The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle - 1 Chapter

CHAPTER I
 “There Are Heroisms All Round Us”

Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon earth, ­a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self.  If anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the thought of such a father-in-law.  I am convinced that he really believed in his heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days a week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his views upon bimetallism, a subject upon which he was by way of being an authority.

For an hour or more that evening I listened to his monotonous chirrup about bad money driving out good, the token value of silver, the depreciation of the rupee, and the true standards of exchange.

“Suppose,” he cried with feeble violence, “that all the debts in the world were called up simultaneously, and immediate payment insisted upon, ­what under our present conditions would happen then?”

I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man, upon which he jumped from his chair, reproved me for my habitual levity, which made it impossible for him to discuss any reasonable subject in my presence, and bounced off out of the room to dress for a Masonic meeting.

At last I was alone with Gladys, and the moment of Fate had come!  All that evening I had felt like the soldier who awaits the signal which will send him on a forlorn hope; hope of victory and fear of repulse alternating in his mind.

She sat with that proud, delicate profile of hers outlined against the red curtain.  How beautiful she was!  And yet how aloof!  We had been friends, quite good friends; but never could I get beyond the same comradeship which I might have established with one of my fellow-reporters upon the Gazette, ­perfectly frank, perfectly kindly, and perfectly unsexual.  My instincts are all against a woman being too frank and at her ease with me.  It is no compliment to a man.  Where the real sex feeling begins, timidity and distrust are its companions, heritage from old wicked days when love and violence went often hand in hand.  The bent head, the averted eye, the faltering voice, the wincing figure ­these, and not the unshrinking gaze and frank reply, are the true signals of passion.  Even in my short life I had learned as much as that ­or had inherited it in that race memory which we call instinct.

Gladys was full of every womanly quality.  Some judged her to be cold and hard; but such a thought was treason.  That delicately bronzed skin, almost oriental in its coloring, that raven hair, the large liquid eyes, the full but exquisite lips, ­all the stigmata of passion were there.  But I was sadly conscious that up to now I had never found the secret of drawing it forth.  However, come what might, I should have done with suspense and bring matters to a head to-night.  She could but refuse me, and better be a repulsed lover than an accepted brother.

So far my thoughts had carried me, and I was about to break the long and uneasy silence, when two critical, dark eyes looked round at me, and the proud head was shaken in smiling reproof.  “I have a presentiment that you are going to propose, Ned.  I do wish you wouldn’t; for things are so much nicer as they are.”

I drew my chair a little nearer.  “Now, how did you know that I was going to propose?” I asked in genuine wonder.

“Don’t women always know?  Do you suppose any woman in the world was ever taken unawares?  But ­oh, Ned, our friendship has been so good and so pleasant!  What a pity to spoil it!  Don’t you feel how splendid it is that a young man and a young woman should be able to talk face to face as we have talked?”

“I don’t know, Gladys.  You see, I can talk face to face with ­with the station-master.”  I can’t imagine how that official came into the matter; but in he trotted, and set us both laughing.  “That does not satisfy me in the least.  I want my arms round you, and your head on my breast, and ­oh, Gladys, I want ­”

She had sprung from her chair, as she saw signs that I proposed to demonstrate some of my wants.  “You’ve spoiled everything, Ned,” she said.  “It’s all so beautiful and natural until this kind of thing comes in!  It is such a pity!  Why can’t you control yourself?”

“I didn’t invent it,” I pleaded.  “It’s nature.  It’s love.”

“Well, perhaps if both love, it may be different.  I have never felt it.”

“But you must ­you, with your beauty, with your soul!  Oh, Gladys, you were made for love!  You must love!”

“One must wait till it comes.”

“But why can’t you love me, Gladys?  Is it my appearance, or what?”

She did unbend a little.  She put forward a hand ­such a gracious, stooping attitude it was ­and she pressed back my head.  Then she looked into my upturned face with a very wistful smile.

“No it isn’t that,” she said at last.  “You’re not a conceited boy by nature, and so I can safely tell you it is not that.  It’s deeper.”

“My character?”

She nodded severely.

“What can I do to mend it?  Do sit down and talk it over.  No, really, I won’t if you’ll only sit down!”

She looked at me with a wondering distrust which was much more to my mind than her whole-hearted confidence.  How primitive and bestial it looks when you put it down in black and white! ­and perhaps after all it is only a feeling peculiar to myself.  Anyhow, she sat down.

“Now tell me what’s amiss with me?”

“I’m in love with somebody else,” said she.

It was my turn to jump out of my chair.

“It’s nobody in particular,” she explained, laughing at the expression of my face:  “only an ideal.  I’ve never met the kind of man I mean.”

“Tell me about him.  What does he look like?”

“Oh, he might look very much like you.”

“How dear of you to say that!  Well, what is it that he does that I don’t do?  Just say the word, ­teetotal, vegetarian, aeronaut, theosophist, superman.  I’ll have a try at it, Gladys, if you will only give me an idea what would please you.”

She laughed at the elasticity of my character.  “Well, in the first place, I don’t think my ideal would speak like that,” said she.  “He would be a harder, sterner man, not so ready to adapt himself to a silly girl’s whim.  But, above all, he must be a man who could do, who could act, who could look Death in the face and have no fear of him, a man of great deeds and strange experiences.  It is never a man that I should love, but always the glories he had won; for they would be reflected upon me.  Think of Richard Burton!  When I read his wife’s life of him I could so understand her love!  And Lady Stanley!  Did you ever read the wonderful last chapter of that book about her husband?  These are the sort of men that a woman could worship with all her soul, and yet be the greater, not the less, on account of her love, honored by all the world as the inspirer of noble deeds.”

She looked so beautiful in her enthusiasm that I nearly brought down the whole level of the interview.  I gripped myself hard, and went on with the argument.

“We can’t all be Stanleys and Burtons,” said I; “besides, we don’t get the chance, ­at least, I never had the chance.  If I did, I should try to take it.”

“But chances are all around you.  It is the mark of the kind of man I mean that he makes his own chances.  You can’t hold him back.  I’ve never met him, and yet I seem to know him so well.  There are heroisms all round us waiting to be done.  It’s for men to do them, and for women to reserve their love as a reward for such men.  Look at that young Frenchman who went up last week in a balloon.  It was blowing a gale of wind; but because he was announced to go he insisted on starting.  The wind blew him fifteen hundred miles in twenty-four hours, and he fell in the middle of Russia.  That was the kind of man I mean.  Think of the woman he loved, and how other women must have envied her!  That’s what I should like to be, ­envied for my man.”

“I’d have done it to please you.”

“But you shouldn’t do it merely to please me.  You should do it because you can’t help yourself, because it’s natural to you, because the man in you is crying out for heroic expression.  Now, when you described the Wigan coal explosion last month, could you not have gone down and helped those people, in spite of the choke-damp?”

“I did.”

“You never said so.”

“There was nothing worth bucking about.”

“I didn’t know.”  She looked at me with rather more interest.  “That was brave of you.”

“I had to.  If you want to write good copy, you must be where the things are.”

“What a prosaic motive!  It seems to take all the romance out of it.  But, still, whatever your motive, I am glad that you went down that mine.”  She gave me her hand; but with such sweetness and dignity that I could only stoop and kiss it.  “I dare say I am merely a foolish woman with a young girl’s fancies.  And yet it is so real with me, so entirely part of my very self, that I cannot help acting upon it.  If I marry, I do want to marry a famous man!”

“Why should you not?” I cried.  “It is women like you who brace men up.  Give me a chance, and see if I will take it!  Besides, as you say, men ought tomake their own chances, and not wait until they are given.  Look at Clive ­just a clerk, and he conquered India!  By George!  I’ll do something in the world yet!”

She laughed at my sudden Irish effervescence.  “Why not?” she said.  “You have everything a man could have, ­youth, health, strength, education, energy.  I was sorry you spoke.  And now I am glad ­so glad ­if it wakens these thoughts in you!”

“And if I do ­”

Her dear hand rested like warm velvet upon my lips.  “Not another word, Sir!  You should have been at the office for evening duty half an hour ago; only I hadn’t the heart to remind you.  Some day, perhaps, when you have won your place in the world, we shall talk it over again.”

And so it was that I found myself that foggy November evening pursuing the Camberwell tram with my heart glowing within me, and with the eager determination that not another day should elapse before I should find some deed which was worthy of my lady.  But who ­who in all this wide world could ever have imagined the incredible shape which that deed was to take, or the strange steps by which I was led to the doing of it?

And, after all, this opening chapter will seem to the reader to have nothing to do with my narrative; and yet there would have been no narrative without it, for it is only when a man goes out into the world with the thought that there are heroisms all round him, and with the desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may come within sight of him, that he breaks away as I did from the life he knows, and ventures forth into the wonderful mystic twilight land where lie the great adventures and the great rewards.  Behold me, then, at the office of the Daily Gazette, on the staff of which I was a most insignificant unit, with the settled determination that very night, if possible, to find the quest which should be worthy of my Gladys!  Was it hardness, was it selfishness, that she should ask me to risk my life for her own glorification?  Such thoughts may come to middle age; but never to ardent three-and-twenty in the fever of his first love.

Fair Em by William Shakespeare - 2 Actions

 

 ACT I.

     Scene I

     [Enter William the Conqueror; Marques Lubeck, with a picture;
     Mountney; Manville; Valingford; and Duke Dirot.]

     Marques.
     What means fair Britain’s mighty Conqueror
     So suddenly to cast away his staff,
     And all in passion to forsake the tylt?

     D. Dirot.
     My Lord, this triumph we solemnise here
     Is of mere love to your increasing joys,
     Only expecting cheerful looks for all;
     What sudden pangs than moves your majesty
     To dim the brightness of the day with frowns?

     William the conqueror.
     Ah, good my Lords, misconster not the cause;
     At least, suspect not my displeased brows:
     I amorously do bear to your intent,
     For thanks and all that you can wish I yield.
     But that which makes me blush and shame to tell
     Is cause why thus I turn my conquering eyes
     To cowards looks and beaten fantasies.

     Mountney.
     Since we are guiltless, we the less dismay
     To see this sudden change possess your cheer,
     For if it issue from your own conceits
     Bred by suggestion of some envious thoughts,
     Your highness wisdom may suppress it straight.
     Yet tell us, good my Lord, what thought it is
     That thus bereaves you of your late content,
     That in advise we may assist your grace,
     Or bend our forces to revive your spirits.

     William the conqueror.
     Ah, Marques Lubeck, in thy power it lies
     To rid my bosom of these thralled dumps:
     And therefore, good my Lords, forbear a while
     That we may parley of these private cares,
     Whose strength subdues me more than all the world.

     Valingford.
     We go and wish thee private conference
     Publicke afffects in this accustomed peace.

     [Exit all but William and the Marques.]

     William.
     Now, Marques, must a Conquerer at arms
     Disclose himself thrald to unarmed thoughts,
     And, threatnd of a shadow, yield to lust.
     No sooner had my sparkling eyes beheld
     The flames of beauty blazing on this piece,
     But suddenly a sense of miracle,
     Imagined on thy lovely Maistre’s face,
     Made me abandon bodily regard,
     And cast all pleasures on my wounded soul:
     Then, gentle Marques, tell me what she is,
     That thus thou honourest on thy warlike shield;
     And if thy love and interest be such
     As justly may give place to mine,
     That if it be, my soul with honors wing
     May fly into the bosom of my dear;
     If not, close them, and stoop into my grave!

     Marques.
     If this be all, renowned Conquerer,
     Advance your drooping spirits, and revive
     The wonted courage of your Conquering mind;
     For this fair picture painted on my shield
     Is the true counterfeit of lovely Blaunch,
     Princess and daughter to the King of Danes,
     Whose beauty and excess of ornaments
     Deserves another manner of defence,
     Pomp and high person to attend her state
     Then Marques Lubeck any way presents.
     Therefore her vertues I resign to thee,
     Already shrined in thy religious breast,
     To be advanced and honoured to the full;
     Nor bear I this an argument of love,
     But to renown fair Blaunch, my Sovereigns child
     In every place where I by arms may do it.

     William.
     Ah, Marques, thy words bring heaven unto my soul,
     And had I heaven to give for thy reward,
     Thou shouldst be throned in no unworthy place.
     But let my uttermost wealth suffice thy worth,
     Which here I vow; and to aspire the bliss
     That hangs on quick achievement of my love,
     Thy self and I will travel in disguise,
     To bring this Lady to our Brittain Court.

     Marques.
     Let William but bethink what may avail,
     And let me die if I deny my aide.

     William.
     Then thus:  The Duke Dirot, and Therle Dimarch,
     Will I leave substitutes to rule my Realm,
     While mighty love forbids my being here;
     And in the name of Sir Robert of Windsor
     Will go with thee unto the Danish Court.
     Keep Williams secrets, Marques, if thou love him.
     Bright Blaunch, I come!  Sweet fortune, favour me,
     And I will laud thy name eternally.

     [Exeunt.]

     Scene II

     Manchester.  The Interior of a Mill.

     [Enter the Miller and Em, his daughter.]

     Miller.
     Come, daughter, we must learn to shake of pomp,
     To leave the state that earst beseemd a Knight
     And gentleman of no mean discent,
     To undertake this homélie millers trade:
     Thus must we mask to save our wretched lives,
     Threatned by Conquest of this hapless Yle,
     Whose sad invasions by the Conqueror
     Have made a number such as we subject
     Their gentle necks unto their stubborn yoke
     Of drudging labour and base peasantry.
     Sir Thomas Godard now old Goddard is,
     Goddard the miller of fair Manchester.
     Why should not I content me with this state,
     As good Sir Edmund Trofferd did the flaile?
     And thou, sweet Em, must stoop to high estate
     To join with mine that thus we may protect
     Our harmless lives, which, led in greater port,
     Would be an envious object to our foes,
     That seek to root all Britains Gentry
     From bearing countenance against their tyranny.

     Em.
     Good Father, let my full resolved thoughts
     With settled patiens to support this chance
     Be some poor comfort to your aged soul;
     For therein rests the height of my estate,
     That you are pleased with this dejection,
     And that all toils my hands may undertake
     May serve to work your worthiness content.

     Miller.
     Thanks, my dear Daughter.
     These thy pleasant words
     Transfer my soul into a second heaven:
     And in thy settled mind my joys consist,
     My state revived, and I in former plight.
     Although our outward pomp be thus abased,
     And thralde to drudging, stayless of the world,
     Let us retain those honorable minds
     That lately governed our superior state,
     Wherein true gentry is the only mean
     That makes us differ from base millers borne.
     Though we expect no knightly delicates,
     Nor thirst in soul for former soverainty,
     Yet may our minds as highly scorn to stoop
     To base desires of vulgars worldliness,
     As if we were in our precedent way.
     And, lovely daughter, since thy youthful years
     Must needs admit as young affections,
     And that sweet love unpartial perceives
     Her dainty subjects through every part,
     In chief receive these lessons from my lips,
     The true discovers of a Virgins due,
     Now requisite, now that I know thy mind
     Something enclined to favour Manvils suit,
     A gentleman, thy Lover in protest;
     And that thou maist not be by love deceived,
     But try his meaning fit for thy desert,
     In pursuit of all amorous desires,
     Regard thine honour.  Let not vehement sighs,
     Nor earnest vows importing fervent love,
     Render thee subject to the wrath of lust:
     For that, transformed to form of sweet delight,
     Will bring thy body and thy soul to shame.
     Chaste thoughts and modest conversations,
     Of proof to keep out all inchaunting vows,
     Vain sighs, forst tears, and pitiful aspects,
     Are they that make deformed Ladies fair,
     Poor rich:  and such intycing men,
     That seek of all but only present grace,
     Shall in perseverance of a Virgins due
     Prefer the most refusers to the choice
     Of such a soul as yielded what they thought.
     But ho:  where is Trotter?

     [Here enters Trotter, the Millers man, to them:  And they
     within call to him for their gryste.]

Trotter.  Wheres Trotter? why, Trotter is here.  Yfaith, you and your daughter go up and down weeping and wamenting, and keeping of a wamentation, as who should say, the Mill would go with your wamenting.

     Miller.
     How now, Trotter? why complainest thou so?

Trotter.  Why, yonder is a company of young men and maids, keep such a stir for their grist, that they would have it before my stones be ready to grind it.  But, yfaith, I would I could break wind enough backward:  you should not tarry for your gryst, I warrant you.

     Miller.
     Content thee, Trotter, I will go pacify them.

Trotter.  Iwis you will when I cannot.  Why, look, you have a Mill ­ Why, whats your Mill without me?  Or rather, Mistress, what were I without you?

     [Here he taketh Em about the neck.]

     Em.
     Nay, Trotter, if you fall achyding, I will give you over.

Trotter.  I chide you, dame, to amend you.  You are too fine to be a Millers daughter; for if you should but stoop to take up the tole dish, you will have the cramp in your finger at least ten weeks after.

Miller.  Ah, well said, Trotter; teach her to play the good huswife, and thou shalt have her to thy wife, if thou canst get her good will.

Trotter.  Ah, words wherein I see Matrimony come loaden with kisses to salute me!  Now let me alone to pick the Mill, to fill the hopper, to take the tole, to mend the sails, yea, and to make the mill to go with the very force of my love.

     [Here they must call for their gryst within.]

     Trotter.
     I come, I come; yfaith, now you shall have your gryst, or else
     Trotter will trot and amble himself to death.

     [They call him again.  Exit.]

     Scene III

     The Danish Court.

     [Enter king of Denmark, with some attendants, Blanch his
     daughter, Mariana, Marques Lubeck, William disguised.]

     King of Denmark.
     Lord Marques Lubecke, welcome home.
     Welcome, brave Knight, unto the Denmark King,
     For Williams sake, the noble Norman Duke,
     So famous for his fortunes and success,
     That graceth him with name of Conqueror:
     Right double welcome must thou be to us.

     Robert Windsor.
     And to my Lord the king shall I recount
     Your graces courteous entertainment,
     That for his sake vouchsafe to honor me,
     A simple Knight attendant on his grace.

     King of Denmark.
     But say, Sir Knight, what may I call your name?

     Robert Windsor.
     Robert Windsor, and like your Majesty.

     King of Denmark.
     I tell thee, Robert, I so admire the man
     As that I count it heinous guilt in him
     That honors not Duke William with his heart.
     Blanch, bid this stranger welcome, good my girl.

     Blanch.
     Sir,
     Shouyld I neglect your highness charge herein,
     It might be thought of base discourtesy.
     Welcome, Sir Knight, to Denmark, heartily.

     Robert Windsor.
     Thanks gentle Lady.  Lord Marques, who is she?

     Lubeck.
     That same is Blanch, daughter to the King.
     The substance of the shadow that you saw.

     Robert Windsor.
     May this be she, for whom I crost the Seas?
     I am ashamed to think I was so fond.
     In whom there’s nothing that contents my mind:
     Ill head, worse featured, uncomely, nothing courtly;
     Swart and ill favoured, a Colliers sanguine skin.
     I never saw a harder favoured slut.
     Love her? for what?  I can no whit abide her.

     Kind of Denmark.
     Mariana, I have this day received letters
     From Swethia, that lets me understand
     Your ransom is collecting there with speed,
     And shortly shalbe hither sent to us.

     Mariana.
     Not that I find occasion of mislike
     My entertainment in your graces court,
     But that I long to see my native home ­

     King of Denmark.
     And reason have you, Madam, for the same.
     Lord Marques, I commit unto your charge
     The entertainment of Sir Robert here;
     Let him remain with you within the Court,
     In solace and disport to spend the time.

     Robert Windsor.
     I thank your highness, whose bounden I remain.

     [Exit King of Denmark.  Blanch speaketh this secretly at one
     end of the stage.]

     Unhappy Blanch, what strange effects are these
     That works within my thoughts confusedly?
     That still, me thinks, affection draws me on,
     To take, to like, nay more, to love this Knight?

     Robert Windsor.
     A modest countenance; no heavy sullen look;
     Not very fair, but richly deckt with favour;
     A sweet face, an exceeding dainty hand;
     A body were it framed of wax
     By all the cunning artists of the world,
     It could not better be proportioned.

     Lubeck.
     How now, Sir Robert? in a study, man?
     Here is no time for contemplation.

     Robert Windsor.
     My Lord, there is a certain odd conceit,
     Which on the sudden greatly troubles me.

     Lubeck.
     How like you Blanch?  I partly do perceive
     The little boy hath played the wag with you.

     Sir Robert.
     The more I look the more I love to look.
     Who says that Mariana is not fair?
     I’ll gage my gauntlet gainst the envious man
     That dares avow there liveth her compare.

     Lubeck.
     Sir Robert, you mistake your counterfeit.
     This is the Lady which you came to see.

     Sir Robert.
     Yes, my Lord:  She is counterfeit in deed,
     For there is the substance that best contents me.

     Lubeck.
     That is my love.  Sir Robert, you do wrong me.

     Robert.
     The better for you, sir, she is your Love ­
     As for the wrong, I see not how it grows.

     Lubeck.
     In seeking that which is anothers right.

     Robert.
     As who should say your love were privileged,
     That none might look upon her but your self.

     Lubeck.
     These jars becomes not our familiarity,
     Nor will I stand on terms to move your patience.

     Robert.
     Why, my Lord, am
     Not I of flesh and blood as well as you?
     Then give me leave to love as well as you.

     Lubeck.
     To Love, Sir Robert? but whom? not she I Love?
     Nor stands it with the honor my state
     To brook corrivals with me in my love.

     Robert.
     So, Sir, we are thorough for that Lady.
     Ladies, farewell.  Lord Marques, will you go?
     I will find a time to speak with her, I trowe.

     Lubeck.
     With all my heart.  Come, Ladies, will you walk?

     [Exit.]

     

    Scene IV

     The English Court.

     [Enter Manvile alone, disguised.]

     Manvile.
     Ah, Em! the subject of my restless thoughts,
     The Anvil whereupon my heart doth be
     Framing thy state to thy desert ­
     Full ill this life becomes thy heavenly look,
     Wherein sweet love and vertue sits enthroned.
     Bad world, where riches is esteemd above them both,
     In whose base eyes nought else is bountifull!
     A Millers daughter, says the multitude,
     Should not be loved of a Gentleman.
     But let them breath their souls into the air,
     Yet will I still affect thee as my self,
     So thou be constant in thy plighted vow.
     But here comes one ­I will listen to his talk.

     [Manvile stays, hiding himself.]

     [Enter Valingford at another door, disguised.]

     Valingford.
     Go, William Conqueror, and seek thy love
     Seek thou a minion in a foreign land,
     Whilest I draw back and court my love at home.
     The millers daughter of fair Manchester
     Hath bound my feet to this delightsome soil,
     And from her eyes do dart such golden beams
     That holds my heart in her subjection.

     Manvile.
     He ruminates on my beloved choice:
     God grant he come not to prevent my hope.
     But here’s another, him I’ll listen to.

     [Enter Mountney, disguised, at another door.]

     Lord Mountney.
     Nature unjust, in utterance of thy art,
     To grace a peasant with a Princes fame!
     Peasant am I, so to misterm my love:
     Although a millers daughter by her birth,
     Yet may her beauty and her vertues well suffice
     To hide the blemish of her birth in hell,
     Where neither envious eyes nor thought can pierce,
     But endless darkness ever smother it.
     Go, William Conqueror, and seek thy love,
     Whilest I draw back and court mine own the while,
     Decking her body with such costly robes
     As may become her beauties worthiness;
     That so thy labors may be laughed to scorn,
     And she thou seekest in foreign regions
     Be darkened and eclipst when she arrives
     By one that I have chosen nearer home.

     Manvile.
     What! comes he too, to intercept my love?
     Then hie thee Manvile to forestall such foes.

     [Exit Manvile.]

     Mountney.
     What now, Lord Valingford, are you behind?
     The king had chosen you to go with him.

     Valingford.
     So chose he you, therefore I marvel much
     That both of us should linger in this sort.
     What may the king imagine of our stay?

     Mountney.
     The king may justly think we are to blame:
     But I imagined I might well be spared,
     And that no other man had borne my mind.

     Valingford.
     The like did I:  in friendship then resolve
     What is the cause of your unlookt for stay?

     Mountney.
     Lord Valingford, I tell thee as a friend,
     Love is the cause why I have stayed behind.

     Valingford.
     Love, my Lord? of whom?

     Mountney.
     Em, the millers daughter of Manchester.

     Valingford.
     But may this be?

     Mountney.
     Why not, my Lord?  I hope full well you know
     That love respects no difference of state,
     So beauty serve to stir affection.

     Valingford.
     But this it is that makes me wonder most:
     That you and I should be of one conceit
     I such a strange unlikely passion.

     Mountney.
     But is that true?  My Lord, I hope you do but jest.

     Valingford.
     I would I did; then were my grief the less.

     Mountney.
     Nay, never grieve; for if the cause be such
     To join our thoughts in such a Simpathy,
     All envy set aside, let us agree
     To yield to eithers fortune in this choice.

     Valingford.
     Content, say I:  and what so ere befall,
     Shake hands, my Lord, and fortune thrive at all.

     [Exeunt.]

ACT II.

     Scene I-Manchester-The Mill 

     [Enter Em and Trotter, the Millers man, with a kerchife on his
     head, and an Urinall in his hand.]

     Em.
     Trotter, where have you been?

     Trotter.
     Where have I been? why, what signifies this?

     Em.
     A kerchiefe, doth it not?

     Trotter.
     What call you this, I pray?

     Em.
     I say it is an Urinall.

     Trotter.
     Then this is mystically to give you to understand, I have
     been at the Phismicaries house.

     Em.
     How long hast thou been sick?

     Trotter.
     Yfaith, even as long as I have not been half well, and that
     hath been a long time.

     Em.
     A loitering time, I rather imagine.

     Trotter.
     It may be so:  but the Phismicary tells me that you can help
     Me.

     Em.
     Why, any thing I can do for recovery of thy health be right
     well assured of.

     Trotter.
     Then give me your hand.

     Em.
     To what end?

     Trotter.
     That the ending of an old indenture is the beginning of a
     new bargain.

     Em.
     What bargain?

     Trotter.
     That you promised to do any thing to recover my health.

     Em.
     On that condition I give thee my hand.

     Trotter.
     Ah, sweet Em!

     [Here he offers to kiss her.]

     Em.
     How now, Trotter! your masters daughter?

     Trotter.
     Yfaith, I aim at the fairest.
        Ah, Em, sweet Em!
        Fresh as the flower,
        That hath pour
        To wound my heart,
        And ease my smart,
        Of me, poor thief,
        In prison bound ­

     Em.
        So all your rhyme
        Lies on the ground.
     But what means this?

     Trotter.
     Ah, mark the device ­
        For thee, my love,
        Full sick I was,
        In hazard of my life.
        Thy promise was
        To make me whole,
        And for to be my wife.
        Let me enjoy
        My love, my dear,
        And thou possess
        Thy Trotter here.

     Em.
     But I meant no such matter.

     Trotter.
     Yes, woos, but you did.  I’ll go to our Parson, Sir John, and
     he shall mumble up the marriage out of hand.

     Em.
     But here comes one that will forbid the Banes.

     [Here enters Manvile to them.]

     Trotter.
     Ah, Sir, you come too late.

     Manvile.
     What remedy, Trotter?

     Em.
     Go, Trotter, my father calls.

     Trotter.
     Would you have me go in, and leave you two here?

     Em.
     Why, darest thou not trust me?

     Trotter.
     Yes, faith, even as long as I see you.

     Em.
     Go thy ways, I pray thee heartily.

     Trotter.
     That same word (heartily) is of great force.  I will go.  But
     I pray, sir, beware you come not too near the wench.

     [Exit Trotter.]

     Manvile.
     I am greatly beholding to you.
     Ah, Maistres, sometime I might have said, my love,
     But time and fortune hath bereaved me of that,
     And I, an object in those gratious eyes,
     That with remorse earst saw into my grief,
     May sit and sigh the sorrows of my heart.

     Em.
     In deed my Manvile hath some cause to doubt,
     When such a Swain is rival in his love!

     Manvile.
     Ah, Em, were he the man that causeth this mistrust,
     I should esteem of thee as at the first.

     Em.
     But is my love in earnest all this while?

     Manvile.
     Believe me, Em, it is not time to jest,
     When others joys, what lately I possest.

     Em.
     If touching love my Manvile charge me thus,
     Unkindly must I take it at his hands,
     For that my conscience clears me of offence.

     Manvile.
     Ah, impudent and shameless in thy ill,
     That with thy cunning and defraudful tongue
     Seeks to delude the honest meaning mind!
     Was never heard in Manchester before
     Of truer love then hath been betwixt twain:
     And for my part how I have hazarded
     Displeasure of my father and my friends,
     Thy self can witness.  Yet notwithstanding this,
     Two gentlemen attending on Duke William,
     Mountney and Valingford, as I heard them named,
     Oft times resort to see and to be seen
     Walking the street fast by thy fathers door,
     Whose glauncing eyes up to the windows cast
     Gives testies of their Maisters amorous heart.
     This, Em, is noted and too much talked on,
     Some see it without mistrust of ill ­
     Others there are that, scorning, grin thereat,
     And saith, ‘There goes the millers daughters wooers’.
     Ah me, whom chiefly and most of all it doth concern,
     To spend my time in grief and vex my soul,
     To think my love should be rewarded thus,
     And for thy sake abhor all womenkind!

     Em.
     May not a maid look upon a man
     Without suspitious judgement of the world?

     Manvile.
     If sight do move offence, it is the better not to see.
     But thou didst more, unconstant as thou art,
     For with them thou hadst talk and conference.

     Em.
     May not a maid talk with a man without mistrust?

     Manvile.
     Not with such men suspected amorous.

     Em.
     I grieve to see my Manviles jealousy.

     Manvile.
     Ah, Em, faithful love is full of jealousy.
     So did I love thee true and faithfully,
     For which I am rewarded most unthankfully.

     [Exit in a rage.  Manet Em.]

     Em.
     And so away?  What, in displeasure gone,
     And left me such a bittersweet to gnaw upon?
     Ah, Manvile, little wottest thou
     How near this parting goeth to my heart.
     Uncourteous love, whose followers reaps reward
     Of hate, disdain, reproach and infamy,
     The fruit of frantike, bedlome jealousy!

     [Here enter Mountney to Em.]

     But here comes one of these suspitious men:
     Witness, my God, without desert of me,
     For only Manvile, honor I in heart,
     Nor shall unkindness cause me from him to start.

     Mountney.
     For this good fortune, Venus, be thou blest,
     To meet my love, the mistress of my heart,
     Where time and place gives opportunity
     At full to let her understand my love.

     [He turns to Em and offers to take her by the hand, and she
     goes from him.]

     Fair mistress, since my fortune sorts so well,
     Hear you a word.  What meaneth this?
     Nay, stay, fair Em.

     Em.
     I am going homewards, sir.

     Mountney.
     Yet stay, sweet love, to whom I must disclose
     The hidden secrets of a lovers thoughts,
     Not doubting but to find such kind remorse
     As naturally you are enclined to.

     Em.
     The Gentle-man, your friend, Sir,
     I have not seen him this four days at the least.

     Mountney.
     Whats that to me?
     I speak not, sweet, in person of my friend,
     But for my self, whom, if that love deserve
     To have regard, being honourable love,
     Not base affects of loose lascivious love,
     Whom youthful wantons play and dally with,
     But that unites in honourable bands of holy rites,
     And knits the sacred knot that Gods ­

     [Here Em cuts him off.]

     Em.
     What mean you, sir, to keep me here so long?
     I cannot understand you by your signs;
     You keep a pratling with your lips,
     But never a word you speak that I can hear.

     Mountney.
     What, is she deaf? a great impediment.
     Yet remedies there are for such defects.
     Sweet Em, it is no little grief to me,
     To see, where nature in her pride of art
     Hath wrought perfections rich and admirable ­

     Em.
     Speak you to me, Sir?

     Mountney.
     To thee, my only joy.

     Em.
     I cannot hear you.

     Mountney.
     Oh, plague of Fortune!  Oh hell without compare!
     What boots it us to gaze and not enjoy?

     Em.
     Fare you well, Sir.

     [Exit Em.  Manet Mountney.]

     Mountney.
     Fare well, my love.  Nay, farewell life and all!
     Could I procure redress for this infirmity,
     It might be means she would regard my suit.
     I am acquainted with the Kings Physicians,
     Amongst the which theres one mine honest friend,
     Seignior Alberto, a very learned man.
     His judgement will I have to help this ill.
     Ah, Em, fair Em, if Art can make thee whole,
     I’ll buy that sence for thee, although it cost me dear.
     But, Mountney, stay:  this may be but deceit,
     A matter fained only to delude thee,
     And, not unlike, perhaps by Valingford.
     He loves fair Em as well as I ­
     As well as I? ah, no, not half so well.
     Put case:  yet may he be thine enemy,
     And give her counsell to dissemble thus.
     I’ll try the event and if it fall out so,
     Friendship, farewell:  Love makes me now a foe.

     [Exit Mountney.]

     Scene II.

     An Ante-Chamber at the Danish Court.

     [Enter Marques Lubeck and Mariana.]

     Mariana.
     Trust me, my Lord, I am sorry for your hurt.

     Lubeck.
     Gramercie, Madam; but it is not great:
     Only a thrust, prickt with a Rapiers point.

     Mariana.
     How grew the quarrel, my Lord?

Lubeck.  Sweet Lady, for thy sake.  There was this last night two masks in one company, my self the formost.  The other strangers were:  amongst the which, when the Musick began to sound the Measures, each Masker made choice of his Lady; and one, more forward than the rest, stept towards thee, which I perceiving, thrust him aside, and took thee my self.  But this was taken in so ill part that at my coming out of the court gate, with justling together, it was my chance to be thrust into the arm.  The doer thereof, because he was the original cause of the disorder at that inconvenient time, was presently committed, and is this morning sent for to answer the matter.  And I think here he comes.

     [Here enters Sir Robert of Windsor with a Gaylor.]

     What, Sir Robert of Windsor, how now?

     Sir Robert.
     Yfaith, my Lord, a prisoner:  but what ails your arm?

     Lubeck.
     Hurt the last night by mischance.

     Sir Robert.
     What, not in the mask at the Court gate?

     Lubeck.
     Yes, trust me, there.

     Sir Robert.
     Why then, my Lord, I thank you for my nights lodging.

     Lubeck.
     And I you for my hurt, if it were so.  Keeper, away, I
     discharge you of your prisoner.

     [Exit the Keeper.]

     Sir Robert.
     Lord Marques, you offered me disgrace to shoulder me.

Lubeck.  Sir, I knew you not, and therefore you must pardon me, and the rather it might be alleged to me of mere simplicity to see another dance with my Maistris, disguised, and I my self in presence.  But seeing it was our happs to damnify each other unwillingly, let us be content with our harms, and lay the fault where it was, and so become friends.

     Sir Robert.
     Yfaith, I am content with my nights lodging, if you be content
     with your hurt.

     Lubeck.
     Not content that I have it, but content to forget how I came
     by it.

     Sir Robert.
     My Lord, here comes Lady Blaunch, lets away.

     [Enter Blaunch.]

     Lubeck.
     With good will.  Lady, you will stay?

     [Exit Lubeck and Sir Robert.]

     Mariana.
     Madam ­

Blaunch.  Mariana, as I am grieved with thy presence:  so am I not offended for thy absence; and were it not a breach to modesty, thou shouldest know before I left thee.

     Mariana.
     How near is this humor to madness!  If you hold on as you
     begin, you are in a pretty way to scolding.

     Blaunch.
     To scolding, huswife?

     Mariana.
     Madam, here comes one.

     [Here enters one with a letter.]

     Blaunch.
     There doth in deed.  Fellow, wouldest thou have any thing with
     any body here?

     Messenger.
     I have a letter to deliver to the Lady Mariana.

     Blaunch.
     Give it me.

     Messenger.
     There must none but she have it.

     [Blaunch snatcheth the letter from him.  Et exit messenger.]

Blaunch.  Go to, foolish fellow.  And therefore, to ease the anger I sustain, I’ll be so bold to open it.  Whats here?  Sir Robert greets you well?  You, Mastries, his love, his life?  Oh amorous man, how he entertains his new Maistres; and bestows on Lubeck, his öd friend, a horn night cap to keep in his witt.

     Mariana.
     Madam, though you have discourteously read my letter, yet I
     pray you give it me.

     Blaunch.
     Then take it:  there, and there, and there!

     [She tears it.  Et exit Blaunch.]

Mariana.  How far doth this differ from modesty!  Yet will I gather up the pieces, which happily may shew to me the intent thereof, though not the meaning.

     [She gathers up the pieces and joins them.]

’Your servant and love, sir Robert of Windsor, Alias William the Conqueror, wisheth long health and happiness’.  Is this William the Conqueror, shrouded under the name of sir Robert of Windsor?  Were he the Monarch of the world he should not disposess Lubeck of his Love.  Therefore I will to the Court, and there, if I can, close to be friends with Lady Blaunch; and thereby keep Lubeck, my Love, for my self, and further the Lady Blaunch in her suit, as much as I may.

     [Exit.]

     Scene III

     Manchester.  The Mill.

     [Enter Em sola.]

     Em.
     Jealousy, that sharps the lovers sight,
     And makes him conceive and conster his intent,
     Hath so bewitched my lovely Manvils senses
     That he misdoubts his Em, that loves his soul;
     He doth suspect corrivals in his love,
     Which, how untrue it is, be judge, my God!
     But now no more ­Here commeth Valingford;
     Shift him off now, as thou hast done the other.

     [Enter Valingford.]

     Valingford.
     See how Fortune presents me with the hope I lookt for.
     Fair Em!

     Em.
     Who is that?

     Valingford.
     I am Valingford, thy love and friend.

     Em.
     I cry you mercy, Sir; I thought so by your speech.

     Valingford.
     What aileth thy eyes?

     Em.
     Oh blind, Sir, blind, stricken blind, by mishap, on a sudden.

Valingford.  But is it possible you should be taken on such a sudden?  Infortunate Valingford, to be thus crost in thy love!  Fair Em, I am not a little sorry to see this thy hard hap.  Yet nevertheless, I am acquainted with a learned Phisitian that will do any thing for thee at my request.  To him will I resort, and enquire his judgement, as concerning the recovery of so excellent a sense.

     Em.
     Oh Lord Sir:  and of all things I cannot abide Phisicke, the
     very name thereof to me is odious.

Valingford.  No? not the thing will do thee so much good?  Sweet Em, hether I cam to parley of love, hoping to have found thee in thy woonted prosperity; and have the gods so unmercifully thwarted my expectation, by dealing so sinisterly with thee, sweet Em?

     Em.
     Good sir, no more, it fits not me
     To have respect to such vain fantasies
     As idle love presents my ears withall.
     More reason I should ghostly give my self
     To sacred prayers for this my former sin,
     For which this plague is justly fallen upon me,
     Then to harken to the vanities of love.

     Valingford.
     Yet, sweet Em,
     Accept this jewell at my hand, which I
     Bestowe on thee in token of my love.

     Em.
     A jewell, sir! what pleasure can I have
     In jewels, treasure, or any worldly thing
     That want my sight that should deserne thereof?
     Ah, sir, I must leave you:
     The pain of mine eyes is so extreme,
     I cannot long stay in a place.  I take my leave.

     [Exit Em.]

Valingford.  Zounds, what a cross is this to my conceit!  But, Valingford, search the depth of this devise.  Why may not this be fained subteltie, by Mountneys invention, to the intent that I seeing such occasion should leave off my suit and not any more persist to solicit her of love?  I’ll try the event; if I can by any means perceive the effect of this deceit to be procured by his means, friend Mountney, the one of us is like to repent our bargain.

     [Exit.]