to the floor.) It's all no good ! Let's make a wreck of it all ! (Picking up a chair and swinging it.) Damn me ! Now I'm forgetting to drink, and soon 'Twill be too late. Where's there a mug not shivered ? (He goes to draw himself cider. MERRICK rushes in) MERRICK. You at the barrels too ? Out of the road ! (He pushes SOLLERS away and spills his mug) SOLLERS. Go and kick out of doors, you black donkey. The End of the World MERRICK. Let me come at the vessel, will you ? (They wrestle savagely?) SOLLERS. Keep off ; I'm the first here. Lap what you've spilt of mine. MERRICK. You with your chiselling and screw- driving, Your wooden work, you bidding me, the man Who hammers a meaning into red-hot iron ? (ViNE comes in slowly. He is weeping ; the two wrestlers stop and stare at him, as he sits down, and holds his head in his hands, sobbing.} VINE. O this is a cruel affair ! SOLLERS. Here's Vine crying ! VINE. I've seen the moon. MERRICK. The moon ? 'Tisn't the moon That's tumbling on us, but yon raging star. What notion now is clotted in your head ? VINE. I've seen the moon ; it has nigh broke my heart. SOLLERS. Not the moon too jumping out of her ways ? VINE. No, no ; but going quietly and shining, The End of the World Pushing away a flimsy gentle cloud That would drift smoky round her, fending it off With steady rounds of blue and yellow light. It was not much to see. She was no more Than a curved bit of silver rind. But I Never before so noted her SOLLERS. What he said, The dowser ! MERRICK. Ay, about his yellowhammers. SOLLERS. And there's a kind of stifle in the air Already ! MERRICK. It seems to me, my breathing goes All hot down my windpipe, hot as cider Mulled and steaming travels down my swallow. SOLLERS. And a queer racing through my ears of blood. MERRICK. I wonder, is the star come closer still ? SOLLERS. O, close, I know, and viciously heading down. VINE. She was so silver ! and the sun had left A kind of tawny red, a dust of fine Thin light upon the blue where she was lying, Just a curled paring of the moon, amid 152 The End of the World The faint grey cloud that set the gleaming wheel Around the tilted slip of shining silver. it did seem to me so safe and homely, The moon quietly going about the earth ; It's a rare place we have to live in, here ; And life is such a comfortable thing And what's the sense of it all ? Naught but to make Cruel as may be the slaughtering of it. (He breaks down again.) SOLLERS. It beats my mind ! (He begins to walk up and down desperately.) MERRICK. 'Twas bound to come sometime, Bound to come, I suppose. 'Tis a poor thing For us, to fall plumb in the chance of it ; But, now or another time, 'twas bound to be. 1 have been thinking back. When I was a lad I was delighted with my life : there seemed Naught but things to enjoy. Say we were bathing : There 'Id be the cool smell of the water, and cool The splashing under the trees : but I did loathe The sinking mud slithering round my feet, And I did love to loathe it so ! And then We 'Id troop to kill a wasp's nest ; and for sure 153 The End of the World I would be stung ; and if I liked the dusk And singing and the game of it all, I loved The smart of the stings, and fleeing the buzzing furies. And sometimes I 'Id be looking at myself Making so much of everything ; there 'Id seem A part of me speaking about myself : ' You know, this is much more than being happy. 'Tis hunger of some power in you, that lives On your heart's welcome for all sorts of luck, But always looks beyond you for its meaning." And that's the way the world's kept going on, I believe now. Misery and delight Have both had liking welcome from it, both Have made the world keen to be glad and sorry. For why ? It felt the living power thrive The more it made everything, good and bad, Its own belonging, forged to its own affair, The living power that would do wonders some day. I don't know if you take me ? SOLLERS. I do, fine ; I've felt the very thought go through my mind When I was at my wains ; though 'twas a thing 154 The End of the World Of such a flight I could not read its colour. Why was I like a man sworn to a thing, Working to have my wains in every curve, Ay, every tenon, right as they should be ? Not for myself, not even for those wains : But to keep in me living at its best The skill that must go forward and shape the world, Helping it on towards its masterpiece. MERRICK. And never was there aught to come of it! The world was always looking to use its life In some great handsome way at last. And now We are just fooled. There never was any good In the world going on or being at all. The fine things life has plotted to do are worth A rotten toadstool kickt to flying bits. End of the World ? Ay, and the end of a joke. VINE. Well, Huff's the man for this turn. MERRICK. Ay, the good man ! He could but grunt when times were pleasant ; now There's misery enough to make him trumpet. And yet, by God, he shan't come blowing his horn Over my misery ! The End of the World We are just fooled, did I say ? We fooled ourselves, Looking for worth in what was still to come ; And now there's a stop to our innings. Well, that's fair : I've been a living man, and might have been Nothing at all ! I've had the world about me, And felt it as my own concern. What else Should I be crying for ? I've had my turn. The world may be for the sake of naught at last, But it has been for my sake : I've had that. (He sits again, and broods?) SOLLERS. I can't stay here. I must be where my sight May silence with its business all my thinking Though it will be the star plunged down so close It puffs its flaming vengeance in my face. (He goes.) VINE. I wish there were someone who had done me wrong, Like Huff with his wife and Shale ; I wish there were Somebody 1 would like to see go crazed With staring fright. Fid have my pleasure then '56 The End of the World Of living on into the End of the World. But there is no one at all for me, no one Now my poor wife is gone. MERRICK. Why, what did she To harm you ? VINE. Didn't she marry me ? It's true She made it come all right. She died at last. Besides, it would be wasting wishes on her, To be in hopes of her weeping at this. She 'Id have her hands on her hips and her tongue jumping As nimble as a stoat, delighting round The way the world's to be terrible and tormented. Ay, but I'll have a thing to tell her now When she begins to ask the news ! I'll say * You've misst such a show as never was nor will be, A roaring great affair of death and ruin ; And I was there the world smasht to sparkles ! " O, I can see her vext at that ! (MERRICK has been sunk in thought during this, but VINE seems to brighten at his notion, and speaks quite cheerfully to HUFF, who now comes in, looking mopish, and sits down.) 157 The End of the World VINE. We've all been envying you, Huff. You're well off, You with your goodness and your enemies Showing you how to relish it with their terror. When do you mean the gibing is to start ? HUFF. There's time enough. VINE. O, do they still hold out ? If they should be for spiting you to the last ! You 'Id best keep on at them : think out a list Of frantic things for them to do, when air Is scorching smother and the sin they did Frightens their hearts. You'll shout them into fear, I undertake, if you find breath enough. HUFF. You have the breath. What's all your pester for ? You leave me be. VINE. Why, you're to do for me What I can't do myself. And yet it's hard To make out where Shale hurt you. What's the sum Of all he did to you ? Got you quit of marriage Without the upset of a funeral. HUFF. Why need you blurt your rambling mind at me ? 158 The End of the World Let me bide quiet in my thought awhile, And it's a little while we have for thought. MERRICK. I know your thought. Paddling round and around, Like a squirrel working in a spinning cage With his neck stretcht to have his chin poke up, And silly feet busy and always going ; Paddling round the story of your good life, Your small good life, and how the decent men Have jeered at your wry antic. HUFF. My good life ! And what good has my goodness been to me ? You show me that ! Somebody show me that ! A caterpillar munching a cabbage-heart, Always drudging further and further from The sounds and lights of the world, never abroad Nor flying free in warmth and air sweet-smelling : A crawling caterpillar, eating his life In a deaf dark that's my gain of goodness ! And it's too late to hatch out now ! I can but fancy what I might have been ; 1 scarce know how to sin ! But I believe A long while back I did come near to it. 159 The End of the World MERRICK. Well done ! O but I should have guesst all this ! HUFF. I was in Droitwich ; and the sight of the place Is where they cook the brine : a long dark shed, Hot as an oven, full of a grey steam And ruddy light that leaks out of the furnace ; And stirring the troughs, ladling the brine that boils As thick as treacle, a double standing row, Women boldly talking in wicked jokes All day long. I went to see 'em. It was A wonderful rousing sight. Not one of them Was really wearing clothes : half of a sack Pinned in an apron was enough for most, And here and there might be a petticoat ; But nothing in the way of bodices. O, they knew words to shame a carter's face ! MERRICK. This is the thought you would be quiet in ! HUFF. Where else can I be quiet ? Now there's an end Of daring, 'tis the one place my life has made Where I may try to dare in thought. I mind, 1 60 The End of the World When I stood in the midst of those bare women, All at once, outburst with a rising buzz, A mob of flying thoughts was wild in me : Things I might do swarmed in my brain pell-mell, Like a heap of flies kickt into humming cloud. I beat them down ; and now I cannot tell For certain what they were. I can call up Naught venturesome and darting like their style ; Very tame braveries now ! O Shale's the man To smile upon the End of the World ; 'tis Shale Has lived the bold stiff fashion, and filled himself With thinking pride in what a man may do. I wish I had seen those women more than once ! VINE. Well, here's an upside down ! This is old Huff! What have you been in your heart all these years ? The man you were or the new man you are ? HUFF. Just a dead flesh ! MERRICK. Nay, Huff the good man at least Was something alive, though snarling like trapt vermin. But this ? What's this for the figure of a man ? 'Tis a boy's smutty picture on a wall. L 161 The End of the World HUFF. I was alive, was I ? Like a blind bird That flies and cannot see the flight it takes, Feeling it with mere rowing of its wings. But Shale he's had a stirring sense of what he is. (Shouting outside. Then SOLLERS walks in again, very quiet and steady. He stands in the middle, looking down on the floor.) VINE. What do they holla for there ? SOLLERS. The earth. MERRICK. The earth ? SOLLERS. The earth's afire. HUFF. The earth blazing already ? (Shouts again.) O, not so soon as this ? VINE. What sort of a fire ? SOLLERS. The earth has caught the heat of the star, you fool. MERRICK. I know : there's come some dazzle in your eyes From facing to the star ; a lamp would do it. HUFF. It will be that. Your sight, being so strained, Is flashing of itself. 162 The End of the World SOLLERS. Say what you like. There's a red flare out of the land beyond Looking over the hills into our valley. The thing's begun, 'tis certain. Go and see. VINE. I won't see that. I will stay here. SOLLERS. Ay, creep Into your oven. You'll be cooler there. O my God, we'll all be coals in an hour ! (Shouts again) HUFF. And I have nought to stand in my heart upright, And vow it made my living time worth more Than if my time had been death in a grave ! (Several persons run in.) THE CROWD. 1 . The river's the place ! 2. The only safe place now ! 3. Best all charge down to the river ! 4. For there's a blaze, A travelling blaze comes racing along the earth. SOLLERS. 'Tis true. The air's red-hot above the hills. 163 The End of the World THE CROWD. 1 . Ay, but the burning now crests the hill-tops In quiver of yellow flame. 2. And a great smoke Waving and tumbling upward. 3. The river now ! 4. The only place we have, not to be roasted ! MERRICK. And what will make us water-rats or otters, To keep our breath still living through a dive That lasts until the earth's burnt out ? Or how Would that trick serve, when we stand up to gasp, And find the star waiting for our plunged heads To knock them into pummy ? VINE. Scarce more dazed I'ld be with that than now. I shall be bound, When I'm to give my wife the tale of it all, To be devising : more of this to-do My mind won't carry. HUFF. O ashamed I am, Ashamed ! It needn't have been downright feats, Such as the braving men, the like of Shale, Do easily, and smile, keeping them up. 164 The End of the World If I could look back to one manful hour Of romping in the face of all my goodness ! (SHALE comes in, dragging MRS. HUFF by the hand.) SHALE. Huff ! Where's Huff ? Huff, you must take her back ! You'll take her back ? She's yours : I give her up. MERRICK. Belike here's something bold again. MRS. HUFF (to SHALE). Once more, Listen. SHALE. I will not listen. There's no time For aught but giving you back where you belong ; And that's with you, Huff. Take her. HUFF. Here is depth I cannot see to. Is it your last fling ? The dolt I am in these things ! What's this way You've found of living wickedly to the end ? SHALE. Scorn as you please, but take her back, man, take her. HUFF. But she's my wife ! Take her back now ? What for ? MRS. HUFF. What for ? Have you not known of thieves that throw 165 The End of the World Their robbery down, soon as they hear a step Sounding behind them on the road, and run A long way off, and pull an honest face ? Ay, see Shale's eyes practising baby-looks ! He never stole, not he ! SHALE. Don't hear her talk. MRS. HUFF. But he was a talker once ! Love was the thing ; And love, he swore, would make the wrong go right, And Huff was a kind of devil and that's true HUFF. What ? I've been devilish and never knew ? MRS. HUFF. The devil in the world that hates all love. But Shale said, he'd the love in him would hold If the world's frame and the fate of men were crackt. SHALE. What I said ! Whoever thought the world was going to crack ? MRS. HUFF. And now he hears someone move behind him. They'll say, perhaps, " You stole this ! " Down it goes, 1 66 The End of the World Thrown to the dirty road thrown to Huff ! SHALE. Yes, to the owner. MRS. HUFF. It was not such brave thieving. You did not take me from my owner, Shale : There's an old robber will do that some day, Not you. VINE. Were you thinking of me then, missis ? MRS. HUFF (still to SHALE). You found me lost in the dirt : I was with Huff. You lifted me from there ; and there again, Like a frightened urchin, you're for throwing me. SHALE. Let it be that ! I'm firm Not to have you about me, when the thing, Whatever it is, that's standing now behind The burning of the world, comes out on us. HUFF. The way men cheat ! This windle-stalk was he Would hold a show of spirit for the world To study while it ruined ! Make what you please Of your short wrangle here, but leave me out. I have my thoughts O far enough from this. (Turning away.) 167 The End of the World SHALE (seizing him.) You shall not put me off. I tell you, Huff, You are to take her back now. HUFF. Take her back ! And what has she to do with what I want ? SHALE. Isn't she yours ? I must be quit of her ; I'll not be in the risk of keeping her. She's yours ! HUFF. And what's the good of her now to me ? What's the good of a woman whom I've married ? (During this, WARP the Molecatcher has come in.) WARP. Shale and Huff at their old pother again ! MERRICK. The Molecatcher ! SOLLERS. Warp, have you travelled far ? Is it through frenzy and ghastly crowds you've come ? VINE. Have you got dreadful things to tell us, Warp? WARP. Why, no. But seemingly you 'Id have had news for me, If I'd come later. Is Huff to murder Shale, Or Shale for murdering Huff ? One way or t'other, 1 68 The End of the World 'Tis time 'twas settled surely. Mrs. Huff, They're neither of them worth you : here's your health. (Draws and drinks.) HUFF. Where have you been ? Are you not new from folk That throng together in a pelting horror ? WARP. Do you think the whole land hearkens to the flurry Of an old dog biting at a young dog's throat ? MERRICK. No, no ! Not their shrill yapping ; you've not heard The world's near to be blasted ? WARP. No mutter of it. I am from walking the whole ground I trap, And there's no likeness of it, but the moles I've turned up dead and dried out of three counties. SOLLERS. Why, but the fire that's eating the whole earth ; The breath of it is scarlet in the sky ! You must have seen that ? WARP. But what's taken you ? 169 The End of the World You are like boys that go to hunt for ghosts, And turn the scuttle of rats to a roused demon Crawling to shut the door of the barn they search. Fire ? Yes, fire is playing a pretty game Yonder, and has its golden fun to itself, Seemingly. SOLLERS. You don't know what 'tis that burns ? WARP. Call me a mole and not a molecatcher If I do not. It is a rick that burns ; And a strange thing I'll count it if the rick Be not old Huff's. SOLLERS. That flare a fired stack ? HUFF. Only one of my ricks alight ? O Glory ! There may be chance for me yet. MERRICK. Best take the train To Droitwich, Huff. VINE (at the door). It would be like a stack, But for the star. SOLLERS (to WARP). Yes, as you're so clever, You can talk down maybe yon brandishing star ! WARP. O, 'tis the star has fiickt your brains ? Indeed, 170 The End of the World The tail swings long enough to-night for that. Well, look your best at it ; 'tis off again To go its rounds, they tell me, from now on ; And the next time it swaggers in our sky, The moles a long while will have tired themselves Of having their easy joke with me. (A pause.) MERRICK. You mean The flight of the star is from us ? SOLLERS. But the world, The whole world reckons on it battering us I WARP. Who told you that ? SOLLERS. A dowser. MERRICK. Where's he gone ? WARP. A dowser ! say a tramping conjurer. You'll believe aught, if you believe a dowser. SOLLERS. I had it in me to be doubting him. MERRICK. The noise you made was like that ! But I knew You 'Id laugh at me, so sure you were the world Would shiver like a bursting grindlestone : Else Fid have said out loud, 'twas a fool's whimsy. 171 The End of the World VINE. Where are you now ? What am I now to think ? Your minds run round in puzzles, like chased hares. I cannot sight them. MERRICK. Think of going to bed. SOLLERS. And dreaming prices for your pigs. MERRICK. O Warp, You should have seen Vine crying ! The moon, he said, The silver moon ! Just like an onion 'twas To stir the water in his eyes. SOLLERS. He's left A puddle of his tears where he was droopt Over the table. VINE. There's to be no ruin ? But what's the word of a molecatcher, to crow So ringing over a dowser's word ? WARP. I'll tell you. These dowsers live on lies : my trade's the truth. I can read moles, and the way they've dug their journeys, 172 The End of the World Where you 'Id not see a wrinkle. VINE. And he knows The buried water. WARP. There's always buried water, If you prod deep enough. A dowser finds Because the whole earth's floating, like a raft. What does he know ? A twitching in his thews ; A dog asleep knows that much. What I know I've learnt, and if I'd learnt it wrong, I 'Id starve. And if I'm right about the grubbing moles, Won't I be right for news of walking men ? MERRICK. Of course you're right. Let's put the whole thing by, And have a pleasant drink. SHALE (to MRS. HUFF). You must be tired With all this story. Shall we be off for home ? HUFF. You brass ! You don't go now with her ! She's mine : You gave her up. SHALE. And you made nothing of her. (To MRS. HUFF.) Come on. MRS. HUFF. Warp, will you do a thing for me ? The End of the World WARP. A hundred things. MRS. HUFF. Then slap me these cur-dogs. WARP. I will. Where will I slap them, and which first? MRS. HUFF. Maybe 'twill do if you but laugh at them. WARP. I'll try for that ; but they are not good jokes ; Though there's a kind of monkey-look about them. MRS. HUFF. They thinking Fid be near one or the other After this night ! Will I be made no more Than clay that children puddle to their minds, Moulding it what they fancy ? Shale was brave : He made a bogy and defied it, till He frightened of his work and ran away. But Huff ! Huff was for modelling wickedly. HUFF. Who told you that ? MRS. HUFF. I need no one's telling. I was your wife once. Don't I know your goodness ? A stupid heart gone sour with jealousy, To feel its blood too dull and thick for sinning. Yes, Huff would figure a wicked thought, but had 174 The End of the World No notion how, and flung the clay aside. O they were gaudy colours both ! But now Fear has bleacht their swagger and left them blank, Fear of a loon that cried, End of the World ! HUFF. Shale, do you know what we're to do ? SHALE. Fid like To have the handling of that dowser-man. HUFF. Just that, my lad, just that ! WARP. And your fired rick ? HUFF. Let it be blazes ! Quick, Shale, after him ! I'll tramp the night out, but I'll take the rogue. SHALE (to the others). You wait, and see us haul him by the ears, And swim the blatherer in Huff's farmyard pond. (As HUFF and SHALE go out, they see the comet before them.) HUFF. The devil's own star is that ! SHALE. And floats as calm As a pike basking. HUFF. There shouldn't be such stars ! SHALE. Neither such dowsers, and we'll learn him that . ( They go off together.) 175 The End of the World SOLLERS. Why, the star's dwindling now, surely ! MERRICK. O, small And dull now to the glowing size it was. VINE. But is it certain there'll be nothing smasht ? Not even a house knockt roaring down in crumbles ? And I did think, Fid open my wife's mouth With envy of the dreadful things Fd seen ! CURTAIN. Printed in Great Britain at The Mayflower Press, Plymouth. William Brendon & Son, Ltd. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 2 184* JUL 6 1-2?- Li- Form L-9-15m-7,'31 PR 6001 Abercrom A14A19 bie - ~T922 Pour plays . Illllllll iilnHllllillliii^ 1 * f\Q A Q