The Complete Plays of J. M. Barrie - 30 Titles in One Edition. Джеймс Барри

What is it strangers come up here to gape at?

      SNECKY. The view.

      WHAMOND. Ay, at the view. We saw your light go out, sir. Have you come here to look at — at —

      GAVIN. No, I have not come here to look at the view. My light went out when the news reached me that members of my congregation were in this wood — armed — and for an illegal purpose.

      SNECKY (slyly). Keep’S A’! I wonder if it can be Jeems Mealmaker and Ekky Curr? You mind we saw them in the wood, Rob?

      DOW. Ay, we did!

      GAVIN (reproachfully). Even you, Rob Dow — even Dow!

      (dow is in anguish.)

      (Speaks sternly) Liars all! Stand forward!

      (WHAMOND, SNECKY, AND DOW DO SO SULLENLY BUT OBEDIENT.)

      Now, the truth!

      WHAMOND (moving forward a step). This, then, is the truth. You must have heard o’ the riot that took place afore you came to Thrums. The manufacturers suddenly lowered the price o’ the web, and what did that mean to a town o’ weavers? It meant starvation.

      GAVIN (sadly). I know. I have had sad proof of it.

      WHAMOND. Was it likely we were to sit dumb under it? We rose against them —

      DOW (EXULTING). We made a bonfire o’ their doors and windows! (SEES GAVIN LOOKING AT HIM AND BECOMES ABJECT.)

      WHAMOND. The constables frae Glamis came crawling into the town. Lord Rintoul was wi’ them. You ken wha I mean?

      GAVIN. I know he has a great house a few miles from here. That is all I know. Is he Scotch?

      WHAMOND. No, he just English. The man is hardly ever here. His hame is in England, but happening to be here the now, he maun mix himsel’ up in our affairs, and he cam’ into the town to read the Riot Act because he is our Baron Bailie; but he had got no farther than ‘George, by the grace of God, King of England,’ when a clod of earth drove the Riot Act down his throat. You ‘re a good shot, Rob!

      (dow is chuckling “when he again sees gavin looking at him.)

      As for what happened after that we’d better no tell.

      MICAH. I’ll tell! (Sees DOW signing to him.) No, I winna.

      WHAMOND. I will. They had brought a cart wi’ them to carry the ringleaders back to Glamis tied hand and foot. But we filled it wi’ constables tied hand and foot instead, and we carted them back to within a mile of Glamis whaur we tumbled them into a field.

      CRUICKSHANKS (pointing to DOW). And there’s the religious man that drove the cart! (Laughs.)

      (GAVIN sits by fire.)

      WHAMOND (moving over to GAVIN). Is it likely, Mr. Dishart, they will let that go unpunished? No! Rintoul, we ken, is greedy for revenge. And, what’s waur, Captain Halliwell at the Glamis Barracks is hand and glove wi’ him, because he wants to marry Rintoul’s daughter — the Lady Barbara.

      SNECKY. Ay, that’s the reason!

      WHAMOND. We have sure word that when next the constables come, Halliwell and his red-coats will come wi’ them, and that’s what we ‘re watching for here, night after night.

      GAVIN (rising). Madmen, would you resist trained soldiers?

      OMNES. Ay, ay!

      WHAMOND. No, no.

      SNECKY. No, no.

      WHAMOND. We would just rouse the town so that the men wanted may slip quietly out OF it. That would prevent resistance, you see — so we are really here in the cause of law and order.

      SNECKY. So we are! (Surprised.)

      GAVIN. You children. And for every one wanted now, there will be a score brought to justice presently. (With a gesture) Home, every one of you!

      (They are sullen.)

      Thomas Whamond, you are my chief elder — lead the way!

      WHAMOND. No!

      (gavin signs for him to go whamond hesitates a little, then gets up followed by snecky.)

      GAVIN. Rob Dow, are you the man I was so proud of?

      (DOW in passion of remorse goes up on to rocks, GAVIN again signs to them to go. They move a step back.)

      WHAMOND (comes down a step — with emphasis). Mr. Dishart, it’s much you expect, and we do it — but dinna forget this, the more you expect of us, the more shall we expect of you. Mind that!

      (Exit whamond followed by snecky cruickshanks follows, threatened by dow gavin sits down moodily on tree trunk, dow stands by tree on rocks.)

      MICAH (gets off tree and goes timidly). Are you angry wi’ my father?

      GAVIN (gently). No, Micah — but he must not fight, you know.

      MICAH (proudly). He hasna been drunk FOR three weeks.

      (Very boastfully) That’s a father.

      GAVIN (putting arm round him). Poor boy!

      DOW. You ‘re pitying him — no wonder.

      GAVIN (sighing). No, Rob, I was not pitying Micah. I was half wishing, Micah, that I could be a boy again like you. I used to play marbles.

      MICAH (amazed). You!

      GAVIN. There is a devil in all of us. Only yesterday, Micah, I caught myself going up the Manse stairs two steps at a time.

      MICAH. You did!

      GAVIN. Once, Rob, when I was a boy I went fishing — on the Sabbath day!

      DOW. The trout aye bite better on the Sabbath. It’s queer. God’s critters tempting decent men.

      GAVIN. I used to draw comic pictures in my school-books. I am afraid I liked to be thought funny. (Sighing.) But it has all gone, Rob. The cares of a congregation soon take the nonsense out of one.

      (micah lies down on rock.) I suppose it is as well.

      DOW (sorry for him). No, it’s a shame. We ‘re a hard, dour set for a man of twenty-one to be put in charge o’.

      GAVIN. Hard, dour, perhaps. But so needy, you are hanging on to existence by the teeth. When I see you all on the Sabbath in your poor worn blacks, that to the grand world might be an object of mirth, but that I know to be possible to you only because of your struggle to enter God’s house respectably, then I — I love my congregation, Rob. The men’s battered old lum hats, so hard to come by, take on a radiance to me and are about the best thing I know.

      DOW. I wish I saw you married, Mr. Dishart.

      GAVIN. Who would have me, Rob?

      DOW (grandly). There’s not a lady in the land that wouldna be proud to be Mistress Gavin Dishart. (Fiercely) Did any woman ever refuse you?

      (gavin shakes his head.) I would like to see her try it!

      MICAH. So would I!

      GAVIN (smiling). I must take you both with me when I go a-wooing!

      DOW. Every member of the congregation would like to go wi’ you! Ay, that’s another shame. We canna leave you to yourself, and here am I as bad as the rest. Come away, Micah. Good night, Mr. Dishart.

      GAVIN. Good night, Rob.

      (Exit dow micah, following him a few steps, comes back.)

      MICAH (sitting on ground by him). Mr. Dishart, how did you play at bools?

      GAVIN. I remember we made a ring on the ground in this way (Turns round on his heel), and then we went down like this.

      (Kneels.) Micah, swear you’ll never tell my elders that you saw me playing marbles.

      (They play in dumb show, without marbles.)

      MICAH.