can spring from love like mine!-think you I regret the loss of wealth and those summer friends that clung while fortune shone? -oh, no! I am rich, rich in your love, and in our darling boy. Par. My poor child-my William. Mary. Oh! away with such reproaches-you have manly courage, Richard; add to it a woman's strength. Par. A woman's strength! Mary. Aye, the power of sufferance: you in the wild storm, or wilder battle, hang over the heaving billow or rush upon the sword-this-this is lion-hearted daring: but think you a sailor's wife has not a deeper courage, to listen to the roaring sea, to hear the minute gun, to read of battle and of shipwreck, yet with terror for her daring partner, to hush the whispering fear, and with a deep tranquillity of soul, confide in him who feeds the sparrow, and sustains the flower!-Mere courage is the attribute of beasts; patience, the sweet child of reason! stamps and dignifies the soul of man! Par. My dear Mary! yes, thou wilt love me still. Mary. Love you! though all the world conspired against you, though poverty and wounds had made you unjust to me, forgetful of yourself-though shame had scourged you.-(He turns his head.)-How now, Richard! husband! Par. "Tis nothing. Mary. Nay, your color goes-the veins swell within your brow, and your lip works ;-what, what have I said? Par. Nothing, nothing, my poor wench. Mary. Oh, it is not so! I have awakened some horrid thoughts that still shake and convulse you tell me in mercy! Par. Mary, I will-tell-you: you spoke of shame to a heart rightly endowed with feeling for its fellows! It is a kind of shame to see in silence wrong and outrage done to others. Mary. True; but Par. I-I am a sailor aboard a king's ship; my mind may be as noble, my heart as stout as are the minds and hearts of those who strut upon the quarterdeck, and are my masters.-No matter, 'tis my fate that I obey them. Mary. For heaven's sake, let not the violence of your temper betray you to acts of mutiny--have you not seen Par. Seen!-I have served the king seven years; in that time I have seen enough to turn the softest heart to stone, to make me look with eyes of lead upon the blackest violence-to make me laugh at virtue and feeling as words of a long forgotten tongue.-Seen!-I have seen old men, husbands and fathers-men with venerable gray hairs, tied up, exposed, and treated like basest beasts-scourged, whilst every stroke of the blood-bringing cat may have cut upon a scar received in honorable fight!I have seen this !-And what was the culprit's fault? He may have trod too much on this or that side the deck; have answered in a tone too high or too low, his beardless persecutor no matter, the crime is mutinous, and the mariner must bleed for it. Mary. Oh, Richard, and have you looked on scenes like these? Par. Looked on them!-looked!-listen, then judge whether the gloom upon my face is but the cast of a sickly fancy !— It tears my soul to shock thy delicate spirit, yet thou must know —that henceforth, in what I may do thy mind may justify medost hear me, Mary ? Mary. I'll strive to do so. Par. 'Tis now some four years since I had a friend, a sailor on board a king's ship; his fate was something like to mine, for chance had given him an unsuccessful rival in love, to be his captain and his destroyer. I knew the victim-knew him!— But to my tale the sailor was preferred, rare promotion to one of cultivated mind, to wait upon the steward, and do his lofty bidding. Time wore on- -at length a watch was stolen; suspicion lighted on my friend-he was charged-my heart swells and my head swims round-with the robbery !-Before the assembled crew, despite his protestations and his honest scorn, he was branded with the name of-thief. Mary. Oh, heavens! Par. Stript, and bound for brutal punishment-picture the horror, the agony of my friend, bleeding beneath the gloating eye of his late rival in a woman's love--picture his torment and despair, to feel, while the stripes fell like molten lead upon his back, that keener anguish, his rival's triumph-imagine what, what were his thoughts, what the yearnings of his swelling bosom towards his young wife and precious babe at home. Mary. Oh, horrible! Par. A short time after he thought to escape; he trusted the secret of his flight to another and was betrayed-what followed then? he was tried for desertion-condemned to death !—— Mary. Gracious powers!--and did they- Par. Oh! no, the judges were merciful- Mary. Heaven bless them- Par. Stay your benediction--they were merciful! they did not hang the man-'twould have been harsh they thought—the more so, as he who had stole the watch, touched by compunction, had confessed the theft, clearing the deserter of the crime he had been scourged for. Still discipline demanded punishment. They did not hang the man--and thereby bury in the grave the remembrance of his shame-no-they mercifully sent him through the fleet. Mary. The fleet ! Par. Listen, then wonder that men with hearts of throbbing flesh within them can look upon-much less inflict such tortures -they sentenced him to five hundred lashes, so many at the side of each vessel, whilst the thronging crew sat upon the yards and rigging, to hear the wretch's cries and look upon his opening wounds. What was the result?--why he whom they had tied up, a suffering, persecuted man, they loosed, a raging tiger! From that moment revenge took possession of his soul-he lived and breathed--consented to look on the day's blessed light only that he might have revenge.--'Twas I! Mary. You, husband! you? Par. Yes, Mary Parker, I-I am that wronged, that striped, heart-broken, degraded man. Mary. Oh! Richard !--Heaven, heaven have mercy on them. Par. Amen! mercy is heaven's attribute-revenge is man's. --Aye, look upon me, Mary; do you not blush to call me husband! Mary. Oh! talk not so. Par. You must, for I feel degraded-a thing of scorn, and restless desperation, but the time is ripe, and vengeanceMary. Oh! think not of it. Par. Think not of it!--I only live upon the hope of coming retribution--think not of it-would you still embrace a striped, a branded felon ? Mary. That stain is wiped away. Par. No-but it shall be, and in blood. Mary. In mercy, Richard. Par. Hear me swear. (Kneels.) (Enter the child, who runs between father and mother.) Child. Dear, dear father! Par. Ha! be this the subject of my oath.-(Puts his hand upon the child's head.)-May this sweet child, the fountain of my hopes, become my bitterest source of misery--may all my joy in him be turned to mourning and disquiet-may he be a reed to my old age—a laughter and a jest to my gray hairsmay he mock my dying agonies and spit upon my grave, if for a day, an hour, I seek not a most deep and bloody vengeance.(Voice of JACK ADAMS, heard without.--Aboard the house, ahoy!)-A stranger's voice, we are disturbed-farewell, my love, I must aboard; tomorrow you shall hear news of me--I have promised my shipmates to bring William with me; he shall return when I do. Mary. Promise then to be more calm, and let patience, Richard, patience counsel you. (Exit.) Par. Farewell--now my child shall see his father's wronger at his feet.-Arlington, I come to triumph. (Exit with child.) XV.-FROM JULIUS CÆSAR.—Shakspeare. BRUTUS-CASSIUS. Street Scene. Cassius. Will you go see the order of the course? Cas. I pray you, do. Bru. I am not gamesome; I do lack some part Of that quick spirit that is in Antony; Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires; I'll leave you. Cas. Brutus, I do observe you now of late; Bru. Cassius, Be not deceived: If I have veiled my look, Merely upon myself. Vexed I am Of late with passions of some difference, Which give some soil perhaps to my behavior; Nor construe any farther my neglect, Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war, Cas. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion; And it is very much lamented, Brutus, That you might see your shadow. I have heard, Bru. Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, That you would have me seek into myself For that which is not in me? Cas. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear; And since you know you cannot see yourself So well as by reflection, I, your glass, Will modestly discover to yourself That of yourself which yet you know not of. To all the rout; then hold me dangerous. Bru. What means this shouting? I do fear the people Choose Cæsar for their king. Cas. Ay, do you fear it? Then must I think you would not have it so. Bru. I would not, Cassius; yet I love him well. But wherefore do you hold me here so long? |