^ ^^-v. ♦ Ay V^. .V «... "^^ A^ •*'• '^^ OUR NEW HERALDRY OUR NEW HERALDRY By John Caryl j-4-trc^^n^a- . 03} « J >a* .^ 9 J t O > J J J J i > » J , J J, J IjOWMAN^ & HAXrORD ? ^ ^ PUBLiISHEBS 5 5 5 Skattlk, TVashington COPTBIGHTKD 1902 THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Two Copiea Received MAY, 20 1902 Copyright entry CLASS €K xXc. No. COPY 8. A LETTER Dearest Brother: Several acquaintances of mine to whom I showed the manu- script of this book, afterward looked at me so askance and with such a knowing expression in their eyes, that I felt myself accused by them, without any other words, of a sort of moral turpitude, and — I know not what — hidden sins. Though I said nothing to them, I was sorely pained that they should harbor such ill thoughts of me, for, while I study a seeming outward indifference to public opinion, yet to you I confess that there is no man, woman or child so insignificant or lowly but has power to do me some hurt by thinking evil of me. You will un- derstand this without more words, since, as I believe, you are yourself off the same piece with me for this over-sensitive qual- ity. That these acquaintances should so misjudge me from this book, and remembering that I have been separated from you now upward of eleven years, has served to kindle in me the gravest apprehension lest you, also, might see something in this writing of mine to arouse a doubt in you whether 1 am the same still in those simples of virtue which we held in common when we were boys together. On this, dear brother, I hasten to re- assure you. My belief has only grown the more firm that in such relations between man and woman, there should ever be present a gentle purity, truth and the utmost honor. That sweet fire of love burns never with an enduring flame unless these three stand guard as vestals to it. I thank God a thou- sand times that your father and mine was so just and pure a man, and that he reared his children up in the ways of chastity and virtue, enforcing the lesson, not so much by words, as by his own example. During the twenty years that I lived under his roof, I never once heard a profane or lewd word drop from the lips of this humble, simple and unaffected man. The re- membrance of the fortitude with which he bore his poverty and lowly station, barred as he was from all intercourse with books — those fountains of knowledge — (for as you know he was wholly unlettered, though through no fault of his) has many times excited in me the most intense admiration and wonder — the more so of late years as my understanding of the world has broadened. But it often happens that men in the humblest walks of life, by a sort of instinct, hit upon that pure and peaceful mode of living which philosophy, with all its flourish- ing of trumpets and sounding phrases, misses; as witness Tol- stoi's great peasant. But to return again to this little book: On looking it over now, three years after it was written (it has lain in my desk during that time), I detect in it a vein of bitterness and spleen, not to say ribaldry, which much displeases me. I would not, no, nor could I if I would, v/rite in that spirit today; and if God spares me my life for a few more years, I promise to re- deem these faults in it by some future work. Your Affectionate Brother, March 17th, 1902. JOHN CARYL. PREFACE To write a preface to this first work of mine seemed in the beginning to be the least of all my labors. Indeed, I was greedy to undertake, and could scarce wait the orderly finishing of what is here following, but was pressed often to stop in its midst and do the last thing first. Yet now that the task is to my hand, I find it not easy, but of great difficulty rather, so much so, I may well say, that after two or three attempts — each a failure — I was almost persuaded to forego so old a custom, and to send this little book into the world unher- alded by any word of mine. Nor was my diffi- culty anything the less for remembering that of late our books and letters are more ornamented with prefaces, borders and trimmings without, than by any substance or beauty within, so that you shall any day see a book printed of some ancient master having his work set down in so small, so obscure and timid ^a frame that the eye will be pained to catch the word, while that which the editor has to say (being no small part) is set in bold letters, bearing such inequality to that other and crowding it so from the very page as to put you straight to wondering whether this book were printed — not so much for love of the master — as for glory of its editor. Being so perplexed, three times I destroyed that I had written for I could not bring it to my liking, and at the last (contrary to what is usual with me in such sort) I thought to take the advice of a good friend on it whose coun- sels often in affairs of business stayed me when I was wavering. I sought this friend and submitted to him my difficulty of a preface. "What! And you have written a book," he said in amazement, for I had not before told him of it. **Yes," I answered with face flushed and feeling very guilty, I know not why. "Ah ! did I ever dream you would commit this folly," he added, "you of all men, who are so timid as to be frightened into silence at the sound of your own voice in a crowd of five persons present. Yet you, who are unable to speak to the few with assurance, will think to do it now to the world I You are like a little boy, truly, who, fearful of pad- dling in the pond, must need leap now into the ocean. Never before did I suspect you of folly, much less of vanity, but I see them both in this. Consider it well, my friend, consider, I beg of you, ere you do this thing, for it cannot be but you will repent later the putting of your name, down in that catalogue of misguided scribblers that of late afflict mankind. Leave this thing now undone that your more ripe judgment gladly would undo here- after." I told him that I had considered, and that it was to publish it. "Then am I truly sorry for you that you will not be advised," he said. "Reflect, I pray you, reflect if you will, what tons of printed rubbish under that name of books are annually given currency that 8 were far better dumped headlong into the sea! Yet you would add more to this to further cloy men's appetites that are already grievously dis- tempered by the sick dose? I accredited you with better wisdom, not to say charity to your fellows, who have already endured much and complained little." "And speaking now for myself alone, I am «i deceived man or I smell out amid these multitudes of books, the utter rout, the confusion and decay of our institutions, of our learning and advancement, not to say of our civilization itself, of which we are so vain ; for it may be well affirmed that never was there a state in ancient times but, at the very season of its decay, it was given utterly over to the like usage — of vain conceits — of false imaginings — of refining of wits — of quibbling and the play on words by writing of many books, as both Rome and Greece will bear good witness of, and Egypt, Persia and the Jews, that never wrote so much as in the period of their fall. For as a woman who from age, sickness or such cause, has grown ugly that was once a favorite, will have recourse then to paints, powders, washes, wigs and giddy notions, that she may, in this wooden way, make good the loss of what she had before by nature, so will a people in their decline, by much writing, fuss, flurry, and a show of learning, seek to uphold their former sufficiency. And to the like example it may be noted, too, that the rose is never so near its dissolution as when it is full blown, for being then most showy, its decline also is already set in. I cannot better speak of the many silly books that are ever coming forth of late from whatever quarter people inhabit than to liken them to those erup- tions, rashes and scabs on the skin of him who is in a virulent fever, for as this one has a great ill- ness, so have those people a great sickness, as was so of France in that memorable Revolution. When were books before of so common a kind as in that troublous day, and so freely written and printed? Be persuaded, therefore, and leave off now." "Or if you will write a book in spite of all warn- ing and all example, let it be of this sort — that you deal in it of some correction to be appointed by the law against all unprofitable scribblers that are grown to such an abuse amongst us. For why is it that men should busy themselves to enact laws to say which and in what manner compounds shall be done of butters, tallows and the lard of pigs, of tobaccos, drugs and poisons and such like gross things that minister only to the body's use, if they leave it to each man's folly to judge of that food the mind shall have? Ah, truly, is not the mind more delicate than the body, that its food, too, should be regarded?" This and more of its kind my friend said to me, but as I did not yield, he quit me, showing more anger than I had before known in him who was ever mild and gentle. But though he did not dis- suade me from my first purpose, nevettheless his words made that impression on me that I have lO grave misgivings whether he were not in the right and I wrong. And here I must admit it, as I have ever held in keeping with my friend, that one had better read little, and it good, than to read much of a sort indifferent or bad ; and as what men speak is for the most part folly, so, too, is what they write in the mass — since the poverty of the mind is no whit abated for spreading upon paper — and out of ten thousand of such oysters caught, there is but one jewel saved. It is therefore with a feeling rather of mistrust and sadness than of joy and assurance that I send this little work forth from my hand and leave others to judge of it. I could amend much that is in it, and indeed, were I asked how I should have it to please me, I would answer, to destroy this and re-write all from the beginning. This much more will I add — that when the critics have given it their illest praise I can lend them words to say more, for its weaknesses are not un- known to me who fashioned it. And to conclude, this further: I have struck my pick now into this new ground and loosed these cap-stones and outer- croppings, as a miner who would make test of an untried hill ; whether it be a lode beneath contain- ing indifferent metal or only a quarry of sand (of which kind, God knows, we need no more), I must leave to the opinions of the few who shall be assay- ers for me to these top-stones of it, and to their charitable judgments I submit all, patiently await- ing report from them whether it be not a useless labor to delve deeper into so poor a mine. J. c. II PERSONS GROSSCROP, A wealthy citizen. ' WALTER, His Son. BEAKS, A friend to Grosscrop. PINKWORT, A preacher. QUILLET, Editor of the Daily Breakwind. WATTLES, Sporting editor of the Breakwind. PLAYFAIR, A friend to Quillet. WEBFOOT, A servant to Grosscrop. MRS. BEAKS, Wife to Beaks. MRS. CRANEBILL, Her friend. MRS. GROSSCROP, Wife to Grosscrop. KATE, A daughter to Grosscrop. JULLA, A servant to Mrs. Beaks. SEVERAL WOMEN. A BOY. DIVERS LABORING MEN. OUR NEW HERALDRY SCENE I STAGE REPRESENTING ROOM IN BEAKS' HOUSE (Enter Prologue.) PRO. — If the age we Jive in would have measure of himself; if he would see his image in a glass; if — if — God ! I fear I have clean forgot the beastly lines ! I was to render a prologue to this halting play that's here to be enacted, but 'fore heaven I've lost every word! Let me see again — if any man — it's not so — if the busy world — not that, either! What a plague to have a loose memory as I have ! If an actor shall be damned for nothing else he shall be damned for that ! And docked, too ! And discharged, too ! So that his fate then shall be to be damned, docked and discharged, or if any should prefer it more politely, discharged, docked and damned, for damnation is ever an actor's end ! Once more — if — if — O the devil have that word "if and any scurvy author to employ it ! If — if — if — 1st WOMAN (in the audience) — Could you tell us, sir, if the Ladies' Guild, sir, of church, sir, is to meet in this house tonight, sir, or no, sir? 2nd WOMAN (in the audience). — We were told 14 OUR NEW HERALDRY 'twould be in this room, and our pastor, Rev. Small- fry, to talk. PRO. — Here is a pretty mess ! Ladies, you are misguided ! 2nd WOMAN. — O good God! We are decent women. PRO. — This, ladies, is a play-house. 1st WOMAN. — Is't a theatre, sir, where they do plays, sir? PRO. — It is so, and as measly a play coming now on as was ever writ by blockhead, that uses twenty *'ifs" in the prologue of it! If — if — O that some other ass had this task off my hands ! 1st WOMAN. — I've a mind to sit it out, Martha, for experience's sake and use in meeting! I never in my life was in a theatre to see any play acted. I've a mind to sit to it, Martha. 2nd WOMAN.— O good God ! 1st WOMAN. — Can we sit a seat, sir, if we stay. PRO. — Upon the stage itself! You shall have no less ! Come, you shall have them here ! 1st WOMAN. — He seems cordial and not all abandoned ! Let us sit it out, Martha ! 2nd WOMAN.— Good God! 1st WOMAN. — Yes, we will sit, sir! I've a mind to know what a play is like and what experience may be drawn for Christian use. OUR NEW HERALDRY 15 (Women go on stage.) 2nd WOMAN.— O good God! PRO. — Have you no other English but "Good God?" O! I shall be bounced sure for this failure of my prologue ! If the gilded age — O beastly — If wives to husbands were but true, And they to wives would only do; If marriage soured not in a week, If maids would shun instead of seek, If— Out on this ape's gibberish which is no part to my prologue ! O I fear grievously that I shall be driven to forego this prologue altogether, for the players will be here directly! Well, let me impro- vise now a trifle to put all on the track of what follows : And since the magazine of memory is locked against me, let me have recourse now to the store-house of my wits] Here comes Authority! (Enter Manager.) MANAGER. — Good people, with patience hear this sad mischance that has befallen us. It is our ill-luck's plight to forego this play tonight, for our chief actress lies now abed with a wrenched groin unhappily received, and so cannot appear before you. This, with saddest regret, I tell you, craving your forbearance. PRO. (aside). — O good! O here is meat to me that have forgot these doggerel lines, for now I i6 OUR NEW HERALDRY am discharged of them ! It is a pity, sir, but how came she hurt by so uncommon a wound? MANAGER. — O very simply, for she would have it to stand for her picture to a journeyman artist and — PRO.— Or sit for it? MANAGER. — No, but to stand* it is a fashion with her to stand for it, and her shapely foot high aloft, and at this standing she must need outdo all former trials and, as it were, ambitiously to heave her little ankle so high up — so very high — PRO. — Ankle? It was foot before. MANAGER. — And ankle, too — and in the rais- ing of her limb — PRO. (Aside). — O monstrous! This foot has grown now to a limb. What mock-shame drives him from that honest word leg, which would ex- press his true meaning? MANAGER. — That some tender cord about her groin was wrenched, or lacerated, or cracked, or I know not how the physicians name it. PRO. — O a pity on this poor cracked vase ! MANAGER. — Therefore, good friends, our en- tertainment now is off, and so must bid you all good-night. OLD MAN (In audience). — No, then, good Master Manager, but have advice of me to pull you from this pinch ; it may well serve you to hear so humble a one. OUR NEW HERALDRY 17 MANAGER.— Who are you, sir? OLD MAN. — A humble citizen; yet not so hum- ble but what he dares to speak his mind upon oc- casion and will on this. MANAGER. — Speak it, my aged sir. So white a beard should hold some intercourse with judg- ment. What is it you would say? OLD MAN. — Why, nothing but to play that play my son wrote for you. MANAGER.— That your son wrote? OLD MAN. — And which you last week, like an upstart crackle-brain, refused, and was pleased then to call it old, stilted, affected, flat, and in style not gathered from the gypsy language of the street, not modeled on your lady's tea-talk which weakly and inserviceable yarn is the only licensed thread our authors now may weave with by your permis- sion ; these were your words against it^ with fur- ther phrases borrowed of the critic's lists, all rolled so smooth and worn by use in every tongue and to every meaning, as to have lost all meaning. O ! I will let my mind out now that my mouth is open! MANAGER. — It is a little mind and a big mouth. You well may let so small a weasel through so great an orifice. Old man, your beard belies you. OLD MAN. — So are you belied by your pre- sumption ! I will match the merit of my son's good play against such harlotry stuff as you per- form here amongst you to disgrace any stage. Why, i8 OUR NEW HERALDRY these hoarse horse-plays that you do of late have neither wit nor cunning to make any laugh but only some few vulgar devices unworthy ever to have been stolen of Kaffirs, where for certain they were first bred. And in this sort, I was shamed last week to see one of your principal players fall flat upon his bruised buttock for humor's sake, and another, to the same end, sat himself upright on a hot stove howling, and still another having clothes and whiskers grimy with the contents of a night-chamber emptied upon him, as it were, by accident, and yet another flung from a window above two stories high by his brother clown — and all this to set on the gallery's cheap row to roar, while those of judgment inwardly groaned. And these others amongst you, your lady actresses, that I have witnessed — MANAGER. — Here is a vixen truly! Our lady actresses — why, what of our ladies? OLD MAN. — O they are a vile lot, giddily to cloak over an honest word and shamc-facedly to hide it, yet boldly in the eyes of all to have no blush but to mimic by their body's gestures, those ful- some motions, those shuffling trials, by prodigal Nature, framed only for the couch ! As God's my witness, I would geld a son of mine who would so villainously invent ! PRO. — O let me put the smudge to this barbed hedge-hog! Come! I will smoke him from his OUR NEW HERALDRY 19 hole ! Who, sir, is this son of yours that any should ever read what he may write, much less to act it? What reputation does he bear? OLD ]\IAN. — Why, none at all, since it is his first essay. PRO. — No reputation ? Go to, then ! How so should he be read or acted? Let him first hunt a reputation out ! It is no matter how if he but gets it, and so his name be well noised about on every tong-ue, and here let me advise you in the way: If he be of sturdy build and muscled, with knuckles high-set and flinty, get him a trainer for the ring, and when he overcomes some two or three in it, why then his fortune's made — his fame's assured — his verses and opinions will be read; he cannot write so fast but he will sell, and they will read. OLD MAN. — But my son is frail in body, not serviceable to the ring. PRO. — O then make any other notable man of him — it is no matter — a skillful, great player at ball, tennis, cards, dice, ten-pins, chess, billiards, or on the wheel to scorch down steep hills, making all eyes bulge ; or let him be a tall hammerer of pul- pit-rails to startle women with a resonant nasal twang, regardless whether he speaks anything; or, if he has a taste for finance, let him turn brewer and grow rich, in that or any kindred calling, so that when he walks or rides to take the air, men will point to him saying, "There goes such-a-one, a 20 OUR NEW HERALDRY great man," and straight will relate some pretty story of him. Let him be any of these, and after, but compose some doggerel verse, hire a dull book written, or mouth into a phonograph, and he shall be famous forever for it. Why, those darling dolts — the willy-nilly people — will go mad or they shall read that verse, possess that book, or hear that voice of his. But tell me, old man, what name has this play your son wrote? OLD MAN. — For want of a better it is called "Our New Heraldry." PRO. — Why, that one? I know it well, and not to be fulsome in its praise, I have seen worse plays staged. Now, as I live, I've a mind to see it played, and for tonight, too ! (To manager) Sir, be persuaded to have it acted. MANAGER. — O it is a dry thing in blank verse ! I could not suffer a play in blank verse ! PRO. — Let not that hinder you, sir ! I have a pair of forceps will undo it of that evil. MANAGER.— How so? PRO. — Why, with them to pull out the capital letter from every ten syllables ; for, as you must know, blank verse now differs only from prose by this thicker infusion of capital characters in the lines. And to tell you the truth, I have myself al- ready cured it of that fault. MANAGER. — If so you've mended it; yet in OUR NEW HERALDRY 21 style and phrasing it is unsuited wholly to the present, thoug-h in matter dealing with our time. PRO. — Here is a more grievous fault, yet one that, in part, I pardon him of, since, as I remember, he strives not to forsake nature's truth, which in essence is ever the same, though in what words soever expressed ; for truth must ever be the main- spring and chiefest preservative, to all writings, and expressions but secondary to it. An author's mode is particular to him, as a nation's language is to it, but what of truth he writes or they utter, is common to the full stock and warehouse of world, being not the single heritage — either of this man or that nation — but of all men and all nations. Words, therefore, are but the vehicles of carriage and not the goods themselves ; and what a blind merchant might not that one be esteemed, who would reject wholesome and profitable merchan- dise from his store because, perchance, it was not brought thither upon those small truckles and petty hand-carts which are in every fist? MANAGER. — O you discourse truly as for a fee ! PRO. — Nay, now, good sir, that I think more on it, I will play the attorney to his son's good cause to advance it for him, but without fee. And to this purpose we speak of, I will tender you this likeness : Not in the world did great painter make ever his picture from the camera's true image, but rather upon the canvas spread some subtler es- sence of his inward soul to take all eyes prisoner, 22 OUR NEW HERALDRY and so in like kind do master writers out of this inward spirit give infusion to their work. O let your housewives pray, and pray devoutly, that two such sweet arts may never fall into a pair of vul- gar trades ! MANAGER.— To trades? How so to trades? PRO. — Why, that great painters should ever grow to little photographers, or that master writers should shrivel down to dry reporters, literally to take their discourses off men's lips, and so infect letters with the dry-rot. If I must write, let me have full scope, and withal, more graceful words to it, than live in the soft brain of that unctuous, wind-broken and over-dressed dame yonder, who stars it for fair speeches at evening parties among a score of friends. Why, no taxing whatsoever of her dull wits will deliver her of above a few hun- dred set words, or any utterance worth the breath to puff it from the lips. MANAGER. — Your earnest speech merits a bet- ter cause. Not what you say but my necessity per- suades me to give his play a trial, with those amendments which you say you made to it. PRO. — O trulv I have transformed it from poor verse to indifferent prose, and the company have had it in practive ever since. You shall find every- one with his part well remembered. MANAGER. — I will go, then, and acquaint them with this change, and so make ready the play. OUR NEW HERALDRY 23 (Exit Manager.) PRO. — Old man, you owe me thanks for this. OLD MAN. — And give them freely. PRO. — O ! if what I now said were but published to the world, you should have ten thousand little quills tickling whole reams of virgin paper to con- fute this heresy. 2nd WOMAN.— O good God ! PRO. (Aside). — Here is a cow has no corn in her maw but only this wilted husk. Poor bos ! poor hollow-horn ! A parrot was her tutor ! 1st WOMAN. — Is't a Christian play, sir, that's to be acted? PRO. (Aside).— Truly now shall I be held to stand sponsor to this play and make false promises in its behalf, as a god-father at baptism does when he puts his good pledge up that this child will for- sake the devil. — O the play itself is indifferently honest — but the actors — I will not answer for the actors that are to play it. 1st WOMAN. — Satan was ever partial to play- houses and actors, I've heard said. Are there no bawdy sones in it? PRO. — No, none ; for our company's voices are all like un-calved cows, they are dry and tuned to no music but bellowing only. Therefore is every- thing of the sort culled carefully out of the first text, as you should hide with mufflers a bull's trademarks and the insignia of his office, ere you 2^ OUR NEW HERALDRY should show the beast to fine lady to be shocked at wanton nature's handwork that hung these rough exteriors on him. But such exteriors are dipt from our play and cards duly set to aid the imagina- tions of shy ones ; and instancing this, let it be a billy-goat you'd have or the least of nature's work, and on that goat's belly you shall see hung a bag in nature, but in our play none, for our author has removed this bag and in its place a token set, with a cunning device which signifieth bag, yet shocks no one. 2nd WOMAN.— O good God ! 1st WOMAN. — And your lady actresses? are they decently dressed below the knees and no kick- ing o' the lamps? I hear it is a fashion in them to kick at lamps. PRO. — On my oath you shall see no lady's thigh tonight, nor will any lady's dugs wink at men's eyes above her bodice; though for myself, this is but ill praise to the play, and so will seem to all bald-heads. (Enter Beaks and Crosscrop.) But here they are at it now! 1st WOMAN. — Be these two actors, sir? PRO. — So they call themselves, but are not called by many. 1st WOMAN. — They dress not so strangely but I have seen the like before. Who is this stout man — this goodly-provisioned citizen in the reddish OUR NEW HERALDRY ^5 beard? I'll warrant he's the director of railroads or sits down on a banker's stool to give orders. PRO. — You shall see all presently ! His name is Grosscrop and he hunts an office now. You shall see him senator anon. That other is his friend Beaks, whom he has made cuckold of, and this here Beaks' house. (Pro. sits down.) List now! They will be at it presently! 1st WOMAN. — Do not crowd me so close! PRO. — it is a weakness of nature in me that often serves me such unmannerly tricks in com- pany. I will stand over on your leeward side. But here's the play now! GROSSCROP.— Yet it is so, Beaks— we must conciliate the Daily Breakwind, this troublesome sheet — we must conciliate Quillet, its editor. For if we cannot do this I may never hope to be elected senator. So much I tell you in confidence that I would not confess in general. BEAKS. — It's true he heaps most vile abuse on you and in such a sort with particulars of fact and feigned truth that many, I fear, will believe it. But we can win in spite of this. It is a fault in you that your caution magnifies the man and his party's strength. GROSSCROP.— Not as I think. Beaks. BEAKS. — Yet you do it! Your caution enlarges him out of all true proportion ! GROSSCROP. — It is a good eye in warfare that 26 OUR NEW HERALDRY sees the enemy, though but a weasel, as large as a camel, and so prepares. We must win Quillet would we win. BEAKS. — Then truly is there no hope of your election. He is bitterer against you than worm- wood, and for no other cause than that you are rich. Riches are the red rag flung in the eyes of this roaring ox. GROSSCROP.— A little diplomacy will soften many a turbulent one, and harder than Quillet, too. BEAKS. — Diplomacy ! O ! I had rather treat with an angry boar in terms of diplomat politeness than to soften him to our business by it, his radical opin- ions run riot so ; for it is to amend nothing, but destroy all. GROSSCROP. — It is a sore defect that no cor- rection is set by law against this wanton use of free opinion. There is no compound half so deadly of explosive chemistries, as to feed violent opinion to ignorant men. I think, indeed, it's true of us, that we today are a-sowing of the wind and the generation yet to come shall reap the whirlwind. It was for a use like this the adage first was made. And for this boldness now in this evil work I would gladly put this Quillet down, but that I need his party's strength in this. Therefore we must win him. BEAKS. — It is a task too great. Why, he hates all rich men, as the devil holv ash. There's no OUR NEW HERALDRY 27 man holding to his account's credit a few thousand or odd dollars, but Quillet will spear him through and through with the poisoned lance of his abuse. And the more dastardly, vile, and venomous the abuse is, the redder grow his followers' cheeks with puffing out stinking breath in its applause. There is no hope to win him or them. GROSSCROP. — He is rancorous indeed. BEAKS. — Rancorous is scarce the word — ran- corous does not express so much ! Why, he'll tell them there is no man rich but stole it; that no lady rides in a carriage but adds bawdry to theft; that there's no tastily furnished house but's a den where brigands congregate to make parts between them of booty robbed of groaning labor. GROSSCROP.— He goes far in it. BEAKS. — He will liken the plentiful globe we live in to a bank of honeyed clover; the poor men in it, to the busy work bees who harvest this sweet- ness in ; the rich men to the drones who sit idle in the hive wasting the stored fruit; and to conclude, he will mock these dull workers who, as he says, are lacking in the wisdom of the bees to fall upon these drones and kill them. It is beyond us to pluck down this screaming daw to make any useful bird of him. GROSSCROP.— Yet we will make trial of it. I never yet knew bleating caterer to the common herd but that his watchful weather eye was open 28 OUR NEW HERALDRY wide to his own personal gain when anj^ fortunate wind should blow him sops. Those poor ones most cry riches down that most desire them. We'll try what can be done. Let us about it now. (Exeunt Beaks and Grosscrop.) 1st WOMAN. — They speak not so bad, sir. I would they had stayed a little longer. They are not wholly without sense in what they speak. PRO. — You shall see them again, good woman, but in the meanwhile others. 1st WOMAN. — This Grosscrop is well favored and of good parts, I think, sir. PRO. — So do all women say. 1st WOMAN. — He has a smack of scripture, too, about him, as I've observed, for I heard him speak there of winds and whirlwinds. I'd mind to give him the chapter and verse of it. Is he not a pious man? PRO. — Exceeding pious, but — ist WOMAN.— And moral, too? PRO. — O let not me be certifier to his character, but await you the play for it. He has a moral man's outside, and is within full of most moral saws and utterances. This in the world makes morality in the man, let him covertly do what beast's action he will. Put him down moral, then. 1st WOMAN. — He had been a good deacon of church, I think. OUR NEW HERALDRY 29 PRO. — O as excellent a deacon as ever put round buttock to front pew ! He has that quality above all else ! Why, he has despoiled more virgins of it than were ever does of a tender twelve- month done to a shameless bastardy by a crook- kneed and lecherous old fallow-buck ! What dea- con can excel him so? Nay, had his profit run more with church, he had been archbishop instead of deacon for this rare virtue in him ! Await the play now and you shall see all. 2nd WOMAN. — Good God, is not this indecent? 1st WOAIAN. — Take care you play us no trick, sir. Is this to be enacted? PRO. — You shall see. (Enter Mrs. Beaks and Mrs. Cranebill.) Here others come. 1st WOMAN.— 'Fore God, if these two are not painted ! Yet they dress not so bad, and with more modesty than had been expected. Be their speeches womanly, sir? PRO. — O exceedingly, as you shall see, for 'tis to tell of jealous husbands cunningly outdone by wives, and wives by husbands. This is ever a woman's theme, therefore their speech is womanly. But here goes ! List now ! MRS. BEAKS.— Do not give way to this de- spair that does no good. Feathers will out again and clear himself of this undeserved charge. You kill yourself with fretting. MRS. CRANEBILL.— O it is too horrible, too 30 OUR NEW HERALDRY horrible! And my brother, of all men, to fall to it ! It will be his death and mine as well ! MRS. BEAKS. — It will indeed be yours unless your courage show itself more strong. 1st WOMAN. — This one is a bold woman and her voice too high pitched, and holds the word too long in the mouth. PRO. — A plotting, conniving, secret woman that, with fat Grosscrop, played her cuckoldry hus- band a most sotten trick which was to give him horns ere she gave him bed, and she is at it now to play him another, as you shall witness presently. O ! your over-fond husband now-a-days may well go to his bed of a night-time with a glittering bald noddle, to wake up in the morning with horns on it ! MRS. CRANEBILL.— O my poor brother ! My poor Feathers ! To think of him in prison so ! And his hair dipt, too, as they say it will be, that was ever my pride, and those vilely striped clothes that I've seen in pictures ! 1st WOMAN. — What is her grief that she wrings her hands so and weeps? PRO. — Her brother is in jail — hemmed in — locked up, and must peep at the sun through the bars ! It is for him she does it. 1st WOMAN. — So she says, but on what cause is he? PRO. — Why, for a burglary, fornication or bas- OUR NEW HERALDRY 31 tardy committed upon a bank's moneys, or by whatever name these straddling men of law name the offense. 2nd WOMAN.— A fornication! O good God! O it is indecent ! O we must leave this ! A forni- cation ! We must tell all to Rev. Smallfry ! Come, then! 1st WOMAN. — I pity her no more that she weeps for such a brother. And he would not after marry the girl he wronged? He was not the man for that? PRO.— What girl was't? 1st WOMAN.— Why, her he did it with! PRO. — O you mistake! He robbed a bank that he was cashier of, and for that they pinch him. There was no girl, and if there had been, he should not to jail for that, for every judge now will set him the example to it. His name is Feathers, and he robbed a bank, and you shall see here presently that this woman is in love with him, and will break jail to free him, and will fly with him, leaving her husband to do it, and will confess her wantonness with Grosscrop, and — 2nd WOMAN.— O mercy! O God! 1st WOMAN. — For shame! Is this to be en- acted here, sir? PRO. — Most sure it is, and all to the life, and — ist WOMAN. — ril not be witness to such shame ! That ril not! Let us out of this! Come, Martha! 32 OUR NEW HERALDRY O this wicked world ! This Sodom ! This Gomor- rah ! Let us out of here ! 2nd WOMAN.— And tell all to Rev. Smallfry, by my advice ! Let us tell all to him ! And these unhappy women should, too ! 1st WOMAN. — I'll see what laws we have if such things can be done ! Let us out of this ! PRO. — No, no ! Do not leap down there into the pit so, for fear you light upon a bald head there, for bald heads ever hug the boards nearest. Do not jump so ! 1st WOMAN.— Let us out of here ! You black- guard ! PRO.— O, that I will ! If you speak In that tone ! Come ladies ! Here you shall out ! 2nd WOMAN.— We will tell Rev. Smallfryl We will tell him all ! (Exeunt Prologue and Women.) MRS. CRANEBILL.— It is horrible to think on! My poor brother ! It is horrible ! MRS. BEAKS. — No, but consider it more calm- ly. Good men and women have been a thousand times before in jail, to come out unscathed again and live useful and respected lives thereafter. And so may he. MRS. CRANEBILL.— O, the stain! The re- proach of it ! The stain that no wash can dis- place ! And all this racking of his name till every OUR NEW HERALDRY 33 house is a hive disturbed, so buzzing and so busy are all tongues within in speaking ill of him ! MRS. BEAKS.— You should not heed such noises. MRS. CRANEBILL.— And for him ever after to be held in such opinion ! O it is horrible ! MRS. BEAKS.— No, but that were a little mat- ter! What is this thing opinion that any should be afraid of it? Consider it in this wise: The world's worst opinion is but opinion still and has no hurtful substance to it but as ourselves do lend it. 'Tis our too sensitive regard of it that loads its emptiness with lead to make a club to beat us. Let our ears be deaf to it, as our senses, too, and its power is lost. Feathers will out from these closed bars being innocent of the wrong they charge, and then those noisy tongues will clamor full as loud in praise of him as they do now in slander. INIRS. CRANEBILL.— O a thousand times I wish he had not seen that bank, nor heard, nor thought, nor dreamt of it, nor had been cashier of it in any sense, that we thought then so good a place and strived to get! He would not be in prison so at its unlucky failure and widows' and aged sick-folks' curses on him that lost their all in it. That he would not ! MRS. BEAKS. — It's most certain he would not had it been so. But, as I think, he did no wrong in it. 34 OUR NEW HERALDRY MRS. CRANEBILL.— You are sure he did not? O ! there is a grain of comfort still ! You're sure he did not? MRS. BEAKS.— More sure I am he did no wrong than that ever men will do him right on that he did. The blame rests all on Grosscrop, that powerful and unscrupulous man whose toys we all have been and are. 'Twas he that puffed the bauble up of this seeming goodly bank to make an outward show and punctured it again when it best served his ends to do it. MRS. CRANEBILL.— And my brother, one that would not harm a fly! What spite had he to do it? What spite, indeed, to such a harmless one? MRS. BEAKS.— No spite at all but Grosscrop's profit. These rich and soulless men hold neither spite nor mercy in their breasts, but will lift an- other up as quick as pluck him down again, when best it serves them to do either. MRS. CRANEBILL.— How could you, then, be friend to such a one? Yet now I'm glad you are his friend, that you may — MRS. BEAKS. — Call him no more my friend, for from this I renounce him openly, as I long have done in secret. Call him not my friend ! MRS. CRANEBILL.— But yet you will solicit him for my brother? You will do it, Anne? For old friendship's sake between us? And my poor brother held you always in such respect ! And OUR NEW HERALDRY 35 talked constantly of you, as now in his distress, I'm open to confess he did, and were you not a married lady, dearest Anne, I would here declare he was full half in love with you ! I would so, and know full well, that he admired you above all other women. You will speak with Grosscrop, then, for his release again? MRS. BEAKS.— We will devise what can be done in his behalf. I feel for him as 3''OU do, that he must smart under this injustice. MRS. CRANEBILL.— And God will bless you for it! (Knocking without). What rude sound is this? An officer! Another officer! MRS. BEAKS.— It is none. MRS. CRANEBILL.— O, I never now hear any noise but am dumb with fear of writs and pro- cesses, of warrants and arrests, since they pulled my brother from his bed by night, for it was so they came a-knocking. (More knocking). This well may be an officer! MRS. BEAKS. — It is no officer, but some slip- pery man of politics, most like, that comes in here to see my husband, who, with the rest, is laboring now in this same Grosscrop's behalf to make him senator or something to the like effect. MRS. CRANEBILL.— Grosscrop! MRS. BEAKS. — It needs no surprise that they pick him for it, for no sooner do these worldly men touch the gamut off of all the vices but they are 36 OUR NEW HERALDRY picked for office, if they be but rich. (Still knock- ing.) These boisterous ones of late have overrun our house as it had been a ramping bar-room v^here ruffians congregate. Come with me, Florence. We will leave this place to them. My husband is within. These noisy sports are to his liking, not to mine. (Exeunt both.) (Enter Webfoot, bearing a parcel.) WEBFOOT.— Did I not hear voices? On my word, I heard voices I But no, there are none. (Knocks at the door.) Not a cat stirring in the whole house. They are from home; therefore, what's to do? I will look in the card if it has any direction to fit. A good steward should do all by the card. (Reads.) ''From Phillip Grosscrop to Baby Beaks." O ! it were a strange thing now, that my round master, stout Phillip Grosscrop, had made rich presents to Baby Beaks, and had Baby Beaks no young mamma by her. But she has one, and a pair of black eyes, therefore it is not strange for my master holds a confessed weakness to it. Well, I am in a thousand tangled webs what next thing to do in my commission, for the total of my rules of politeness do not tell me whether I should set down this parcel here where none are to re- ceive it, and a dainty note fixed to it, or lug it back to my fat dispatcher for further advisement. It were better set it down ! Yet there in the question of the note I have no learning that instructs me OUR NEW HERALDRY 37 what were a suitable one indited from a gross- bellied man, like my master, to a still sucking babe like her this goes to, and I know not how I should err in writing any sweetness to the mother who is young and handsome. I must back with it, then ; but in the doing it so I shall not satisfy either my master's business or my own inclining, for I have an ache to clap eyes on my plump little apple-cheeked Julia Bumpkins, who lives here and kills me with love of her. O, it is a fearful thing to be in love ! I'd as lief any malady in a Latin name as it, but that her dainty sweetness some- times requites me with an odd kiss or two. But here comes now this little troubler of my peaceful dreams! (Enter Julia.) This pretty nightmare! This full box of tarts and bon-bons ! JULIA. — O, it is only you, is it? WEBFOOT.— Only! Why only, then! JULIA. — What rough noise is this to raise the house with it? WEBFOOT.— Noise! Noise, indeed! I hear none but a woman's silly tongue ! JULIA. — What business brings you here? WEBFOOT.— None that I have with you, un- less to ask you if the lady of this house be home. My business lies with her and no servant's nose shall be stuck in it. JULIA. — What! And you will answer me sauc- ily? O, then you shall tell me what it is or never 38 OUR NEW HERALDRY come again with my consent to see me ! That you shall not! WEBFOOT.— To see you? What's 10 see you? Who had a thought to see you? O what a glass is prime conceit, that, when our flattered eye peers through, lends to our little moon of self a greater largeness than have a hundred other suns, and of the tiny nook we stand in makes there the big cen- ter of the universe. Why, I'd never thought of you, that any such person had been ali\e today! JULIA. — What! And you did not think of me? You did not? WEBFOOT.— Before God, I did not. JULIA. — O, then, it's well enough if you'll not do it! I would not for the world you'd vex your empty head to do it ! But some there are, I know, will do it ! And need but hold their finger up and have them here to do it! WEBFOOT. — Some! What some can you? What shallow cock's pates? What stringy rad- ishes that would not sell a bunch the penny? What rejected fowls that begged in every market and no taker? What over-ripe berries that stink for want of picking? What — JULIA. — And you think I cannot? I will tell you ! There is big Mat Quail, that drives old Platter's cart! I cannot take two turns upon the street but his eye's after — WEBFOOT.— O he is a bag of beastly pud- OUR NEW HERALDRY 39 ding! A porpoise-ribbed trunk! A walrus-flanked bull ! — that brings three hundred pounds to crush a wife against the tick ! You were a pretty mole to such a mountain. JULIA. — And young Ed Sage, the gardener's handsome boy, that my sister thinks a likely lad to— WEB FOOT. — To make adoption of were you keeper of an orphanage ! Why, he'd suck your milk all dry, he's such a calf ! And know no other use than suck it ! He is a true calf if ever one ! JULIA. — And there is Tom Sows, besides — WEBFOOT. — Tom? Tom's well named sows, for he's one indeed ! And wallows drunk in muddy pools at every turn his leant purse affords his belly it to drink ! Avoid this scummy sow, unless you'd have a litter of its breed. JULIA. — And Peter Float, I could well name, that took me often out before, and would again, but you stand in its way ! WEBFOOT.— And there's the needed boar that mates the other sow to make a pair with her ! It's not a piggie's little tail to choose between those two, which drinks and wallows most ! JULIA. — O it is your jealously that sets you to speaking so of my good friends ! And to hear your spitefulness, there never was but worthless man except yourself; yet, it's well you love your- self, for there's none other such a fool to do it ! 40 OUR NEW HERALDRY You can go your single way, as I will mine here- after, and good riddance 'tis, to such a one ! WEBFOOT.— What! You would not drive me out? JULIA. — No, but whip you, rather, as you de- serve ! You should not so abuse a man ! For fear you should not ! WEBFOOT.— But I love you! Come! You would not scorn my tender love of you ! JULIA. — No, you're nothing to me! You shall not flatter me hereafter! It is at an end between us. WEBFOOT.— Then, am I a cobbler's poor and silent hammer, unless you be my little peg to make me sing! Come, little peg! Here your hammer is! The one's the other's compliment; you would not whip me out ! JULIA. — I am nothing to you ! That we think nothing of is nothing to us ! I'm nothing to you ! WEBFOOT. — Then I have nothing, and noth- ing would quicker have and slower part with than nothing, since you are it; for you are my good right hand and left one, too; you are my foot, my leg, my eye, tooth, head and every organ ; you are tny plum, my berry, my peach, my little pink cherry. (Voices within.) You are — JULIA. — Hush ! Hush ! They are coming now ! They must not hear you so ! OUR NEW HERALDRY 41 WEBFOOT.— But I must tell what 'tis you are to me! I have a whole dictionary yet untouched! JULIA. — No more now! WEBFOOT.— But I must tell you! JULIA. — No, then, but when these go, come in at the kitchen and there tell me. WEBFOOT.— Yet, a kiss! You shall not stir but first give me a kiss, or, by force, I'll have it ! JULIA. — There it is, and no force ! Come in at the kitchen when you may. (Exit Julia.) WEBFOOT.— The kitchen! O what a noble word it is that smells of much and is much ! I am two parts already in this same kitchen, for my heart and belly run to it both — I know not which the faster — and can scarce wait my legs to fetch them thither decently. I will quick dispatch my business here and then I am off, heart, belly and all, to love and good victuals. O I scarce know which of the two merry rogues, whether Cupid, the lover, or his half brother, Dionysus, the prince of good victualers, holds him most in my liking; but it suits me well to touch elbows with them both to- gether, so that when Cupid tickles me into poesy Dionysus shall be by to soften my palate with good eat and better drink. (Enter Beaks and Walter Grosscrop.) But who are these? Spades and Clubs, and jacks both! It is an ill deal, sure, that 42 OUR NEW HERALDRY turns these two knaves face upward together. I will stand apart a little. WALTER.— No, Beaks! Good Beaks! It is the very time to ask this loan of my father to me ! The very time of all times ! For since every action whatsoever has its season, what more seasonable season could be devised that I should ask my father money than that one when he is deep in politics to be named senator and so needs friends? He will need every friend's help to it, will he not? BEAKS.— O, truly! WALTER.— Well, then, will he need mine, too; but unless I have a little money of him now I will sure resolve myself into a bolting caucus to do him sore defeat. Tell him that, and if he would have me he must treat with me liberally. Tell him so ! BEAKS.— What! To make him laugh? But let another, not me, be your attorney here. WALTER.— No! No! Not at all, Beaks. You are the very man of all others to do this office be- tween me and my wrought father. You stand deep in his confidence, and he is beholden to you greatly for your faithful service in his thriving business. Get me this loan of him, then. Beaks ! Get me it ! He cannot deny you ! I never before was so dis- tressed for a little money! Get me this loan, then! BEAKS. — I may undertake it, but with no as- surance of success. OUR NEW HERALDRY 43 WALTER. — Why, you are right arm to my father ! He surely cannot deny his good right arm ! BEAKS. — But you live so recklessly of late and are so violently given over to drink ! He declares himself fixed in it that you shall reform before he gives you more. WALTER. — I am sober now ! Dead sober ! And have been this fortnight ! You know it, Beaks ! BEAKS. — No; but my senses misgive me if it is so. WALTER. — O, then, believe it or not, as you will, Beaks, but it is truth ! I've not pulled a poor bottle's little stopper these two weeks, and will not again if this flint-hearted father but lets me this money. But if he will not, I shall not answer what misgoverned conduct may then befall me, and you should tell him so. Tell him I have undertaken my amendment, and add your own testimony that you saw me and was straight as a Mason's bob ! Tell him that ! BEAKS. — I fear I should do the truth some vio- lence so; and, to be bold, look now at your totter- ing gait, your watery eyes and nose of lobster redness, that all argue carousals not older than yesterday, or, as I believe, last night. WALTER.— These are but the effect of old times that new time will remedy again. O, were you any judge to good liquor you'd see I'm sober, for witness me that I can pace this line off, and 44 OUR NEW HERALDRY no wavering, which is the hardest test a man in drink may be put to ! How's it done for a firm step? BEAKS.— Ha! Ha! O, rare! WALTER— Was't not a light step? BEAKS. — As the cautious cat's, that steals up on an oily mouse ! Rare indeed ! WALTER. — No, but in good earnest? BEAKS.— O excellent! Excellently done! The prim corporal, freshly advanced, doing a soldier's pace at a rustic fair, with country wenches' admir- ing eyes fixed on him, could not amble so. (Web- foot advances.) But here comes now your father's man. How goes't with you and with my good friend, your master? WEBFOOT. — I do well enough, but my mas- ter! O, he does bad, not to say villainously! BEAKS— You startle me! How so? WEBFOOT. — Why, I do as a rich man ought, for I am rich ; but my poor master he is beggarly poor and never will be but be poor! I marvel that old Lady Fortune could so unequally deal between even man and man as to give me my riches and him his poverty ! The good woman must need be blind to do it, which were kindlier said of her than to lay this uneven justice to her willfulness. BEAKS. — O, you bold rogue ! Your master is not poor, but rich, and you not rich, but poor. How do you say it's otherwise than this ? OUR NEW HERALDRY 45 WEBFOOT. — Yet I say I'm rich and he poor, or I mistake that man he is. BEAKS. — So you have said, but how? Come! Explain this cunning paradox that makes riches beggary and beggary rich. How is it so? WALTER. — Come ! Speak, now, you knave ! WEBFOOT.— I am content in that I have, though it be nothing ; therefore am I rich. But old Grosscrop is poor, is miserly poor, for all his lands that by other's sweat do yield him bounteous harvest, and for his income annual too, and pay- ments prompt at quarters, and his good stuffed boxes of forceful documents whereon groaning debtors set unsteady hands to let him suck super- fluous blood of them. For all of these he has, he still is poor, and I, with nothing, a richer man than he. BEAKS. — I see nothing in this. WALTER. — His song's burden is nothing. BEAKS. — Come again, you rogue! Crack this conundrum for us with the ponderous mallet of your wit and let us taste its meat that wears so thick a shell. Yet I suspect it is but shell at last, and no meat. How does this make him poor? WEBFOOT. — His unfed appetite will, for it is a country miller's hopper and no bottom to it, and though every passing cajrt spills 'in its twenty bags of golden wheat, still is it empty, for what can 46 OUR NEW HERALDRY fill what has no bottom? And so his appetite for more has none. WALTER. — O this is bottomless humor. BEAKS.^ — Deep! Deep! And the timid sense scarce dare probe it down, lacking all bottom. WALTER.' — Therefore it surpasses understand- ing! WEBFOOT.— My humble need is but a violet's tiny cup, compared to his, which is a brewer's cum- brous vat — WALTER.— There ! There ! He is to it again. WEBFOOT.— And so this little cup of mine, with one poor drop in it, owns a greater fullness than does his yawning vat with gallons. For what can riches do but fill our needs up, and when our needs are full what further need have we of riches?* I then with modest wants am rich, and he with much but poor, egged on by riotous greed. BEAKS. — Greed! Riotous greed! And you would have us laugh at that? You rosfue? You rascally rogue! I'd see you whipped instead for this gross slander spoken upon a worthy man. What! And in the presence of his son as well! How dare you say it to our faces here — to me, that am his friend, and to this gentleman, that is his son? You shall answer to this slander! WEBFOOT.— I will answer it! And you call it slander; I will call it truth! And so you're answered! And so I'll set my good plea up over OUR NEW HERALDRY 47 an attorney's cunning signature, that none shall guess it's any man's name ! And so I'll mulct you in your own action ! BEAKS.— Mulct me? How mulct me? WEBFOOT. — For the cost of it, being brought without cause. I was clerk once to a hunger- starven lawyer, and caught up some of the dregs of law, which were my only payment, for though he paid me his whole income, he paid me nothing, for it was nothing. BEAKS. — O you oily-skinned knave! You slip- pery knave ! We do not sue such worthless ones at law, but on their over-tender backs levy stinging reprisal for the injury, and here is his son that will on yours for speaking of his father so. Come, Walter, rub me this ass's ears, that spreads the seed of such an ill report upon your father! (Walter beats him). WEBFOOT.— O, then I take all back! I meant nothing, but all in good humor ! I take all back ! BEAKS.— Cuff him, now! WALTER.— No! No! Let him go. Beaks! WEBFOOT. — O, gentlemen ! I had no mean- ing! O! WALTER.— Let him go! I'll hold my punish- ment of him off until my father lets me this loan. (Aside). Which I've misgivings he'll not do, and should he not, this saucy fool shall have my pardon 48 OUR NEW HERALDRY then, and I will add my voice to his, to say worse things upon my father and true ones, too ! WEBFOOT.— O, sir! BEAKS. — Go then, you rascal ! Go, for your loud roaring! But, bear't in mind, such noisy bellow- ing will not serve another like offense. WEBFOOT.— Offense! Who said offense? BEAKS. — You speak too much. What errand brings you here from him? WEBFOOT. — A thankless one, it seems, which is the delivery of this parcel to your wife (going), but since you will not suffer me — BEAKS.— To Mrs Beaks? Come back, fool! And you would bear it off and nothing said? WEBFOOT. — You said too much was said. BEAKS. — Too much of nothing"! What parcel is it? WEBFOOT.— This one. BEAKS. — You huffy rogue! What one? WEBFOOT.— I know nothing but what's here written. Come, you have better schooling than I ; read it, then. BEAKS.— O, it is another little gift of his ! He is far too generous to his friends. WALTER.— O that I were his friend and not his son ! That I might so accuse him ! BEAKS. — A little patience, Walter! He is gen- OUR NEW HERALDRY 49 erous and will be yet to you. I know him to be generous. WEBFOOT.— You stole that word of my vocab- ulary. I called him that. BEAKS. — Peace ! Peace ! Poor rattle-brain ! Take the package up again and bear it to my wife. Come, follow me. (Exeunt Beaks and Webfoot.) WALTER.— ^'Another little gift," he said! An- other and yet another following, like the limitless procession viewed of images cast by two oppos- ing mirrors. O what a rocky-bosomed and most unnatural father is he, that without remorse, do force me, his true begotten and only son, to dwell in pinching beggary, while he makes bountiful gifts out of my true inheritance to his hired man's family, and no excuse for it, but that he says I live a licentious and drunken life ! It is a false adage, then, that blood runs thicker than water, for here is clotted water that gives this ancient saw the lie and is hasty pudding to this thin blood of mine ; and the Beaks may have presents and plenty of my father's givings, whilst I live upon the bor- rowing charity of begrudging friends, who would rather see Beelzebub than me, that am always begging a loan of them, to be repaid tomorrow. But there is cause for it, and one I yet may bend to my advantage. This Mrs. Beaks was formerly my father's tender ward, and I have not borne 50 OUR NEW HERALDRY my eyes so uselessly but that I saw he held unlaw- ful traffic with her, and in the emergency of their secret dalliance that overtook them both he pro- cured her marriage to this numbskull, Beaks, who serves him now as the grateful dog, the master that practiced a foul deceit on it. If this same baby Beaks is not half sister to me and full daugh- ter in blood to my father, then there is no dishon- esty in the world, and lecherous men and women are far more virtuous than life-mating eagles that dwell apart on lonesome mountains to brood on continent forbearance. But it is so. And my brain must prove a barren and unfruitful brain if it cannot play the female to this masculine knowl- edge to beget with it a sack of golden twenties for my use. I'll try what it can! But here my father's puppet comes again. (Re-enter Beaks.) BEAKS. — O you should have seen it, Walter! The most exquisite instrument, with ivory enam- elled keys and finger-boards set off with pure gold ! It is fitted with nine jewels of what stones I can- not yet make out, a pretty device worked of true pearls. You should see it. WALTER.— No! No! Unless the sight of it could fill up empty pockets, but that it cannot. I am in desperate fortune for a few poor dollars. I know not what rash step I may be forced to unless you prevail with my father. I am a stranded fish OUR NEW HERALDRY 51 on burning sands that waits this cooling shower to float him up again. If you regard me, Beaks, study a fair speech to him. BEAKS. — You may trust me to plead with him well in your behalf. WALTER. — But let it be quick dispatched. I am a tethered lamb waiting the butcher's steel or his deliverance, so impatient am I, until I learn the issue of this thing. How soon will it be? BEAKS. — Tomorrow morning at the farthest. WALTER.— It is a year till then, for in the interim my impatient fingers must close on emp- ty palms, unless, perchance, Beaks, good Beaks, you have on you a petty coin, or two or three, you could toss me off in way of loan to help plodding time to a better pace. Cheerfully, Beaks ! I'll re- pay it again and a Jew's interest! Come, lad! No haggling! BEAKS. — Here is a trifle; not much, but yet a trifle. WALTER.— A hundred thousand homely thanks ! The long night in this loses his length by a good one-half. And so ton sois until tomorrow. (Exit Walter.) BEAKS. — Bon soz's, indeed! He holds these beastly words of his French mistress. I'd hazard now he's off to entertain that sly adventuress, who leechlike sucks a riotous livelihood of him and a dozen other youthful bloods to wealthy fathers. 52 OUR NEW HERALDRY What a wreck has he grown of late ! What a wreck of promised manhood that, rightly poised, should prove his father's stick to lean on, but is, instead, a pricking thorn to him. He bids me tell his father he's amending, but it's not true, nor would I be the fool to do it were it true, for so it is that these same prodigal blasts that blow his unsteered bark from out his father's sheltering harbor do gently waft mine more securely into it. Why it so fares with me through his profitable father that I, Avho three short years ago drank beverage distilled of roasted corn and ate porridge of my own cooking am now in the way of riches, and Grosscrop made me this man I am from that beginning. And, better than these, I have, I see now in the horizon, and all through Grosscrop. O, it is a darling old world, if it be but right taken, which is to work all profitably. Yet v:hen I was poor I saw not this, and railed often at good Lady Fortune, who dealt harshly by me ; therefore do I argue that poor men a^e blinded as I Vvas, and therefore, again, that only a rich man shall be phil- osopher to me hereaftei, for I would not call physi- cian to cure me who groaned under the like malady himself. It is a darling world. (Enter Mrs. Beaks.) BEAKS. — What! And she wears scowls still? MRS. BEAKS.— Let us back with this toy to Grosscrop. We are already too much bound to him to receive it at his hand. OUR NEW HERALDRY 53 Beaks. — To receive it? MRS. BEAKS.— It or any other thing of him with my consent we shall not further. BEAKS. — And you would slap him so in the face by such a gross discourtesy? That holds us in his debt for favors shown? MRS. BEAKS.— Our debt to him will not grow- less by further plunging into it. BEAKS. — Why of late is this unreasoning dis- like of him? You held him once in good esteem, received his favors, too, and counseled me how best to win them. Yet now of late you scarce can bear the mention of his name without a show of fury ! MRS.BEAKS.— We live too much by this man's bounty. BEAKS. — You wrong our friend! You wrong good Grosscrop greatly! Come, be fair to do hmi justice now. MRS. BEAKS.— Justice! O did he get but sim- ple justice I fear he should be scourged, and I with him, and you with both of us ! BEAKS. — You should not speak so of our friend. MRS. BEAKS. — Your friend, but mine no longer. BEAKS. — You are ungrateful, saying it! You forget he reared you up from the fricfndless, cr- phaned girl you were, upon your father's death. and all at his proper charge, not touching the lit- 54 OUR NEW HERALDRY tie sum your father left, but turned it to you at the end. MRS. BEAKS.— Yet, I do not thank him, nor owe him thanks. BEAKS. — Ungrateful woman ! MRS. BEAKS.— I owe him none. BEAKS. — I'll not be party to your perverse humor, but frankly will confess how much Vm bound to him and show my thanks. There is no thing that to me belongs, as money, property, posi- tion, or whatever else I have that men strive most to get, but to him I owe it, as you do also. MRS. BEAKS. — If money were all, it's true you owe him all. BEAKS. — And influence, too, to make me sought and fix me in the world's respect. Why, it has so prospered with me of late that those dressy cox- combs that before had no enlarging glass to see my smallness in, now spy my greater bigness across the street's full width, and duck and nod their heads familiarly; for they hold me now the con- fident man to him in whose debt they lie ; such great respect the world holds money in. MRS. BEAKS.— O, but did they more respect the means whereby it's won, this man had stood in ill respect for winning his. BEAKS. — How has he won it? MRS. BEAKS.— Very illy. BEAKS.— How illy? OUR NEW HERALDRY 55 MRS. BEAKS. — Let me ask you, rather. Your deeper knowledge of his hidden ways should teach you it better than my answer can. You know full well by what indirect and crooked paths he climbed unto his present fortune. BEAKS. — I do not know, nor do you, nor anyone. This is the common error of shallow minds. In the affairs of business in the bustling world it is not fit that men should strain themselves to scrupulous niceties to fix the balance by a hair, which would answer nothing but to defeat the very ends they sought and leave them easy prey to such as used more worldly argument. Successful man must be stirring as the stirring age is, fight fire with fire, cheat guile by guile, entrap the trap- per in the lurking snare, and delve below the load- ed mine to blow it at the clouds. It is a choice be- tween this course and failure in the world. So only Grosscrop did. MRS. BEAKS.— O words, words! nothing but words ! There is no vice of man's but he will frame words to acquit him of ! So may he who robs young Feathers now of his good name and liberty too on pretense of a wrong himself committed. BEAKS.— That Grosscrop did? MRS. BEAKS.— He if anyone. BEAKS — O and you will blame him still that young Feathers is in jail ! Well, if young Feathers had been old Feathers instead, and dry with age, 56 OUR NEW HERALDRY ache and ugliness, he might rot in jail and no woman's pity on him wasted ; but for he is young, wears curled and matter locks, gazes with attentive eyes, has round proportions and a winning voice, the women all, whose judgments are ever warped by fair or ugly looks to likes or dislikes, will now cry out upon the law that puts these bars before him. But it's well the law is blind to prettiness or ill-favor, measuring its justice out to both alike. It's well it's blind. MRS. BEAKS.— I think indeed the law is blind. (Enter Rev. Pinkwort and Kate Grosscrop.) PINKWORT.— Here is a picture indeed! If I were but painter now to paint it ! A home's content- ment ! I'll warrant you were lovemaking ! A sort of blushing guilt in you both tells me you were love- making ! It were rude in us to interrupt you so ! But a rude entrance is excused to see this picture unawares ! BEAKS. — You are welcome in and glad to see you. PINKWORT.— O wedded bliss! O the delight of it ! Denied to me ! Denied all bachelors ! I never witness it but to fall to thinking how much are bachelors denied ! Your bachelor peers only through the chinks but never to touch or taste ! Is't not so, Miss Kate? Is't not, Kate? KATE. — I would not venture, but a home with love in it OUR NEW HERALDRY 57 PINKWORT.— A pity on all bachelors ! MRS. BEAKS.— O do not lament so! Your turn shall yet come, for it's said, every dog has his day, and why not you yours? PINKWORT.— A witty answer! ''Every dog," ha ! ha ! I would I'd your wit, Mrs. Beaks ! MRS. BEAKS.— And I yours. PINKWORT.— Why would you mine? MRS. BEAKS. — For if so happen I should lose it, as they say women are given to the losing of their wits, I should still be but little the loser. BEAKS. — O she is in humor now and will give you this play without end ! Do not hear her. PINKWORT.— I think she be in humor! But it's no matter ! A merry nature ! A nature merry par excellence and vede mecum too as I believe ! On my honor it is so ! MRS. BEAKS.— A dainty oath! ''On my honor"! But what, if it should not be true you said, and you should to hell for false swearing. Is it not a rash risk? And for a pulpit-kindler, too, of pygmy hell- fires to affright imagining women? How shall you escape damnation in one of these? PINKWORT.— It is no oath! A minister as I am should swear on nothing! MRS. BEAKS. — So you do, since you do it only on your honor. 58 OUR NEW HERALDRY PINKWORT.— He is enjoined of it ! He should not! MRS. BEAKS.— Well! Well! I give you your acquittance. How goes all with you, Kate? KATE. — So busy! So very busy, of late, to ar- range our church party fixed for Wednesday night. It leaves me no time. You shall not fail to be to it or we'll not forgive you so ! PINKWORT.— That you must not, Mrs. Beaks ! If you love our little church in its need you must not ! If you would keep one brick of it on another, you must not! For we are sore pressed for every dollar ! MRS. BEAKS.— One brick on another? What! is the church then fallen to this plight, that its life hangs now upon the gorging down of creams, and tarts and bon-bons which, swallowed, He like lead in distressful bowels, driving up poisonous vapors to the brain, there to beget unwholesome fantasies and wicked dreams? Does its toppling foundation depend so that formerly was built on rock? PINKWORT.— You bend the word from its par- ticular intent! You do it! The word church, as spoke, has double meaning to it, which resolved may be rendered in two heads, so — as first, the church invisible, videlicit — the church spiritual, videlicit again, the doctrine. This it is we say is built upon the rock. And for a second meaning — MRS. BEAKS.— No, but let me add there my OUR NEW HERALDRY 59 videlicit too, before you depart from it; then I would say, videlicit — wind chiefly, which is the last element of all this doctrine, may be divided to, and there at last it will ever end — in wind — nothing but wind at last. Yet no matter; go on with the sec- ond, for I see you are bursting to deliver yourself. What is the second? PINKWORT. — And secondly, it is taken to mean for a second meaning, the church proper, namely, the house, namely, the stones, bricks, boards, iron or whatever else 'tis made of, and this material part of it takes money, for which we cannot be but beholden to our friends, and so I divide the word. MRS. BEAKS. — As God lives there is no splitter of atomies to do it half so cleverly as your preacher can ! He will take you for text a few dry words compounded of nothing, and this nothing he will divide into twenty different heads, each composed of nothing, and of these twenty nothings, resolved from one, he will discourse learnedly for above two hours, and yawns, and gapes, and snoring of his listeners, will deter him nothing. It is truly mar- velous ! But where is this party to be? PINKWORT.— Where should it be, but at Gross- crop's? There is a God-fearing man, that gives us his lawn for it, which will be decked liandsomely out in lanterns of Japan and tasteful colorings ! You shall be there, Mrs. Beaks ! Your wit shall too, to add its spice ! MRS. BEAKS.— It will if I will, for it is too 6o OUR NEW HERALDRY young a wit to travel unaccompanied, and to go without any would be too much after the fashion of this time. PINKWORT. — There you may air it, and a hun- dred as witty ones to take up the coup and fling back as good an answer ! A good word there will beget a hundred others full as good ! I'll warrant it will ! MRS. BEAKS.— How indecent will the talk be then! PINKWORT.— Indecent? God save us! Inde- cent? MRS. BEAKS.— That one word shall beget a hundred! That one poor word shall come littered home by a hundred bred on it! Did you not say lanterns? KATE. — O we shall have lanterns and plenty! And I ran my feet of¥ yesterday to hunt them, for Pinkwort was too busy to undertake ! MRS. BEAKS. — Most like his business was of a kind better done in the dark than by lanterns. I'll warrant now it was ! if he dares to speak. PINKWORT.— God forbid! If you challenge me to it ril tell what 'twas. I labored then in a good cause — a Christian cause — which is the hin- dering all newsboys the selling papers of Sunday. It is a task I set myself to do, and will do it at any cost, as you shall see ! I too well know what vice this is, what sin flows from it, what immorality and OUR NEW HERALDRY 6i neglect, too, of good mother church, and Christian duty, and want of reverence, veneration, worship, piety, respect of God, and what vanity, worldhness, wicked desire, chafif and wild oats, venal sin, cor- rupt ends, false gods, deceit, hatred, anger, spite ! I know it well, and have framed my good petition up, setting out all my heads and paragraphs with foot-notes on the pages. You shall see it, Peaks, and subscribe to it, too ! There's no good citizen but will ! I'll not rest until it be enacted, not abate one line of it ! And so shall we raise up fallen vir- tue from the ground ! O it's beautiful to contem- plate what 'twould be and this enacted ! BEAKS. — It is a good work! You shall have my name to it. MRS. BEAKS. — So shall you not have mine. PINKWORT.— Go your ways, Mrs. Beaks ! Hu- morous Mrs. Beaks ! Ha ! ha ! I'll no more of you ! Go your way for a humorous woman ! (Exeunt Rev. Pinkwort and Kate.) MRS. BEAKS. — There is a sanctified humbug that no chary petticoat should trust to save within call. He is honey-combed and honey-sweet with pious pretensions, yet devours each woman with a greedy look. I wonder that Kate can stomach him to go in his company so ! O it were well if virgin Durity were endowed as magnet needles ara that detect unseen gross metal's presence. So should a virtuous girl a dishonest man in whatever clothing. 62 OUR NEW HERALDRY BEAKS. — Yet I think your young girl is already too much like this disobedient or obedient needle, and she will ever turn to dishonest man as the needle does to hidden metal, leaving her fixed pole to do it ; for what is fair advice, good counsel, train- ing, and her parents' watchful care, but the guiding pole to her? And these she will leave for him. MRS. BEAKS. — It shocks me strangely to see Kate keep his company. BEAKS. — If I may judge, it will be a match between him and Kate. MRS. BEAKS.— A match? How so a match? BEAKS.— Why, I think he'll marry her. MRS. BEAKS.— And his wife in the south still living that he's parted from? And no divorce, either? Yet he named himself bachelor but now. I was on the very point of speaking of his wife as he did it. BEAKS. — But Kate knows nothing of it, nor do any of his church folk save Mrs. Grosscrop. And as for divorce, he may well get one of her, and is about it now, as I believe. MRS. BEAKS.— O did I suspect she dreamt of it, that she could fancy tethering her innocency out to this thorny bush to feed on rankness, I would put a little worm into her tender ear whose uncom- fortable wriggling there would wean her from it. Yet the doing it so might send her sicker to her bed than filthy typhus could. But sure she has OUR NEW HERALDRY 63 no mind to him! And her stepmother, too! It is too unnatural and strained a thing! (Enter Julia.) JULIA. — Dinner is waiting and has been this while. MRS. BEAKS.— We will come at once. (Exit Julia.) And you think he thinks to marry her? BEAKS.— Most like he'll marry her. But whether he marries her or marries her not, is no affair of ours. Let me teach you rather to be fair with Grosscrop. There our interest lies. Let every man have justice. MRS. BEAKS. — O were I his dearest foe my prayer should be that he should have it! (Exeunt both.) sce:n^e u OFFICE OF THE DAILY BREAKWIND (Wattles and a Boy at Work.) WATTLES. — What is't you say he said of me? BOY. — That you are raving stark-mad with this latest infectious lunacy of prize-fighting and fisti- cuffs; that you — 64 OUR NEW HERALDRY WATTLES.— O if that were all I have company in it ! There's no church-fair a success now-a-days without a set-to put down as cardinal to all else upon the bill. Even the ladies to it at chambers that are scarce bold enough to exhibit in public, but next year they will amend that and will out in the open for spectators to see them. I have company in it. BOY. — He said that your little brain would not measure the tenth fraction of a gill ; that were the water on it drawn off, your head would have no more bigness than a dried pea ; he said, too, that there was but one cure for you, and named himself physician to administer it. WATTLES.— What cure? Did he mention no particular cure? BOY. — To knock your scanty brams out, as he said, and swore he would do it, too, if you but crossed his path. WATTLES. — And he knows of my position here? He knows me to be sporting editor to the Daily Breakwind? He knows that? BOY. — That he does, but said 'twas no matter an you were twenty times its sporting editor ; he said they may well search out a new one unless dead men can write, for he put you down as good as dead already. WATTLES.— O then let him look before he takes this leap into the sea; let him hatch his chickens OUR NEW HERALDRY 65 ere he counts them. Let him bear't in mind that an ounce of skill is worth a pound of boar's brawn ; that there is more in good blood than in swollen muscles, and more in wit than in grit. He may well find me a good handful, and armful too, with a belly- full yet to come. I do not fear him, nor any man, though he outweigh me two points to one, and I lay all to blood, for there is a strong fighting vein of it in our family. There's our old governor, my father ! He's a sprightly cock in drink, for an old one ! You'd ought to see him in drink once and hear him ! You'd ought to put a drink or two into him, of old gin, and sit by and take all in ! Gad ! He'll tell you of such madness in his youth as I never see, nor any of these quiet days ! He was water-carrier in his day to three several ring-sides and held sponge and alum to your best man of them all. He was a rare one in his time, and if I have a smack of it about me I came naturally by it. (Enter Quillet and several laboring men.) QUILLET. — I speak it plainly, gentlemen! Elect Grosscrop if you will ! Yes, go on ! Elect a man of his villainy, of his oppression ! Elect him I say, but remember if you do it, I swear never to shove good pen or pencil more in distressed labor's behalf. I take an oath to it, and there are those amongst you that know best whether I swear oaths to break them. Elect him if you will, then ! 1st LABORER.— We have no thought to. Quillet. 66 OUR NEW HERALDRY ALL. — Down with Grosscrop! QUILLET.— Gad, and I speak plain! Had I been the less plain spoken I had been the better fixed for it today. But no matter for that. I say to all her present and will cry it from the house- tops — damn me that man that votes for Grosscrop ! Damn him, I say, and stand to it! ALL.— Bravo Quillet! Bravo! QUILLET. — Let them put up the horned devil and vote for him ! Let them put up Pluto, prince of burning sulphur, or Lucifer, his lieutenant, or Satan, heir apparent of hell, or Mulciber, the sooty blacksmith of it, or whatever else is fouler or falser than these ! As well do it as to put Grosscrop up. And labor will do it, then labor and I are at cross- roads, and I go mine alone hereafter ! ist LABORER.— We'll stand to you. Quillet! ALL. — Hurrah for Quillet! Down with Gross- crop! QUILLET. — A pretty reward to me! A pretty reward to one that filled the enemy's flank with grape and canister these seven year! Yet had I been bribe-taker — as had chance a hundred thousand times, everyone to make a man rich, but spat on them — had I been bribe-taker to sell out labor to the devil at auction, they could not so treat me! And you will elect Grosscrop you may cut my lines loose of you ! ALL. — There's a man ! Hurrah for Quillet ! OUR NEW HERALDRY 67 1st LABORER.— Let's tell you what's decided! Let's tell you! QUILLET. — I've eaten my humble pie before in sweat, and can do it again. I will stand to light through there's none else will. While I live by food it shall be honest food. ALL.— Honest Quillet! Good Quillet! ist LABORER. — If you will let me speak, Quil- let! Our labor union by unanimous dissent entrusts its cause to the Daily Breakwind and its right hon- orable editor, to do in the election to such defect as it may be advised. ALL.— Hurrah for the Breakwind ! 'Rah ! 'Rah ! 1st LABORER.— We resoluted to the def-ct of this and will stand to it. Howsomever the Break- wind do advise, so do every delegate's ballad go — A VOICE. — Ballot, you mean, numbskull! 1st LABORER.— And had he ten ballads it would go ! And the respect of which is that the Breakwind is a great reform paper and a friend to labor. QUILLET. — If 'tis so I thank you, gentlemen. 1st LABORER. — It is so, and we thank you in- stead. Though what you said now dj gall us some, yet we know it's from honesty you said it, and honesty be good wares to deal in. I had rather that bold honesty slap me in the beard to set me right than that sly deceit kiss me on the che^k to lead me wrong. 68 OUR NEW HERALDRY QUILLET. — It is indeed from honesty I spe^k, and that I love you laboring men as I hate the rich. I St LABORER. — We know it well, and you shall see there have been others in their time worse in- grates than we'll prove to you. 2nd LABORER. — O it were different thirty year ago when I were a boy ! It were different then ! The lads then would not 'ave it ! Natt Little would not 'ave it ! No, nor Simon Burrs that led the salt-hogs strike ! There were a lad that would not ! ALL. — Down with Grosscrop ! Hurrah for Quil- let ! (Exeunt Laborers.) QUILLET. — How easy 'tis to lead by the nose a chafing bull, knowing the trick of it ! Here are these dull sweaters, these pitiful fools! Why, there's no industry thrives upon their ignorance but mouthing it loudly, and lying, and sonorous-voiced bragging, yoked in with such skimmings and dress of s^'ckish flattery as would put plain-dealing intelligence straight to a qualm to rid his stomach of. If any- one would get their good opinion and hold it, he must need do it; he must need tell them that all men whatsoever who lived before them in the world are but apes and monkeys compared to such as they; he must tell them, too, that there's no gen- tility but goes abroad in a hickory shirt and cor- duroys; that there's no virtue or admirable quality OUR NEW HERALDRY 69 in man but dwells in a smutty, begrimed and be- whiskered face, furrowed down with rivulets of tobacco spittal, and that the escutcheon of all the nobleness in the world is a wheel-barrow and hob- nails. And all of this in the name of truth, but in its name only, for truth itself is an unmixing ele- ment with their gross compound and will not abide in it. As well weld steel to copper, that part again at the last blow, as them to truth. They will have none of it but in name, nor of him that speaks it. They will starve out any truth-speaker that goes amongst them, if they do not the sooner cut him off with violence. O I had rather take my dwell- ing up in a gopher's burrow to crack nuts the win- ter through than to live on such meagerness as could be picked off these by telling truth to them, and therefore, I feed them of that dish they like best and thrive on. It serves me now to fan them to a frenzy to curb in Grosscrop's spreading ambi- tion. He owes me no good will for the many thrusts I gave him, and I account his gain my loss, for it is in politics as with double buckets in a well, when one goes up another must down. (To Wat- tles) Did Playfair yet come in? WATTLES.— No one o' that name. QUILLET.— (To the Boy) And you told him I was in haste? BOY. — Yes, and said would come impromptu. WATTLES. — Promptly, you mean, stupid! 70 OUR NEW HERALDRY You'll not master our rules to sport till first those of grammar, and you should heed it. Gad, here is a pretty thing! a rare pretty thing, of feather- weights, that fit for an hour and above, and the two lads, either not above seventeen, borne away in stretchers at the close — a right pretty thing — with faces and clothing smeared and bespattered with blood — gad, to have seen it — and the per- plexed referee could not but pronounce it draw, so clever and so plucky were both ! A week's salary to a-been there. It is good matter here for two columns, with double headers at the top to tickle the eyes of all true sports. Here is my good day's work to put muscles, pipes, vessels, blood and motion into this skeleton to make a thing of life of it ! Come, my spelling dictionary and my sportsman's gloss- ary ! Here is a task that fits me. (Enter Playfair.) PLAYFAIR.— I am late? QUILLET.— A little lag of the time, but no matter. WATTLES.— Come, boy! Let's to the type- writer, and there you'll have music to play, for there we shall beat out notes and quarter notes, quavers and semi-quavers, crescendoes and high trebles, of right and left flukes, of cuffs and clinches, of break-aways and retreats to corners, of punches, knock-outs and jabs landed, with other merry music of the kind. Come, boy! OUR NEW HERALDRY 71 (Exeunt Wattles and Boy.) PLAYFAIR. — A creditor stopped me on the way or I had been here the sooner. 1 am always dashed a little to be dunned for a debt, and this one was importunate, for I had no sops to throw him. QUILLET. — And you will not write me the matter off so against Grosscrop as I proposed and lend me your name's good testimony to it? It will serve me pat to have your name to it. PLAYFAIR. — No more than in the way I said. QUILLET. — O it is a milk-and-water way, but do it so nevertheless, since you will not do it other- wise, since conscience forbids you. Conscience, in- deed ! I'd as lief a millstone to my neck in the water as to live in this worldly world with a conscience like yours for companion to prick me from my own interests. It is a burdensome, quarrelsome and un- agreeable conscience, and I look to it yet to be your death. Why, you're no sooner quartered at a plen- tiful board and dainty victuals by than comes this Torqemada, this arch inquisitor, your busy, prying conscience, and elbows you from the seat, albeit your sunken, lean flanks quarrel with each other at close range for lack of a good meal to hold them further apart. And you will heed this conscience and refuse to touch me off Grosscrop .1 little with your pen? PLAYFAIR. — I cannot say more ill of him than I know for truth, but can show him to blame that 72 OUR NEW HERALDRY young Feathers is locked up and show wherein. So much you are welcome to. QUILLET. — And you could add nothing in to blacken this a little? You could build in no cun- ning surmises, guesses, or innuendoes, suppositions or conclusions, to set tongues wagging? You could do nothing so? PLAYFAIR.— No. QUILLET. — And yet you know by what hun- dred and odd devices and tricks of wit he undid the state of more lands than the swift swallow on the wing could in, a day bound in? PLAYFAIR. — I've heard it so rumored. QUILLET. — And that by bribes and shady plots on pretense of the general good, he achieved the binding charter and license of the law to entrench himself upon the public water-ways and levy tribute of all users as a sovereign might? You know all this and, knowing it, will still hold scruples with what poisoned arrow to sting this common enemy of man that reaches out now for further power? But no matter! Since you will do no more, let that you do be in haste done. PLAYFAIR.— Tomorrow. QUILLET. — It will answer. O there is but one use your over honest man may be put to, and that but seldom. His testimony will pass current for truth when truth serves, for though men despise him, yet will they believe him, but he flies egregi- OUR NEW HERALDRY 73 ously against the wind to do it, for the world's wind is counter to all honesty, and who spits against its boisterous blast spits but in his own face. I would I could win you to some rational philoso- phy, to teach you selfishness rather than this too much honesty. You are in sore need of it. PLAYFAIR. — So do I wish I never may be pu- pil to you for such a learning. QUILLET. — There is no trade thrives now m the busy world by honesty, but only by the show of it. What poorer commendment can you make your friend to win commission for him than to say, "poor devil, he is honest"? Who will employ him so in a thing of weight? Your very needle women and rubbers at wash-boards can foresee that such a one must fall into a thousand wily traps that cunningness might cope with. PLAYFAIR. — It is a poor garment for wear that will not withstand both wet and dry, but your phi- losophy will not. If honesty's not good and held in the world's respect, why then do you profess it publicly, as I've heard you often do? And if dishonesty's esteemed, why then do men deny they have it and defend themselves against the charge of it? QUILLET.— O it is the fashion of the time to profess but not to do, and let no wise man mistake the one for the other. Profession was twin-brother once to performance, but now they are of different 74 OUR NEW HERALDRY kindred and hold no fellowship. We no longer have the ten commandments but one only — Put money in thy purse — and who does not keep this one, keeps the ten others in vain. There is no vir- tue now but riches, nor crime but poverty. And so you'll find it. PLAYFAIR. — If 'tis so, 'tis so to men's shame that set themselves against truth, and against na- ture which is but truth. In nature each thing is in itself weighed and valued, and not by its lug- gage, which is no part of it, no more than are riches part to man or his true quality. Why, then, will apish and presumptuous man shape to himself a rule for's measurement unlike all other things, to fix his body's worth by what it owns, not v^hat it is, as we should thus esteem the mettle of the horse by the gilded bridle, or of the hound's sound limbs and swiftness to frame our judgment on the em- broidered collar, or by its scabbard to prize the sword — heedless of the shining blade within? No country lout will so inaptly stumble as to do it. QUILLET. — O your over-flighty judgment is winged like a swallow, and will ever perch himself on the tall cedar, disdaining the flat hillock of com- mon sense, yet forgetting still that in that dung-hill most are oily grubs and fatted beetles for this goodly bird that in the upper region of the air feeds only upon garish flies. But I oft preach too as you do now, yet not so seriously to take it. Come, OUR NEW HERALDRY 75 will you a sample of me, and to that purpose, too, that you late spoke of? Come, will you have it? PLAYFAIR.— Go on; I'm listening. QUILLET. — Well then, here goes: Search me out this caitiff man for estimation now — you should ever give the word a cadence so, that the phrase too may be embellished as well as the matter moral — Let him stand forth naked and without his stilts, as he should stand above before his Judge and Gov- ernor! What gauds are these he brings! Away with them ! Away with these accessories, these complements wherewith he is adorned ! Strip ! strip him now ! Strip him of his lands, his tenures, offices and rents! Strip him of external glory bare, of place, of greatness, of family and of friends! Tear off this gaudy envelope, too, wherein he's wrapped about; leave nothing but his shirt — nay, not his shirt — for that, too, his weaver spun and is no true parcel to the man himself ! What body has he now? What members suited to their proper functions and due discharge of restless nature's coursings? Nay, then, he is over-blotched with ul- cerous and discharging sores, is puffed and swollen with uncleanly humors, groans with gouty limbs, and, from his over-tasked and rebellious bowels, pukes in your very face that load his stomach now refuses lodgment. Such is the outward man ; but search him now within for that capable and unpo- inted mind wherewith he happily is provided, rich in its own and not another's wares, and armed against 76 OUR NEW HERALDRY the stroke of fortune. Go to, he is not so provi- sioned, but like a culpable and peevish child cries loudly out but for his chattel's loss, grows white- lipped with envy of his neighbor's fortune, trem- bles at the name of death and bars by night his door against her entrance in lest she should steal upon him while he sleeps to have her dues of him. Yet he, of God's created, will fix — O but 'tis enough! I am too wary a physician to taste deep of every drug I may mix in my pestle, and too good a phi- losopher to follow ever my own advice. PLAYFAIR. — You only mock at nature and at truth. QUILLET.— No, but on this ground I will defy you too, and outrun you as the nimble hare the tur- tle. Come, what example will you? Come, I will outdo you with examples! PLAYFAIR. — Do you go on first. To listen be- comes me better than to speak. QUILLET. — I will assail your goddess then, and show her heart of such flinty compound that the hairy Bushman (standing betwixt ape and man) does not own the like! She is a most selfish one. PLAYFAIR.— But just. QUILLET. — O your over-mouthed justice would strip us to the bone and leave them marrowless af- ter! What is it we hold, but's held by sufferance and not by justice? OUR NEW HERALDRY 77 PLAYFAIR. — I could well answer that, but go on ; I see youVe tuned to it. QUILLET. — O I speak it truly, the ever busy housewife, Nature, teaches the selfish example. In her ordering she does not deal with all alike, but like a most unnatural mother abandons the weakly child to death, and picks her favorites ever among the strong and lusty ones, rewarding these with life, strength, place and the choosing of their seed for new issue. It is not man alone who makes his kindred lawful prey, but all the winged and leafy tenants of the fields and air. Witness here on this branch, the pygmy commonwealth of leaves. In their little world of space these simple leaves strive one with another, wage bitter wars, practice the deceitful trick, filch, steal, and blow the foul breath in the neighbor's face, much as people do. Here on the top-most twig, broad-spread in the air and sun, gross with selfishness, is the principal leaf. Why may not this be your rich and worldly man that, pufifed up with the winds of pride, would carry the sun in his bosom, suffering his beams to fall on none besides? Beneath his lordliness droops the cluster of small leaves full of a timid whiteness and none of the green sap. Liken these again to your frightened widows, pining in the mildewed garret and soliciting the sun of fortune. Here is youi con- sumptive stripling prematurely dead ; and here your middle householder, dwelling in the mean of for- tune, neither opulent nor in penury, neighboring the 78 OUR NEW HERALDRY famished one that from want of nourishment can- not outlive the day, but must fall and wither. And so, from this diminutive branch, this figment of simplest life, may we construct the complex state, finding for the selfish ordinances of man their true parallel. For subtle life is swayed by the selfish law, quickening great and small to endless war. Even there on the grassy plat, that quietest of rest- less nature's work, where, to the unschooled eye, all is seeming peace, there is no peace, but every hand's breadth teems with warring forms each in its tiny sphere, battling for a little room as a monarch for his kingdom threatened. But you are bored by this? I see it in your face, you are bored by it. PLAYFAIR. — Not a whit ! I beg you go on. Go on, I say! QUILLET. — Take what thing you will, and 'tis the same. The red-crested cock whose hot blood throbs at the portals of his eyes as it would burst them through, beats his weaker brother from the roost, and like a lascivious Mormon, takes the flock to wife, begetting numerous issue. The strongest antlered buck gets the waiting doe ; the big-jawed swine cracks the meatiest nut; while the lion eats the cat waits ; when the big dog is served the little one may lick his beard ; the cat flays the rat and the rat the cockroach, and so down from A to Z. And all the while her watchful ladyship, unjustly just nature, stands by and cuts ice for the winner. But now that I remember it, I overlooked a sage and OUR NEW HERALDRY 79 sovereign observation of some newness, which is pat and to the purpose. But 'tis enough. PLAYFAIR. — What is it? Let no good creature of the fancy spoil for want of a showing into the aid. Out with it! QUILLET. — That in the sea it is reported, the great fishes eat up the little ones. PLAYFAIR.— Now ! Call you that new? IVe heard said Noah told his wife it, the very day they boarded the ark, and she stood at the bulwarks weeping great salt tears into the water for the poor fishes that should be drowned in it. QUILLET. — And there is a piece of pretty non- sense devised in the interest of big-bellied aldermen to keep authority in awe. PLAYFAIR.— The fish story? QUILLET.— No, but that other— the ark busi- ness — and a hundred and some score other gro- tesque fables, invented at first by the fantastically bearded priests of unholy old times, to the mutual profit of these pitifully shorn priests of more unholy new times ! PLAYFAIR. — You should not quarrel with me on that score, but in respect of nature, and the bit- ter interpretations you read of her goodly book, I will out-talk you there for a week together without suppers, dinners or sleep, to show you better in- struction in it. 8o OUR NEW HERALDRY (Enter Mrs. Playfair.) MRS. PLAYFAIR.— O ! And here you are. Am I intruding to come in? QUILLET.— Not in the least. PLAYFAIR.— You found the note I left, then? MRS. PLAYFAIR.— Yes, and thought to drop in here rather than to wait for you. QUILLET. — You did well. It shows your wifely prudence to spy your husband out so. There's no discreet wife but will. All husbands need a wife's watching. Playfair least of all, but all a little, and you shall ever find it so. MRS. PLAYFIAR.— I hope I shall not, nor was't for that I came. My husband holds my trust in him, and needs no watching. QUILLET. — You are yet new in the business to say so. You shall see anon when the squeezing traces chafe you. MRS. PLAYFAIR.— See whati^ QUILLET. — That husbands and lovers are not of the same piece! O your love-lorn poet is never a husband inditing honeyed sweetness to an over- tasked wife, but a lover rather importuning a scorn- ful mistress ! How shuffling should a husband's lines be ! How lame, how slinking and unsure, if ever he took up pen to do it ! Why he might write of nothing but their last noisy quarrel of midnight that waked the children from the sound sleep and OUR NEW HERALDRY 8i set them brawling, or of the morning's quarrel, or that one of noon, or the other one of sunset, and so he might divide the time, but the matter never. I would now some faithful recorder would honestly do this task. MRS. PLAYFAIR.— For shame on you to talk so ! And a married man, too ! QUILLET. — A married man ! Why not a mar- ried man having experience, rather than your newly bearded boy with fitful dreams of the marriage bed as a couch of ever-blooming roses? My wife and I were as cooing doves in the beginning, but now we are as barking magpies. You shall see, too, un- less you be one woman picked out of a hundred thousand. MRS. PLAYFAIR.— O from such speeches I think your wife had good cause for barking, and were I she I would bite as well as bark. Ill not talk further of it with this vinegar dispositioned one, with this uncorked bottle of last year's cider! I will not ! Yet you teach me all the more that lesson you think least of! Look, Signor Sourness! (Takes Playfair's arm.) You show me how just a man and true this is, whose every action rides upon the poles of truth ! Here is no varnish, no '< eneer, no flattery, but truth, plain truth and nobleness! Look well at him, for he is no more kin to such as you in thought or act than you are to a bush ! He is a man, and those but counterfeits you speak 82 OUR NEW HERALDRY of ! He is my husband, and I his loyal wife, and so will live, and so will die ! PLAYFAIR.— O but after all— well— (Exeunt Playfair and Mrs. Playfair.) QUILLET. — Poor, unsophisticated innocents, both ! They have a thing or two to learn before their hopeful bobbins wind down ! But now to Grosscrop ! (Exit Quillet.) SCENE III ROOM IN BEAKS' HOUSE (Enter Julia and Webfoot.) JULIA. — As I live she did. She said those very words to him — and worse a hundred times if I could remember, but was so 'shamed to overhear it and so afeared to be taken at eavesdropping, as it might appear, for I could neither in nor out, they came so suddenly up to the very door unawares to me, and Mrs. Beaks' angry voice raking him. WEBFOOT. — And she tried out fat Grosscrop's tallow so? She frizzled him? basted and par-boiled him so? OUR NEW HERALDRY 83 JULIA. — If hot speech can she did it. Her tongue's the equal of anyone's to do it in her anger. WEBFOOT.— Gad, I'm glad she did it! On prin- ciple I'm glad ! This Grosscrop's sleek fatness is an offense 'gainst every man's eye, and particularly 'gainst mine that dislikes him, though he be rich and one of your upper citizens, and though I work for him, too, for payment which he begrudgingly renders me. I would gladly see any hot iron siz- zling in his belly's grease, the more so as it was a woman put it hot into him. And it was all for Feathers she roasted him? JULIA. — Yes ; and threatened him that he should let Feathers) out, or she would pull down the gilded shutters of his house to let the whole world see what filth was in it, and though the string once cut would let down her's as well. She said she would open the window wide to slander-feeding buzzards, and would find that carrion there to fat the leanest buzzard of them all, and if her own bones should be picked with others for it. But he an- swered that he would not. WEBFOOT.— Would not? JULIA. — Would not or could not; but first he denied all hand in it. WEBFOOT. — There are strange things between these two, as I've heard hinted. But let's to our own business, leaving theirs alone. You'll not out again with young Sage? Your promise to it, 84 OUR NEW HERALDRY Julia ! Come, your promise ! If you love me you will not ! Come, your promise now ! JULIA. — Who should hinder if it please me? What master have I to hinder if I will? And his eyes are handsome brown ones, and speaks well out of books, and's taller than you, and, as I think, a much properer young man ! If I will 1 will, and there's an end ! And you dared me to it at first! WEBFOOT.— It was but in fun I did! JULIA. — O you shall have fun! I'll not deny you fun ! WEBFOOT. — You kill me a hundred times over to do it ! And killing me you kill my love with me ! O such a night as I spent last ! I dreamt we two stood on a precipice overlooking the ragged brink, and my arm about you so, and I offered to kiss you so, and — JULIA. — O that is only so so! Do not squeeze me so! (Enter Mrs. Beaks and Mrs. Cranebill.) MRS. CRANEBILL.— He will not do it? He will do nothing in my brother's behalf? MRS. BEAKS.— Nothing! MRS. CRANEBILL.— O it is the last hope gone ! MRS. BEAKS. — It had been too much to expect, to expect it otherwise ! Such men do nothing that does not bend to their advantage, and nothing OUR NEW HERALDRY 85 leave undone that does. While the outraged law does squeeze innocent Feathers, it is less like to seize up guilty Grosscrop. O crime can set no sheltering screen up half so well to hide behind it, as pointing out suspicion the way to another man ; and therefore those clever cheaters do cheat justice, too, for when she makes her rough draft upon them for the wrong, they deftly turn her off by putting in her hand a substitute. JULIA. — Take away your arm ! Have you no decency? and the ladies here? MRS. BEAKS.— But who are they here? What prodigies have we here that do love-making — a thing that's dead and should be mouldy with a hun- dred years' dust? (To Webfoot) How old are you, pray? WEBFOOT. — I? Why, begging excuse for a short answer and telling plain truth, I came on some thirty year ago of a Friday morning. MRS. BEAKS.— And she? Her shyness will not let her speak. WEBFOOT. — She was some ten year lag of that, I believe. MRS. BEAKS.— So young both! Why, I mis- took you for some straying wanderers of the prim- rose age that escaped time's pruning scissors, but that you are not! What! And she blushes, too, and stammers? How genuine is the appearance of it! And he stands to her like a golden pheasant 86 OUR NEW HERALDRY cock, puffing his feathers out to assume a largeness he has not, as he would dispute this hen's posses- sion with all comers! Pry, from what musty ro- mancing volume did you steal these pretty tricks? WEBFOOT.— What tricks? MRS. BEAKS. — Why, to play at love-making. WEBFOOT.— We do not play, good lady. MRS. BEAKS. — It must need be play, for there are none now living in the world that do it other- wise than as play ! And so rare indeed has the thing itself grown that a thousand amongst us will any night pay you out their begrudging coin to witness, at the play of it, some sleek, robust fellow in a powdered wig, and bellowing bull's voice of loud- ness, die frantically for love upon the stage in a frenzy of fine passion, though behind the scene, this same one with a vulgar oath ripped out, will beat his timorous wife for sewing his shirt's button too loosely on. It has fallen to this ; and you cannot be but in play, and feigning this lost thing! WEBFOOT. — We are not in play but in good earnest — and to be bold saying it — hope to be hitched close some day, to settle down then as good husband and better wife, and so make merry with it. Is't not, Julia? JULIA. — Go to with such talk ! You shame me before the ladies ! You do, indeed ! WEBFOOT. — O the ladies know we will be mar- ried, and therefore have license for such free speech. OUR NEW HERALDRY 87 MRS. BEAKS.— Married? WEBFOOT.— Yes; married. MRS. BEAKS.— No more but that? O I knew it could be but that ! I knew it was but the old play of marriage that runs its course upon the stage of life in three acts that are of no kin. The first act and the shortest is pastoral chiefly, with settings of moonlit waters and woody paths, bouquets by the wayside picked and idle compliments that sound like truth and false promises that are no part of memory to hold them. The second act is but laughing comedy wherein 'tis everyone's place in it to wink at these green ones newly betroth, till the smiling minister hands them over the little parchment paper, the innocent certifier to the bond- age, and the door is shut. Next comes a soberer act, the longest and the last one, where the merry play makes shift from lightness into tragedy, tak- ing the dire plot up in a thousand devious ways but all in horror ending, until the curtain falls, and so the play is done; and this being as it is, you shall never see your romancing author follow the pair to the threshold of this last act, since there is no matter for his pen. I knew it was but the old play. WEBFOOT.— The old play it well may be, but with new actors in it, and those, too, that have wit to change a thing or two that may not be to their liking. What say, Julia? 88 OUR NEW HERALDRY JULIA. — O you talk too much! What business have you? (Exeunt Julia and Webfoot.) MRS. CRANEBILL.— How good It is to see young folks in love together ! Yet I never witness it but to make me sad, the more for it recalls that time when we were but girls — you an ambitious one and I a timid — and we talked of such husbands as we should have. MRS. BEAKS. — You were eager then to be a wife. MRS. CRANEBILL.— God forgive me for it! O to think what then I thought 'twould be and to see how now it is ! My husband then should be no man but hero, yet I am wedded now to neither man nor hero, but only brute, and that a cruel one ! God forgive me now for saying no more than truth of him I'm bound to! O he treats me shamefully! MRS. BEAKS.— I well believe it from the things you tell of him. MRS. CRANEBILL.— I did not tell the half, nor could I tell it ! There are no words tell such things but in the half ! My children only hold me to his house, or I would rid myself of him if my life went too. He is grown bitterer now of late, since my poor brother fell into these sorry troubles, and gibes at me now for my family's bad blood that fixes this stain upon his children ! OUR NEW HERALDRY 89 MRS. BEAKS.— He has small bravery that will so taunt such a one. MRS. CRANEBILL.— He is hopelessly fallen of late into drink and politics, and labors now in Grosscrop's behalf for some reward he's promised. He provides me nothing for the house's support nor the children's clothes to keep them decent, yet beats me if his meals are not at all hours waiting him, or the children be dressed shabbily, v/hich, God knows, is harder on my eyes to see than his blows are upon my flesh to feel. He will strike me in the face of Sunday morning, and on the even- ing of that day lead me trembling on his arm to church, where he will toss into the plate, with a gusto of liberality, the ten cent piece that cost me two hours' darning at a neighbor's old stockings to win. This he does, as he says, for politics' sake, that the church folk may deem him a fit man to tie to, and they do it, for he is trustee there, deacon and I know not what. This is the lot that is fallen to me, that I must live and die in ; but yours has been a different one. MRS. BEAKS.— Different? MRS. CRANEBILL.— Your husband's thrifty, puts comfort in your house, clothes and feeds you well. MRS. BEAKS.— No, but he starves me. MRS. CRANEBILL.— Starves? MRS. BEAKS. — As truly as any ever starved. 90 OUR NEW HERALDRY MRS. CRANEBILL.— O you only jest, for have I not seen the table all but groaning under the plentiful load set before you for eating? And call you that starving? MRS. BEAKS.— The mind needs food as the body does, and languishes without it; so went mine pining at my husband's board. But 'tis no matter now ; I deserved no better at his hands. By stealth I fetched into his house a skeleton in my closet hid and since have kept it. MRS. CRANEBILL.— A skeleton! MRS. BEAKS. — But I've misgivings now the door will soon be rent apart and this skeleton will walk apace ; I've misgivings it soon will be ! MRS. CRANEBILL.— God of mercy, have you been grave-robber? MRS. BEAKS.— I am not that innocent! MRS. CRANEBILL.— O you frighten me! The very thought of it ! A skeleton indeed ! MRS. BEAKS.— I will tell you all! Come, a lit- tle play now. Do you act out the father confessor's part and I the repentant sinner's, and so I will open my faults to you. But no, that were too long to do it in that way, and too much circumstance. Let you rather name over the catalogue of inhib- ited sins and you will hear me answer yea — yea — yea. Yet I will tell you. Upon my birth my mother died — I begin at my birth as I should relate a biog- raphy, but our true biography should begin with OUR NEW HERALDRY 91 our great grand, and grand great parents, who were sowers of those seeds bequeathed us for harvesting. MRS. CRANEBILL.— I fear to hear you speak so ! Come, leave off this play now ! MRS. BEAKS.— No; but I will confess! My soul will burst or be delivered of this load ; I will con- fess to you even to the most secret things! MRS. CRANEBILL.— Go on, then, if you will; I will listen. MRS. BEAKS. — My poor life was purchased dear that cost a mother's death, for so she died deliver- ing me, and left my father alone and stricken, who was a fond and harmless man that did no wrong himself nor suspected others, but better loved the converse of judicious dead ones in his books than ever the company of the foolish living, and — O here is a dry tale ! Those words nearest my lips hang ever back and give place to idleness ! MRS. CRANEBILL.— I see no wrong in this, and indeed you told me all before and how that afterward your father died when you were aged fourteen, committing you then to Grosscrop, his trusted friend, in guardianship. MRS. BEAKS.— In guardianship? O in guard- ianship? MRS. CRANEBILL— So you said, and in truth it is a thing all the world knows, as well. MRS. BEAKS. — No, but hear me now! I will tell you straight without embellishment! Let the 92 OUR NEW HERALDRY filthy truth fall flat without this garnish ! I was bawd once to the unclean beast — I was mistress to him — wanton — or by whatever fouler word men name it — and almost from the very first! By flattery — by wily tricks — by fraud — O and by force, too — he brought me first to it ! (Voices within.) MRS. CRANEBILL.— O God of mercy! O here are some coming! MRS. BEAKS.— Yet this is not all, for I must to tell you now how this husband was deceived and — MRS. CRANEBILL.— Let us leave here! Let us go at once, and privately we shall talk. (Exeunt Mrs. Beaks and Mrs. Cranebill. Enter Beaks and Walter Grosscrop.) BEAKS.— The trouble lies all in this, Walter. No words can convince your father that you are in the least mended. He's fixed in it beyond the power of tongue to dissuade him that you shall have no more money of him until you take new habits on. The very mention of your name puts him to a rage. WALTER.— And you talked to him full of it? You told him of my late good behavior, quitting all drink? And women, too, for that matter? You told him that? BEAKS. — That I believed 'twas so, and pleaded with him in the best words I could summon to it, but 'twas of no use. He is firmer fixed in his resolve than a rock that you shall have nothing. OUR NEW HERALDRY 93 WALTER.— Then I will myself to him. I do not fear his anger. BEAKS. — That were but madness to do. He is in such humor with you that no speech can touch him, and your own least of anyone's. WALTER.— Yet I will do it. My desperate for- tune punches me to it, and I have that argument I think will stir him. BEAKS. — You should be advised well, for an in- discretion now committed in your haste might defer the good end you desire. Therefore you should be advised. WALTER. — So I am, and it is to talk with him. He comes in here, does he not? BEAKS. — Yes, directly; but I beg you to depart now. Entrust the matter to me in attorneyship. I well know how to advance your case to a happy ending in good time. Leave it with me. WALTER. — No, but I will try my argument with him. As well brave fortune to an ill conclusion hastily as to die awaiting her for a better. BEAKS. — You're mad to do it, but here now he comes. (Enter Grosscrop.) GROSSCROP.— Good morning, Beaks! BEAKS. — Good morning, and a pleasant one! WALTER (aside). — He has none for me. It is said, 'tis a wise father knows his own son, but here 94 OUR NEW HERALDRY is no wise father, for he knows not his. (Aloud) — Good morning, sir! (Aside) — This we call turning the deaf ear! GROSSCROP. — Is my answer yet dispatched to the Merchants' League accepting the pledge they ask me, should good chance put me in as senator? BEAKS, — I was on the very point of taking it to them. GROSSCROP.— If you please, Beaks, I would like it hastily. Our seed has little time for ripening, and should be in the ground. BEAKS. — I will go at once. (Exit Beaks.) WALTER. — Good morning, sir, a second time! Or does't take three sesames to unlock, as Ala Baba's cave did? Then for a third! — Good morn- ing, sir! GROSSCROP.— When of late has water grown so scarce that a young man must about in a filthy face and filthier dress? Are there no cleansing wayside brooks to leap into ? WALTER. — Water and I are at loggerheads, and no longer mix it. I take mine straight. GROSSCROP.— Whose son is this? The birch seed grows to birch, the maple, maple, and the sturdy oak from the acorn springs, but here is one defies this law in nature, and holds no likeness with the father. Whose son is it? OUR NEW HERALDRY 95 WALTER. — By my dead mother's honesty when she lived, I think I be your son, but could I choose a father I had chosen another one. GROSSCROP. — O shame of youthful manhood, that, in its strength and daring, by right of nature, should be planted at the apex of the world, at that proud height to conquer; yet here is one will stoop from there to make companionship of rags and the mire of roads ! Shame upon you ! WALTER. — If I have rags let you be my seams- tress to mend them for me. I would gladly employ you to it, and you have the wherewith, too, for you need but open your purse to me and it's "away rags." GROSSCROP.— I will give you nothing. WALTER. — I am son to you. It's no good father's place to answer his son so. GROSSCROP. — Nor would I so answer son of mine that had not shamed me with his work. WALTER. — It is your work that shames you, for I am it. You do unwisely to deal wrathfully with your handiwork. No artisan will set you the example to rail at the plow, dipper, spoon, hat or what leaves his hand. GROSSCROP. — I disown you for my son. WALTER. — No, then, these are but empty words, and undo nothing already done. I am your son that holds his true inheritance of you. Had 9C OUR NEW HERALDRY you been that father you should, then, too, had I been that son. It is no more than this. GROSSCROP. — Your blood is stranger to me in all but that it is my blood. WALTER. — No, but it is true heir, too, to you in its behavior. GROSSCROP.— I think not so, for when laid I drunk of nights in gutters? When did the rising sun, climbing the ruddy east, peep through the pane, to spy me maudlin in a wanton's bed? When did I make of dice, and cards, and turning tables, and painted wheels, my implements of husbandry? When were these things my nourishment that makes the sum of yours? WALTER. — O in these particulars it pleases you to name over, the indictment does not fit you, but in a hundred others of as base a sort, I can draw it snug, and fetch the evidence in that will convict. By heaven ! I hold this rotten and despised blood of you ! I am no monster sprung of accident causes, nor sportful freak of humorous Nature that erring ones deem her a trafficker in. She is not so, but by as fixed and universal law as that which downward from the dizzy dome hurls the unsupported ball, she works and moves from sequence unto sequence. I do no more in this my life, than to unfold that thing I was when you compounded with my mother to beget me. My body's lineaments bear strongly the semblances of yours. My nose and features have the proportions too of these you own. Your OUR NEW HERALDRY 97 eye and mine are of a likeness, and often I have heard strangers say to you, how like you is your son. These are but the outward seemings, yet I will match you full as well within, till the com- parison shall disadvantage you. Yoke your be- havior in with mine, match act with act, our worst with worst, and mine will hang their heads to keep yours company, as country striplings do to trot beside their bolder cousins of the town. O my suckling calves will scarce hitch with your horned beasts, for when did I despoil a girl, in wardship trusted to me, and after give her for wife to unsus- pecting friend? What black one of mine, yoked with this blacker one of yours, that would not take an angel's whiteness on by the comparison? GROSSCROP. — What meaning do you hide in this? WALTER. — The meaning is, I know what wife it was you gave this stupid fellow Beaks, who serves you. I have not been so blind as the bat by day nor the hawk by night, but have kept both hawk's and bat's eyes on you to serve both sea- sons. GROSSCROP. — Unnatural and cruel son, who never did but bite the tending hand that nursed his helpless infancy up, guarded his sick bed on many a watchful night, clothed his nakedness, fed, sheltered and protected him ! What father has an- other such a son? WALTER. — You should admire me here for my 98 OUR NEW HERALDRY sound discretion which smacks now of your own, for it counsels me to hold this thing silent, but on one condition ; and as silence is golden, the con- dition also must be. I'll not tell Beaks it, if you but open your purse to me. When your purse be open my mouth shall be shut, but with your purse shut my mouth shall be open. It is simple as a game of see-saw — up Jack and down Jill, or up Jill and down Jack. Let you undertake to keep Jack up and I Jill down. GROSSCROP.— Never ! WALTER.— Then will I tell Beaks? (Enter Rev. Pinkwort.) PINKWORT.— There should never another paper be on Sunday sold, had my hand the power to hinder and my brain the wit to devise ways and means against it. I am out now like a nor'west wind sweeping all before me with my petition against Sabbath-breakers and Sunday-sellers of printed naughtiness, that empty God's house of his people, leaving ;us poor ministers to preach to empty benches. But 'tis a God-fearing people still if they be but right taken, for I met no citizen but gave his name to it, and would in capitals too, for the asking. Let your name go in Grosscrop ! Put it there as a testimony to righteousness, and a mill-stone about the neck of all wrong-doers ! Put it there ! GROSSCROP.— What thing is this? OUR NEW HERALDRY 99 PINKWORT. — A creature of my poor invention, nor one I am ashamed to own, either as respects style, grammar or fullness of matter! It is my petition against Sabbath-breakers in common, and newsboys in particular. Let us at last nip vice in the bud, that no stock may come forth. Let us cleanse the fountain that the stream may run clear. Let us trim, prune, pleach and tend the tree that we may gather the fruit in. Let us pull out the tares from the young wheat, that it may fall golden into the measure at harvest. O the vice, the wickedness, the shame, the degredation, the desolate homes, the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, that flow from the evil of Sabbath-breaking! Let your name go to it! GROSSCROP. — I will read it over as we go. (Exeunt Grosscrop and Rev. Pinkwort.) WALTER. — I marvel that he did not ask me my name to it. Well, it's no matter. Smooth-shaven sanctity and I are at outs of late, and we met in hell, would scarce say ''how-de-do" or "hot weather." They all hold me now no better a one than the devil's own. It were a pity then to fall below their expectations to do otherwise than as the devil might. Therefore, will I tell Beaks, for I'm sure the devil would had he but my mortal tongue. And so will I ! (Enter Beaks.) BEAKS. — (Aside) — Here is one at odds with tLofC. loo OUR NEW HERALDRY fortune. Do you come off bringing the loan with you? WALTER.— No. BEAKS. — I said 'twould be so. WALTER.— You did. BEAKS. — What puts you so in a study? WALTER. — I am vexed of a question. BEAKS.— What question? WALTER.— To know what that dog should rightly be named, that when his master cuts him of his genatives, will still serve that master and faithfully. BEAKS. — Why he should be called nothing but a dog. WALTER.— Is he not fool too? BEAKS. — Most certain he is, and in a sense, so too are all dogs. WALTER. — Then such a dog and such a fool you are. BEAKS. — What meaning do you hide here? WALTER. — Have you a garret in this house? BEAKS.— Yes. WALTER. — Or a cellar where none listen at door? BEAKS. — That too there is, but why? WALTER. — I have a speech to make to you where none are listening. OUR NEW HERALDRY loi BEAKS. — Is't to borrow money of me? Truly, Walter, I have not a penny on me. WALTER.— Let us off to the cellar and I will tell you privately. BEAKS. — This way then to my private room. We may talk there and none to hear us. (Aside) He will sure try me now for five hundred ! This prologue could not be to a less sum ! It's a rare trick in these spendthrift borrowers to approach it with solemn show and circumstance as he this. He'll beg it stoutly but I'll stouter refuse! He'll tell me ten lies to have it and I twenty to deny him, and therefore it's twenty to ten he'll not have it! (Exeunt both; enter Mrs. Beaks and Mrs. Crane- bill.) MRS. CRANEBILL.— O Anne ! It is a dreadful thing you tell me ! MRS. BEAKS. — Do you put me still down in the list of happy wives? Or do you cull me out of it now as they do rotten boards from the pile? MRS. CRANEBILL.— O such a thing! My separate troubles are but small to this! What a world it is ! MRS. BEAKS.— Falsehood! All is falsehood! We think it, speak it, eat it, drink it, live it and die in it! We nurse it with our mother's milk and are carried to our graves amid the trumperies and trappings of it. I02 OUR NEW HERALDRY MRS. CRANEBILL.— And so long you've held this secret from your husband ! MRS. BEAKS.— O but if by so doing only to follow the pattern of my married sisters ! Why, can your simpleness fancy that they tell their hus- bands all of their secret imaginings and bawdy dreams where in sleep they do worse things than I have done waking? No! No! We have another pattern to cut our cloth to! MRS. CRANEBILL.— It shocks me so! What pattern is't? MRS. BEAKS.— Look! Here she is! Your so- ciety dame ! This delicate creature with the lily milk-paps at her breast all but o'er-leaping their low barriers of frills and laces! What are the meaning of her silly grimaces without cause, ex- posing her white teeth, pink gums and red lips? Why all that languor of positition though seated upon a chair matted with down, and waving of chalked arms above the head without occasion for the pin there is not unloosed, as well as the promi- nence always of the particular finger decked with the ]sparkling carbuncle? This dainty one will turn up her sensitive nose at the fly-speck in the platter, and to the leachery in the eyes of that bald head opposite, that hoary voice, she will give the answering look that drives his lagging blood plod- ding in vain toward those maimed vessels burnt away by the unholy fires of twenty years ago! OUR NEW HERALDRY 103 I have long witnessed it all and soon will give them fair occasion ! MRS.CRANEBILL.— Occasion? What occasion? MRS. BEAKS.— To talk, which is their dearest employment next after one other. They soon shall have a dainty morsel to roll upon their tongues' tips and tickle their palates with. MRS. CRANEBILL.— You will let none know it! Not on your life! Consider your husband, and its effect on him! MRS. BEAKS.— He shall be the first! I will begin by telling him! MRS. CRANEBILL.— You are surely mad! MRS. BEAKS.— Most like ! MRS. CRANEBILL.— And that he should hear it from your own lips ! MRS. BEAKS.— O if it will bring on no money's loss, but that it will not! How dear a thing is money! Had we a poet now living in this age his odes should all be to money or else his volume should lie rusting in the stall unbought and unread ! (Enter Julia.) JULIA. — Will you need me tonight for any use? MRS BEAKS.— No, now, but what's the rest? Come to it. JULIA. — Only that Webfoot asked me out to a play! But if I'm wanted! I04 OUR NEW HERALDRY MRS. BEAKS.— Why what then, if you are wanted ? JULIA — I'll not go of course. MRS. BEAKS.— Then of course you'll go! I hold you by no string! Yet it's getting frequent, is't not? — twice this week and it but new yet? JULIA. — No, that was Saturday the last time ! MRS. BEAKS.— So long ago? But will you marry this man? Come, now, is't so? MRS. CRANEBILL.— For shame, Anne I See how she blushes with such questioning! JULIA. — He has asked me to wait two years. MRS. BEAKS.— Two years? JULIA. — Poor ones must have money to marry, and we have none. He thinks to go north to the mines, and will send for me there, or come and fetch me. MRS. BEAKS. — Then is there never one in pet- ticoats between eleven and sixty up there that he will make love to? Two years? How many nights are in two years? JULIA. — O you only make a fool of me! MRS. BEAKS.— Indeed I do not! Our mothers did us all that office and looked heaven in the face the while. (Exit Julia.) There's one will make a good wife. MRS. CRANEBILL.— A good wife ! You puzzle me to understand you. Here you jest with this girl OUR NEW HERALDRY 105 as you had no care in the wide world, and such a state as you were in but now! MRS. BEAKS.— It is that I have come to a reso- lution. Action ! Action ! I have a thousand thirsts for action. (Holds up a purse) But here's it they say makes the mare go. MRS. CRANEBILL.— What next? MRS. BEAKS.— Come, look at these pretty yel- low slaves. One, two, three, four, five ! How cheap a thing is man! For so many of these, filling so little of infinite space, I bought a man today. MRS. CRANEBILL.— A man! MRS. BEAKS. — An 'twas not one of your rag- ged ruffians in the gristled beard, where vermin roam the commons, and the fumes of putrifying grease, to stop the nostrils at! Not such a one, but a lordly man, an upright man, full of noble age and gray dignity; one that will chant you hymns of Sunday, bow his head at meals, and with rev- erend visage tell young folks by what rules weak flesh may best avoid the naughtiness of the world. MRS. CRANEBILL.— And you bought him? How bought him? MRS. BEAKS.— O 'twas a pretty thing to see this old man's avarice and his fear strive each for mastery. It was fear now, now avarice, until this fickle goddess here in the coin, this wanton that takes a new lord thrice between the strokes of the clock, kissed his lean palm; then he yielded; then io6 OUR NEW HERALDRY I bought him and paid for him, too, in double, and I dare say, three times the amount he sold for more than a thousand times before. But enough of this ! MRS. CRANEBILL.— O, I see you have some meaning in it more than that ! Bought him ! What for? To do what thing? MRS. BEAKS.— To turn a key in a lock— the light-handed trick. MRS. CRANEBILL.— I fear this is something that concerns my brother, some rash and womanish thing you dream of. If it is so, I have a right to know it. I can plainly see you are more excited than you will let me believe. You must tell me all if it is so. MRS. BEAKS. — It is too biting, too strong a liquor to pour into so frail a vessel. Your little trunk would soon be eaten through and let it all around, and there is the wind that, with the tongue of slander, licks up every foul breath that escapes us. But I will presently tell you more. (Calling) Julia! Julia! (Re-enter Julia.) I am going out to a neighbor's house. If my master should come in, let him know it. JULIA. — Your master? MRS. BEAKS.— My husband, then. But where is that lubberly squash-bloom of yours, that Web- foot, who holds so many words at commandment? I heard his unmusical voice out there. JULIA. — Yes, he has not yet gone. OUR NEW HERALDRY 107 MRS. BEAKS.— Fetch him in; but stay, I will do it. (Goes out, returning immediately with Web- foot.) WEB FOOT. — You are too considerate of one in my position ! MRS. BEAKS.— There! You two shall have the house between you, and must properly behave. WEBFOOT. — We shall behave like two doves. MRS. BEAKS. — Out on such a gross speech! For do not these shameless ones fly to the very house-tops for their uses ! Doves, indeed ! I will not leave my house so. WEBFOOT. — Let us play, then, that we are se- date married folk, as we hope one day to be, and that this be our own house. MRS. BEAKS.— It is much better so. Then must you loose the icy, northern blast that seals up love's blooms into black and undistinguishable knots and whips the pollen-bearing bee home to the wintry hive; for so is the marriage bond. (Exeunt Mrs. Beaks and Mrs. Cranebill.) WEBFOOT.— There's a gay filly full of frisking gambols. Man never lives longer than he may learn something, if he but use eyes and ears as given him. There is no day but teaches me that we plain ones do not know the hundredth part of your rich folks' pranks. They perform most strange io8 OUR NEW HERALDRY tricks, these favorites of her ladyship of the painted wheel. JULIA. — What do you mean by that? "Her ladyship of the painted wheel?" WEBFOOT.— That is old Dame Fortune, that by her striped wheel finds out what a man shall have. I read't in a book once, and since I fell into a job with these rich folks I save up all such odd ends, for they are sticklers for big words, and have a kind of pride in it if their hired man be well-spoken. So lean a trick will hold a man so fat a place. But what was her meaning there of doves? That I did not catch. JULIA. — Some crazy word of hers. She has been full of these foolish speeches for a few days past. WEBFOOT. — No, but it had meaning in it more than that, and to my mind, nothing over delicate. Were I married man to one of your fine ladies, God saving me from it, I would have three women to spy after her. JULIA. — And who then should watch them that were watching? WEBFOOT.— They should be ill-favored old crones, the homelier the fitter, with a better itch for money than any other thing an idle mind might dream of. A wife that has no shift to make of it, but to perfume and dress her body's daintiness, to eat heat-engendering meats and loll on soft cush- OUR NEW HERALDRY 109 ions to inflame men*s eyes, is by all laws the poor- est keeper of a husband's belongings. JULIA. — I fear you are one of those narrow rogues that think a woman has no rights. If that be so I may yet take back my word. When a poor girl promises she then finds out him she promised to. Who does all this you speak of? WEB FOOT.— Why, the rich man's wife, that lets out at the bottom of the bag what it cost her husband his dearest soul to put in at the top; but what she lets out of the bag is mere stuff to what she lets in at his chamber. There are no greater fools at large than your rich men. JULIA. — Then for all I can see there's many a one striving to become a fool. WEBFOOT.— Yet to see how blind as bats these fellows of stocks, and bonds, and quarterly divi- dends, and accumulated profits and what not be- sides, can be! They will smell you out the thiev- ing hackman who cheats them of a five-cent piece in the delivery of a parcel, but to the arch-pilferer that steals away the honor of their wives, they give the good right hand of enduring friendship. The rich man's quality is a strange composition of shrewdest sight and ogling blindness ; for he, as it were, is color-blind, distinguishing only such washes as are compounded of yellowest gold, but these he can see farther than another man dare drive his thoughts. O that was a scurvy one he played iio OUR NEW HERALDRY on old Grosscrop ! Had one like me, without the permit and the payment, too, dared from his barn- yard to draw off a load of foulest dung, he had given me the grand bounce and perfume added, but on this pious usurper of his dearest office he cannot smile too pleasantly. There is but one sin extant and that is petty villainy, for the great villain reaps a prince's harvest and is off without let or hin- drance. And so the round world rolls round from day to day, and then rolls round again ! I have a thought now that's worth a penny. JULIA. — So seldom a thing in you should be worth two! What is it? WEBFOOT.— I think that Justice, fishing out escaped rogues for punishment, is a most lame and wooden fisherman. They that fish in the sea, pull to them the great fish chiefly, letting the little ones through the meshed net, but Justice, fishing out for due punishment in the sea of rogues, catches only minnows and no great fish, though the place be black with them. And this being as it is, you shall see the petty stealer of copperish dross with his hair dipt for it, but the bold lifter of a na- tion's treasury sits down on the senator's bench. JULIA. — You spy too much into these hidden things for one in your position. He that serves ought not to look too curiously on things beyond his duty. WEBFOOT.— Duty! O that word is a dead OUR NEW HERALDRY m husk now! — one that the infectious weevil stole the plump kernel from, displacing it with stinking excrement. And a strange thing it is that an empty sound should live on men's tongues still that imports no meaning! This gilded age never would have coined the word had it not been done, for it no longer has either use or place in the econ- omy of man's behavior, but as a sound only. It is a most shrunken and abandoned word, and the new dictionary shall not hold it between the lids. JULIA. — But come, now ! What is't you say of Grosscrop? I have an itch to know, and that, they say, is the woman's part, but for all I can see, man is the greater gossiper. WEBFOOT. — But being woman, therefore a party in the action, you lose all qualification to judge your own case. This is good law, seasoned by antique precedents. So do these lawyers say^ these bantams, that, for a golden fee, whip spurs at one another in the cock pits of sovereign jus- tice. You have no right to judge between man and woman. JULIA. — So you have no right to judge between these two, being a man; and many a woman I could name that, at the foul-smelling tub, rubs knotted sores into her bare arms, and the while her gossip-mad husband sagely wags his tongue over affairs of foreign policy and ballot-box broils in smutted saloons and street corners. But what is it about Grosscrop? Ill OUR NEW HERALDRY WEBFOOT.— A quantity of woors about him, robbed from the unoffending backs of big-eyed sheep that sinned less against the high ordinances of nature than he that now wears it; for they say his breeches are of wool and these are about him, unless he be in the employment that needs none. JULIA. — But what did he? No more nonsense! WEBFOOT.— It is not what he did but what another in his place did. If the bird that husbands dread — the night-warbling cuckoo — has not twit- tered a merry note in's bed, then am I no reader of signs and omens, and Pinkwort more virtuous than a boy not yet arrived at puberty. JULIA.— What? The Reverend Pinkwort? Whom they say will marry Miss Kate? WEBFOOT. — Reverend or irreverend — what you will; but Pinkwort's the man, and whether he will marry Miss Kate or she him, or each the other, is beyond my knowledge to tell it, for I am no reader of cards to tell fortunes between lovers. Yet if the hasty wench has a fever to know in ad- vance what mettle her pious professor has in him, I can tell her whom she might apply to. JULIA. — O you are vulgar mouthed ! To whom, then? WEBFOOT.— To her stepmother. (Voices within.) But someone comes. JULIA. — It is Beaks again, and with him that vile and drunken Walter, too! It would not do OUR NEW HERALDRY 113 that they should find us so in possession here ! Let us into the kitchen, for there is a servant's ground ! WEBFOOT.— No, but you stay here and I will go, for it is full time I should and past ! (Exit Webfoot.) JULIA. — (Calling) At seven o'clock ! I shall look for you at seven o'clock! WEBFOOT.— (Within) Or half-past! JULIA. — Half-past, indeed! Before I promised him, had I said seven, he'd have made it six, and insisted with a show of fair compliments, and I, like a silly goose, would have yielded to this flat- tery! Yet now he will tell me half-past, and in a tone that admits no debate. Such is man, who in affairs of love never was nor will be constant, nor value that he has but only that he cannot attain to. I've heard said, and believe it true, that saucy and pretentious man will venture his most precious neck to do the vain conceits of an idle mistress who disdains him, but should she yield herself to him in wedlock's honorable bond, exchanging faithful and enduring love for her disdain, within this fort- night he'll throw her ofif in scorn as the giddy, changeful boy the toy once coveted; and this rude lesson must woman learn, that man is subject to her ruling will, not as she freely gives, but as she in strength withholds, and therein man shows him- self a most ungracious ingrate. 114 OUR NEW HERALDRY (Re-enter Beaks and Waltef.) WALTER. — And for a further proof of my father's villainy and your wife's incontinence, wit- ness here this mark from birth upon my neck — a pygmy hand with finger open, and, as it were, pointing you out the way to this shame worked on you. Did ever you see the like before? BEAKS.— O God! This is a miracle! O the lechers ! WALTER. — Do not speak so fond, but tell me? BEAKS. — It is twin-brother to one my child owns, and in the self-same place ! My child ! I foul my lips ! Dog ! You are of an ill breed. (Of- fers to strike.) WALTER. — No, but do not strike me! It is no good office to a friend. BEAKS.— (To Julia.) Bid Mrs. Beaks in ! Go, I say! JULIA. — She's out, sir; this very minute gone to a neighbor's. BEAKS. — Fetch her in ! Go, fetch her in ! (Exit Julia.) WALTER. — I have done my part; the rest is yours to do. Let me go now. BEAKS. — O you shall not escape me! I warn you that ! WALTER. — Nor will you drag me into it here OUR NEW HERALDRY 115 if I know myself. What I've told you Fve proved and stand ready again to prove ; and in any demand against this sinful old man, my father, you shall find me at your elbow, not flinching. But as for jumping on the neck of a helpless woman — I do not second you, and so will bid you, now, good-day ! BEAKS. — O you would shirk ! You would slink ! This hints at a lie, but you shall meet it now ! WALTER.— If you still have doubts of it, why, then, sleep with it on the easy bed, eat Avith it at table and smoke over it with long and medita- tive countenance ; for all of these, they say, beget profound opinion, which is a rare and singular good quality accredited chiefly to gray hairs. yVnd if in your abstractions your wife should inquire you out the cause, why, tell her that you are per- plexed and worried to resolve that cunning puzzle of the three cannibal cats. (Laughing) It is a rare amusement to a vexed mind so to employ it. BEAKS. — You would evade me now with this absurd stuff! WALTER. — No, but a pretty thing — an exceed- ing pretty thing! A thing that sets the rules of nature all at odds and contradictions! A queer tale ! BEAKS.— What villainy is it? What further vil- lainy of false wives and trusting husbands so abused by cunningness? WALTER. — Nothing so, but a strange story, for ii6 OUR NEW HERALDRY it is related that upon a time there dwelt three vir- tuous cats in the self same cellar, which fed upon obliging mice and played at many merry tricks — but now, as I think, I have forgotten, as the story runs, whether these same were christian cats or pagan cats, but at a hazard, let us set them down pagan, for your christian will accord the virtuous quality to none but himself — therefore, to resume, three pagan cats — BEAKS. — For shame on you to jest with me in my extremity, that has need of pity rather ! Can this coarse tale restore to me my cheerful home, teach me to forget that my seeming virtuous wife is but a smutted jade, my child a bastard brat, not mine at all? It has no ingredient to teach me this forgetfulness, for these are imperious truths en- forcing their attention, that all the ear-tickling tales, more than the books contain, cannot rub again from my life's true history ! WALTER. — But since you decline my advice, another must be your physician. I have punctured this embossed abscess in your vitals, but if you re- fuse further to receive my medicines, another must heal it. Eve told you what's to do. There is noth- ing more plain than what you should ; unless, per- chance, it be the goodly horns on that husband whose wife consorts with preachers and lay-readers, which are a gentry inordinately given to it. Tap my father for money ! Tap him, I say ! Tap ! Tap ! It is the only thing! Tap him, then! OUR NEW HERALDRY 117 BEAKS. — O a beast's part for a man having legs to walk upright rather than a belly to go creeping. Money ! And you, his son, that puts this on me ! WALTER. — And why not his son as well as another if the advice be good? That he is father to me is not to me chargeable in the balance sheet of just men's judgments, and you do ill to prod me with it. It was an action there in which no question, either yea or nay, was ever asked me, but, willy nilly, I was tumbled headlong into this world of thieves for his pleasure's sake, and at- testing my unwillingness, I came kicking, for so they dragged me feet foremost into the air, howl- ing. But no man's good counsel is by his birth invalidate, nor is mine by this. And here the case stands with you : You take as wife a reputed virtu- ous woman, but in truth one fallen under this man's hidden practice, and at the time her womb large with his getting, which, being arrived, your unsuspecting sense receives it as your own that prematurely slipped from its warm hiding. Now this coming to your knowledge at last, for there is no foul or hidden sin of man's but casts some light to lead discovery to it, what other thing could you with better reason do than go to him, not with rough engines of slaughter to take away his life, for which you may be hanged, but with the subtler instrument of advantage to tap his treasury with? Go to him, then; tell him that your ear has an abiding sickness that gives you no peace neither n8 OUR NEW HERALDRY night nor day, that it is an illness admits of no remedy but the clapping of the million tongues of iron-jawed slander for which you yearn, or the jingling music of merry gold for which you pine, for my father fears the one much as he loves the other. And so, like a thrifty fowl, may you lay by feathers for your nest that your soreness shall sleep there the easier. Tap him, I say ! Tap ! Tap ! It is the only anodine your hurt will relish ! Tap ! Tap ! BEAKS. — It is too base a thing! There are those injuries that money cannot compensate, nor office, advancement or luxury's trappings, make good the loss again. WALTER. — Why, then, you are another man from him I took you for! My halting judgment misgave me that you were post-graduate, with de- grees and honors, in quite another school, for I mistook you for a philosopher of our new type, full of seasoned opinion to suit with our more modern usages. And now you will play at these distorting grimaces, with countenance all awry, at gorging down this sugared little pill our new physic pre- scribed for your ailing? Tut! Tut! I fear you are a non-progressive jay! BEAKS. — Is there no virtue in the wide world more but every woman, behind her husband's back, does it? Is there no virtue? WALTER. — Virtue? O it is a pretty word — one with a ring of gray-bearded antiquity in it, yet it OUR NEW HERALDRY 119 smells grievously of charnal houses and ivied tombs. You do it violence to pluck it out of the grave where it lies decently buried. BEAKS. — O for a friend now, and not this ban- tering jackal, for a trusted friend to lend me fair advice what course I might pursue with honor! WALTER. — Honor! Are you in the right mind to speak of it? Honor, indeed! Why, none but the race of madmen chase that will-o'-the-wisp, honor, now. Do you fancy yourself a knight? Your clerk's pen, a lance? Your ledgers, shields? Your perch- ing stool, the round table? and your employer's office, Camelot? Why, you'll call for a horse and buckler straight ! Come, be a man again ! Catch up with your rolling wit and be its master! The Amidis and Arthurs are rotted back to foulest- smelling earth these thousand years, and their es- cutcheons eaten through and through with a certain yellowish rust. Gold is the god of our new heraldry, and therein lies this difference : In the old time the frost-haired father sought out his daughter's ravisher with blade in hand for punishment; but in this new day you shall see this iniquitous old man, this father to one not yet quit the short skirts, propped up with pillows at the bar, his covetous eye lit with the avaricious spark, sueing the of- fender at the law, and instead of steel opposed by steel ringing wholesale music for such a quarrel, are quirking, quibbling lawyers doing wordy battle I20 OUR NEW HERALDRY of actions tenable and precedents new to match in base commodity his stripling daughter's honor robbed. So do they all now, yet you will say no? But you'll come to it ! They all come to it ! It is in the air like the infectious vomit ! None escape ! BEAKS. — O what tool have I been in this man's hands ! They played me both ! The little property my thrift laid by is, through his advice, lodged in this woman's name ! WALTER.— Property ! O, there you hit of¥ the right note ! It is your very word, and so the wind takes up his accustomed quarter! Property! Let your memory hold it and your tongue pronounce ! It is a buoy will float you in the heaviest seas! Property ! Property ! Property ! (Enter Julia.) JULIA. — Mrs. Beaks will be directly here. (Exit Julia.) WALTER. — Now am I off like a ghost at cock- crow ! There is my cue, but property is yours ! You hit it straight ! The old man must disgorge, and roundly! So much I can already prophesy! But when you embrace the swag, pray do not play me ingrate ! Remember me with an attorney's poor commission, for bear in mind I set you in the way. (Exit Walter.) OUR NEW HERALDRY 121 BEAKS. — Stay, rascal! Stay, I say! You shall be present here ! WALTER. — (Within) An attorney's percentage at the least ! You might well do me handsomer, but so much at least! Bear't in mind. (Enter Mrs. Beaks.) MRS. BEAKS.— Was't Walter Grosscrop that ran so hurriedly away? What business brings him here? BEAKS. — O woman ! Had you been here a mo- ment since I would not answer for the act I had committed ! MRS. BEAKS.— Why, what's the matter? BEAKS. — And you dare look me in the face? and great, innocent eyes unflinching? O thing, let me not stain my tongue to name you rightly ! MRS. BEAKS.— What is it you would say to me? Tell me plainly! BEAKS. — In the very word? MRS. BEAKS. — The worst your tongue can summon to it ! BEAKS.— Then— MRS. BEAKS.— Why do you hesitate? BEAKS.— For that I lack the art to speak it aptly! There is no such word, nor has any yet been coined to fit with your baseness! Did I call you bawd, wanton — these but signify the doing the 122 OUR NEW HERALDRY act for hire, which is whiteness itself to your be- havior ; if adulteress, the greater part is still be- hind ! MRS. BEAKS.— Speak of it as you can, then! I am steeled to any answer! BEAKS. — Such boldness should be the yoke-fel- low of innocence, but in these degenerate days we can trust to no appearance. Our bodily members, our over-confident senses, do play us traitor and give us the lie in the face where we have most assurance. (Re-enter Walter unseen by others.) The parent should no longer trust the child nor it the parent, neither the wife the husband nor the husband wife, lest the sudden-come day unmask them together in the brothel ! WALTER. — He speaks it rarely, and as it should end in a duello rather than in a bag of money! He speaks it well! There's never one of these ducks pricked home with his own sharpened tools but will fall to talking it in this lofty strain. But you shall hear him say money soon. It is his song's burden. List awhile ! BEAKS. — Is't not true he said? Answer me! Is't not true? MRS. BEAKS.— Is not what true? BEAKS.— What he told me? MRS. BEAKS.— Who? BEAKS.— Young filthiness, there! That sotted sewer-fish ! that pox-spotted lizard of houses with OUR NEW HERALDRY 123 red cloth at the window for advertisement ! That drunkard, Walter Grosscrop, son to a father com- pared to whom his filth is cleanliness ! WALTER. — O it is truly said that eavesdrop- ping ears hear no good of themselves ! If he will slander me now I will tax him the heavier per- centage by and by ! If he will bleed my reputation, I will bleed his purse ! BEAKS. — That fellow who makes of my family and affairs his butcher's block to break his diseased wit on, and twits me, mocking, when he cuts me home for marrying with his father's concubine, for so you were! Is't not true? Were you not old Grosscrop's commoner that married with me? MRS. BEAKS. — And will you believe a man such as you say he is, even to hanging your wife's honor on his unsupported word, whether he speaks the truth? Will you be so rash? BEAKS. — But you deny nothing. MRS. BEAKS.— It is a lie! BEAKS. — It was but your tongue said that! What ! not true ! O I have a thousand evidences your cunning cannot answer me ! I will give you that catechism a cunninger wit than yours might stumble on ! How then is it — MRS. BEAKS.— I'll deny nothing! It is the fair truth he told you! That and more besides! 124 O^K NEW HERALDRY BEAKS.— The fair truth! Black! black truth, rather ! MRS. BEAKS.— Call it what you will, if only truth ! And now that it is out I'm glad it's known to you. BEAKS. — To me? But it shall be known to all the world, shameless one ! I will give it pub- licly out! WALTER.— A fool if he does it hastily ! An ar- rant fool ! Why, 'twould be to throw away the key to the golden treasury to do it ! But he'll not do it ! I know his mettle better than to think so ill of him ! He'll not do it ! MRS. BEAKS.— I am past caring! The world's worst opinion has no further sting in it for me. BEAKS. — A brazen harlot! Do not hope with this mannish boldness to outface me and cow me into stillness. You shall see results from this, and dear ones, too! MRS. BEAKS. — I am in such humor that I would not oppose with this little finger's poor strength the worst action in the catalogue of them all ! Let them come! BEAKS.— All this! And no blush on the sensi- tive cheek! Not for womanhood's sake? MRS. BEAKS.— None! BEAKS. — O you think me weak, but I will teach you. The skulking housedog touched home to the OUR NEW HERALDRY »^5 tender quick becomes a lion enraged. There may- be bloodshed out of this ! MRS. BEAKS.— And that also! WALTER^-No! No! The knave could not mean that ! That would kill my percentage ere he was born, which is the worst death ! But why will the knave beat from the point so? BEAKS. — O do not hug this flattery to your side that I will sleep in quiet under this blot after the first storm is past! That such a wrong will end in the bantering words and stained names we call down upon each other's heads, following in that the example of our wedded neighbors, who yelp and snarl like quarrelsome dogs at home, and on the street, at church or in the public gathering, smirk in one another's faces, feigning the smile of idiot blandness to counterfeit their true selves. WALTER. — He talks now but for efifect's sake! You shall see presently if he does not come to it! There is that lies heavier in his crop than that he now speaks of! I'll forswear all judgment of knavish man hereafter if I mistake in this ! List ! He's to it again now ! BEAKS. — It shall not be so with us! I would not bend myself to such hypocrisy! MRS. BEAKS.— Nor I either; therefore let us make an end. BEAKS. — Then must I leave this house — your house, and all that's yours. 126 OUR NEW HERALDRY MRS. BEAKS.— As you will, or else I— WALTER. — Your house, he says! A husband at his ease would have put it, my house ! Here is an issue of title raised and the rest stands not far off! BEAKS. — And for such a journey, out of my necessity, should I need some few odd ends of clothes, a coat or two worn throughout elbows in Grosscrop's service, trousers with fissured seams for the refreshing breezes to blow in at, and some few dozen or odd fragment of last year's crumpled linen ; this shall furnish my baggage out, the fruit of thrift, added to two or three poor, pale silver dollars to buy the needed sandwich with. And so provisioned shall I set my face to the white sun falling below the western hills, and his return for a hundred thousand tomorrows shall not see me in the accustomed place again. WALTER. — O let us weep now for this poor man ! Let us weep ! O ! O ! O ! BEAKS.— Fetch me these. MRS. BEAKS. — I will put these things together for you if you wish. BEAKS. — Stay a little! When before did you so diligently jump to do an errand for me? O dutiful wife, that hastes to post her lagging hus- band oflf laden with this bountiful liberality! Stay a little ! My mind misgives me that did I do it, your cunningness would melt down my hard husbanded property in the wanton's playful bed ! Stay a lit- OUR NEW HERALDRY 127 tie ! Who is it that is owner now to all this prop- erty won by my slaved toil? WALTER.— O brave ! He comes to it now ! Let her answer that ! Let her answer now ! MRS. BEAKS. — It stands to my name's account, but by your free consent and wish to have it so? BEAKS. — And having it, you would pack me off? MRS. BEAKS. — It was your expressed wish to go. Stay rather, if you choose ! BEAKS. — To live upon your bounty and Gross- crop's also, while it should please you both to toss me alms in pity! Was it not enough that you had robbed me of my honor, the privilege of my body's lawful issue and all a husband's dues, but you must steal away by jugglery my property as well? my dear labor's hard results? WALTER.— Bravo ! Property! He needs no prompter ! MRS. BEAKS. — You may accuse me there, but not with justice. I never wasted it ! BEAKS. — You played your cards prettily! You and this crafty red fox, your companion in it! No juggling journeyman that on the green cloth strikes amazement into the dumb crowd by the lightness of the trick, but your deceit could send profitably to school again in his own art. But you shall not win by it; you shall yield up ever penny to the last copper! 128 OUR NEW HERALDRY MRS. BEAKS.— What shall I yield up? BEAKS. — Money ! Property ! Everything ! MRS. BEAKS.— I took nothing of yours. BEAKS. — Return me my effects again or I will drag you before the law and wrest them from you by the violent arm of writs and processes ; I'll un- mask your hidden sins and hold them up before the astonished world, that no man shall longer trust his own wife in anything! I will prove it clearly how you plotting and conniving thieves have cun- ningly robbed me of all that is mine by right! MRS. BEAKS.— What is it I robbed of you? That sin at least I am not guilty of. BEAKS.— My property! My lands! My prop- erty! MRS. BEAKS. — I've carried none away. BEAKS. — Deliver them to me, then! MRS. BEAKS.— Go to your lands! I do not hin- der you ! It needs no force to take this from me but my free will. BEAKS. — My deeds! My necessary documents! MRS. BEAKS.— You shall have them. BEAKS, — Then to a notary at once ! To a no- tary, then ! MRS. BEAKS.— No, but hear me first ! BEAKS. — You will not do it ! I knew you would not do it ! OUR NEW HERALDRY 129 MRS. BEAKS.— You shall have all. BEAKS. — Let's to the notary, then ! Come, let^s to the notary! MRS. BEAKS.— Go on! I will follow you! (Exeunt Beaks and Mrs. Beaks.) WALTER. — (Advancing) I marvel now whether he'll not force her into the payment, too, of this notary's costs who shall draft these deeds between them. It would break his heart were he to pay it in the full, and would put him to more worry to lose it so than another bastardy committed upon his wife ! What a reader am I grown of these dog's men that people the world of late, that I could fix this dastard's quality so truly ! Yet it was a slave's part in him so to abuse the woman and call me vile names. Well, when he taps my father, then am I after him to squeeze my commission out, and 'twill be double what it was had he dealt more decently by her. (Exit Walter.) i3o OUR NEW HERALDRY SCEIS^E IV OFFICE OF THE DAILY BREAKWIND (Quillet and Wattles at work.) QUILLET.— I could not spare it, Wattles! I could not let you that space a famished flea might stand upright in, if it were to save your neck from the rope, a death you fear greatly, and with reason, for you'll yet come to it; be content with that. WATTLES.— With hanging? QUILLET. — No, but with no room to show your wares in ; I can spare you none. WATTLES.— None ! And for this use? QUILLET. — I cannot; not for love, which is no longer current coin, nor for hire, which in this new world has greater moving properties. There's no inch of space for your use, but every thumb's breadth in the whole paper shall be charged full to splitting with this purgation I must put Gross- crop to ; for if I do not send him sick to bed with it, I must myself there. WATTLES.— And you will crowd my little thing of feather-weights out so? You will do it? and to this sturdy child of my taxed fancy engendered of a pin's head of dry facts, to make of it such round- OUR NEW HERALDRY 131 ness and sleek proportions that fat Cupid were but lean to it? Gad, and I never wrote better since my hand came to pen to do it with ! I burnt upon it two gallons of oil last night ! I paced the floor, too, a quarter at the stretch, and half the world snoring! And you will treat it so? You will give it no poor corner where to be seen ; and seen, read ; and read, admired, digested and properly taken home? You will do it? QUILLET. — We have no space for it nor for any other thing than for this war on Grosscrop, and to that end all others must be servant. WATTLES. — War! A play at frozen ox cards! I call not that war where no blood is spilt, no blow struck, no man felled, no rib broken, no jaw cracked, no ring, no gong, no anything, but words, words, words, and tame ones, too ! War, indeed ! QUILLET. — Yet it is war, and I, as it were, a power belligerent and you and all of those I em- ploy to it are my dependencies, and Grosscrop our common foe. In the little world within these walls I am that thing they call the government in the greater world without; for as the government in its necessity does tax each citizen to its defense, bidding the artisan, scholar, doctor, lawyer, quit their several callings to take up the accoutrements and tools of war, so do I bid you in this. There- fore you must leave your prize rings now, your up- per and nether cuts, your bastinados and what not. '3 OUR NEW HERALDRY and dash me off a score or more of pointed squids to prick old Grosscrop's leathern jacket through. WATTLES.— Not I, so it please you! Whatl And you would tempt genius out of his true chan- nel, canoned in towering rock, to take his course up instead through spreading flats and muddy marshes? You would pluck me from this nobleness to set me up at that meanness? make me no more the historian to royal sports, but instead a petty scribbler of political bombast, that is compounded of three parts of damned villainy and seven others of frothy fustian, with no poor grain of truth mixed in for plain decency's sake? Were my back more supple at bending it than were Jacob's ringed wands, I could not so stoop from high to low ; I cannot do it! Contempt of it will not suffer me I You must bid me to some calling more to my liking, or I am a pick else, hung high and dry in a frugal farmer's winter store. If you will, bid me beat the man, I'll do it ! Bid me beat this Grosscrop that his life may hang upon a thread, and I'd as lief do it as take breath in ! But to stick pen in putrid ink on his or your or any other man's account, there you shall hear me cry — halt, and no budging ! Bid me beat the man ! QUILLET. — It would answer nothing to beat him. Take care you do him no such violence, \V"at- tles ! Take care of it ! WATTLES. — Gad. and I shall not answer that. OUR NEW HERALDRY 133 Let him beware how he cross me ! Let him beware of it! Were I his insurer I had as soon see him finger a she-lion's sore teat at cub-time as to cross a man in my humor, with grit and mettle at com- mand to do it! I shall not answer what the sight of him may provoke me to ! That I shall not ! And good counsel whisper me in the ear, it were better for you both you should not meet! It were better you avoid this Grosscrop lest the sight of him stir you to it, saith good counsel. But I will not swear cold counsel always rules hot man ! And so I warn Grosscrop of it! QUILLET.— Do him no hurt. Wattles ! It would spoil all so. But here comes now my haunting plague again who with thirteen fellows of his kind, daily put me on the rack of torture. (Enter a Con- tributor with scroll.) I marvel now what cun- ning plan for man's redemption or the death of earthly rulers brings him here. CONTRIBUTOR.— (Unfolding scroll.) An idea, Mr. Editor! A most singular, rare, fortunate idea ! Here I have it ! And the more so, that it is opportune, and hits existing ills pat, and — QUILLET.— I am in great haste, sir ! Be brief, I beg you ! CONTRIBUTOR.— Forty seconds, Mr. Editor! I ask you but forty seconds ! And will wager that you daily waste a hundredfold its length of time! But you shall waste none on this! unless it be 134 OUR NEW HERALDRY waste in forty brief seconds to garner that knowl- edge in your philosophers spent their lives for and yet missed it ! Here I have it condensed, refined, and evaporated, simmered and boiled down, as it were, to thirty-two pages, and will read you it ! QUILLET.— Pray do not read it! But let me at once tell you, we are crowded full and can give it no space. This, with regret, let me tell you. CONTRIBUTOR.— O your editor will ever say so ! I have not spent thirty years in literature not to learn that! But here is matter that commands pause ! A region in the diamond zone were but glittering dirt to the riches of truth sparkling here ! Come, you shall hear all ! QUILLET. — Not now, my learned sir ! Not now, if you please, sir! CONTRIBUTOR.— The idea struck me o' night time as I lay abed, and I jumped up then and there to develop it and make of it this thing. Mark you now, a word of explanation ! Then to begin, I call it the "Dimity Plan," and you shall marvel why I use that word "Dimity," and none other, but there lies a little mysticism — a little coaxing on of the mind to inquiry, if you please, the which I may as well here explain as elsewhere, for it is noted — QUILLET.— No! No! No! Let me bid you good day! CONTRIBUTOR.— Here is it shall recast your machinery of government to make of its complex- OUR NEW HERALDRY '35 ity and cursed cumbrousness a model of simplicity, and save you, after transition, all propelling en- gines, for, like the automaton in a fairy tale, it shall be self-acting and self-executing! QUILLET.— (Aside) Gad ! That it should exe- cute him, too, that first devised it! CONTRIBUTOR.— There shall you not have your governors, your presidents, your privy coun- cillors, 3^our frowning judges, your — QUILLET.— Well ! Well ! Is there no remedy? CONTRIBUTOR.— Here shall every man be master unto himself and peace and plenty sit smil- ing! QUILLET. — Sir, let me prevail with you! To- morrow you shall have ten hours, if you will, but today — why, today I can no more but bid you a hearty good day, and so leave me now ! CONTRIBUTOR.— Tomorrow? QUILLET.— Tomorrow. CONTRIBUTOR.— Tomorrow let it be, then, barring death and accident. Mark you there, I say barring death and accident, for I am believer in — QUILLET.— There! There! Let us make an end ! CONTRIBUTOR.— As you will, sir. (Exit Contributor.) QUILLET.— Gad ! What a life would this be were there no tomorrows to put these frenzied fools 136 OUR NEW HERALDRY off to! (Re-enter Contributor.) But, Judge of Israel, he returns again ! CONTRIBUTOR.— There lies here a cardinal point that I fain would have you sleep out the night upon, to the end that — QUILLET.— No! No! but go now! CONTRIBUTOR.— Well, tomorrow, then ! What fools are men ! What arrogant fools that will ever set Truth pleading at deaf ears for audience when she would counsel only to their good ! , (Exit Contributor.) QUILLET. — How persistent the knave is ! (Enter Boy.) BOY. — Grosscrop comes! Your old enemy Grosscrop, and's now at the very door! QUILLET and WATTLES.— Phillip Grosscrop? BOY. — The very man, and from his look, as I passed him, is more mad than a tiger vexed! His eyes blaze redder than his beard ! QUILLET. — My good pen begins to cut him home ! Well, his reception here will be both hot and cold, as he desires it! He'll find it so! WATTLES. — But gad, lads ! He's a man weighs two hundred pounds and odd ! 'Twere the sheerest madness here to wait him that he might at leisure maul us, while we have those legs can outrun his! Discretion was ever valor's better part, and is to- OUR NEW HERALDRY '37 day ! Let's out of this, and leave the walls for him to quarrel with ! , QUILLET. — What you slave ! You will not run ! WATTLES. — Not while swift walking will as well answer! I will not run but will take such a speedy pace up with swiftness enough to carry my body out of harm's way, and account it the part of valor to do it. Your valiant man does valiantly re- treat, and history records how Hercules did seven times retreat before the Nemian Lion, and royal kings do oft retreat before the front of meaner foes to come better on agam (Hides behind curtain), and so now do I retreat that from my hiding here I may spring out a lurking lion when the time's ripe. You shall hear from me when the time is fit ! QUILLET. — O you coward's bastard! Let me hear that word valor on your lips again, and I'll beat you for it as I would a yelping hound ! Let me hear your pigeon's gall speak more of boldness or of testy fights ! O such a knave was not begot but by his coward father's deviltry to steal upon some woman sleeping, for waked nature never made conjunction to breed such curs! (Enter Grosscrop !) GROSSCROP. — I would speak a word with you. Quillet. QUILLET. — Sir, you've spoken seven already. 138 OUR NEW HERALDRY GROSSCROP.— No, but 'tis an affair of busi- ness. QUILLET. — Why, then, your business is done; it is but to speak a word. But off with this ! I can guess what follows, and save you pains, for you shall have but your pains for the trouble of it. GROSSCROP.— What follows, as you think? QUILLET. — Something after this order: I shall hear you say you are touched and stung by some- thing the Breakwind reported on you, which you will prove is but a calumny, and ask firmly a re- traction of it, which I as firmly will refuse; and so your business ends there, in threats and angry looks, both ways. This, with the thousand details filled, is it. I play out a part six times weekly in these little sittings with angry men, but they change nothing, nor will your business here change it. GROSSCROP. — I call not that business; mine is not of its class. QUILLET.— What, then, is it? GROSSCROP. — I would speak privately with you. QUILLET.— On what matter? GROSSCROP.— That you shall hear. But come apart with me ! But on this assurance first, that I bring the olive branch of gentle peace, if you will accept of it. Come with me, then. OUILLET. — The devil in the cellar is no worse OUR NEW HERALDRY 139 a fellow than the devil in the sun. I will go with you. (Quillet and Grosscrop go apart.) GROSSCROP. — I take you for a man of sense and so will speak to you. QUILLET. — Never yet have I been purchased of a compliment, and will not now ! Some fools there are, I know, will take the breath of flattery which is but air, and foul air, too, for legal tender, but as for me it is unmarketable stuff that in my good warehouse — though it were a mile long — I would give no room to. GROSSCROP.— We could and ought to be of service — one to other. QUILLET.— Well? GROSSCROP. — And cease this ruinous fight be- tween us. QUILLET. — O you mistake there — it is stock in trade to me; but let me hear you through. GROSSCROP.— We are fellow-townsmen— neighbors both ; our interests are as one if we would let them. That wind that blows me good as well might do the like to you and harm none. QUILLET.— This is fair speech, but from the point, to which I beg you to come at once ; if your fortune be good let me have half interest with you, or if bad, why hold it then in reversion to my heirs I40 OUR NEW HERALDRY when I am gone, and give me none. I smell fodder, or do you only pipe me a tune now of corn rigs? GROSSCROP.— I take you for an honorable man, yet one awake to your own proper interests, as I to mine, and all men else of judgment are to theirs. QUILLET.— But you beat shy of the point ! It is the point ! Come to it ! GROSSCROP.— You are blunt, I see, and for that I like you none the less; well, the point lies here — I would have the Breakwind's good support, but not without reward to you for so good a service. But tell me now — intending no impertinence — I am too bold, I fear! QUILLET.— No, but speak, and leave this boy's bashfulness; I am no blushing maid nor you a stammering youth. GROSSCROP.— And this heavy debt hangs yet upon your paper here? QUILLET. — O certain, and in these exceeding tight times ! GROSSCROP.— Go to, then; with this debt lifted— QUILLET.— It is excellent! GROSSCROP,— And yourself lodged in as col- lector here of this rich port, which would then be within my gift to give — QUILLET.— O this— this— it leaves me no OUR NEW HERALDRY 141 words — O that coy goddess, Fortune, knocks merry at my gate now, and thank God I am home to un- bar to her! GROSSCROP. — And your friends besides — QUILLET. — Friends, too ! Here is a royal prince, a prince royal among lesser men ! (Grosscrop and Quillet continue to converse apart.) WATTLES.— (Within) Be they gone, boy? Be they gone? BOY.— That they be. WATTLES.— Then will I out of this. (Comes out.) O blest discretion, I never knew thee till to- day ! I shall think the more of myself hereafter for it! Did see the victory, boy? Did see me conquer? BOY. — I saw nothing but your running away and hiding at the first smell of danger. WATTLES.— Gad, I did it, though! I never would a thought it, yet I did it ! I forget what an- cient sage it was that used oft to say, who con- quers self achieves greater victory than who wins a battle, but the words fit well with my present temper, for such conquering did I a moment since. Did see me conquer, lad? BOY. — If to hide be to conquer, then I saw you. WATTLES.— O I feel a kind of pride in it that I am made so ! That calm discretion and bold courage are so gently mixed in me ! I had not be- lieved it without this test! 1^2 OUR NEW HERALDRY BOY. — Nor had I believed you had been such a coward until I saw you slink. WATTLES. — There be a boy's unthinking speech for you ! It is every ruffian's and braggart's part to fall to at a common brawl, but 'tis a man of quality and true courage that governs these motions to the even tenor of fair judgment, and though the gen- eral world do oft set him down for cowardice, still will every judicious one hail him for a brave man. Why, look you, lad, how this thing stands with me. Here am I panting hot to lay hands on this Gross- crop to fetch him grievous punishment home that could as well fatally end to him, bearing in mind my chafed spirit and fiery mettle, that prompt me to it ; and, this while, stands reason at my elbow to counsel me, saying, "Avoid him ! Avoid this man, lest you put too great violence on him and so undo yourself." Now which of these two shall I obey? Which should your man of quality? Why, he should obey reason ! Reason should be with him, for if he has not reason with him, then is he no man but beast only! And so I did, and am proud to be so governed ; for when brute instinct said, "at him," reason whispered me, "Abide, Wattles ! abide !" and so I did abide. (Enter Quillet.) QUILLET. — The wind stands now from a new quarter! I've grossly been misled, and must undo all ! (To Wattles) What ! And dares the dog from his kennel venture so quickly out? But no more OUR NEW HERALDRY 143 of that! Grosscrop, once rightly known, is the prince of royal fellows, and the Breakwind lends him good support hereafter! I was deceived egre- giously in the man, and thank not those insinuat- ing jays that led me first to it ! That one's a rascal truly who sees the error of his way and will not speedily make amends! But I'm no rascal, there- fore will I make Grosscrop fair amends ! WATTLES.— What sudden fit is this? QUILLET. — Why, his portly roundness in front which I mistook to be but his stomach's grossness, is the largeness of his heart instead that swells out the girt of his goodly vest ! O ! he is a big-hearted and a proper man ! and for every spiteful and cut- ting thing I ever writ of him, I will now ten pretty ones to offset against it ! Where is your stuff there on prize-rings? WATTLES.— My little thing of feather-weights? QUILLET. — So do you name it. Let it go in, for there is now room for it, and more to spare. WATTLES. — God bless this Grosscrop ! God bless the man if this be so ! I no longer hold spite against him, but will give him my good right hand ! God bless him ! QUILLET. — Hunt me out that lunatic writer, too, with his bale of written trash ; it will in, and serve as food for fools, which, for the best part, men are ! 144 OUR NEW HERALDRY WATTLES.— My little thing of feather-weights ! My fancy's darling ! O it is a brave thing ! (Exit Wattles and Boy.) QUILLET. — Now must I stir me up to some feel- ing of contrition to write sweetly of this man. Would I had a hundred such foes that could judge my worth as he does ! But here comes one that's not as welcome now as he had been before. How does Monsieur Honesty? (Enter Playfair.) PLAYFAIR. — If you mean me, why I am well enough, though a little overworked to do this task you set me. But now it is in a fashion done, and have it here. QUILLET.— What task is it I set you? My short memory recalls none. PLAYFAIR.— You remember well! Why, this taxing I was to lay on Grosscrop and avouch to it I And here it is, struck fairly well off, if one may judge his own handiwork. QUILLET. — I asked you none! PLAYFAIR.— O that you did! And urged me further in it than I would. But why treat me now to this pretty flow of humorous spirit all unasked? I am in haste ! When I am more at leisure, give me then your wit and I will laugh, and cry, ''Bravo! Bravo !" and "How clever 'tis !" But here, have this! OUR NEW HERALDRY 145 QUILLET. — I have no use for it! PLAYFAIR.— What? QUILLET. — Does it name Grosscrop angel? Laud his white virtues to the marble skies? Call him that nobleman of nature's molding, raised by Providence to our hand, to set the wronged world right, and to stand out a model to ambitious strip- lings to shape their courses to? Does it do these things? PLAYFAIR. — It does not, and you well know it fixes quite a different brand upon him, if the ad- vised people will receive it. QUILLET. — Then I will have none of it! PLAYFAIR.— Come ! Come! The wittiest wit is dryness to those ears that are not tuned for it, and mine are not to this. QLHLLET. — Let me deal with you plainly! Then must you know I am chief lieutenant now to Gross- crop to make him senator, and you shall hear me speak as prettily hereafter of him as ever I did ill before. Why, he is a most marvelous man, full of the darlingest good qualities, as honest, truthful, brave, learned, practical, considerate of his friends, generous to a fault, liberal, full of — O I am so fresh- ly come to it that I must study his virtues out that my tongue may with more readiness name them ! But 'tis true as I have said. My little yawl is hitched now to his stout bark, and will float to harbor with it, and a plenteous harbor, too, as I be- 146 OUR NEW HERALDRY lieve. Come, you shall ride with me, if you will, and it's good-bye then to drudging poverty. PLAYFAIR. — It is past belief! You only jest with me. QUILLET.— Why should I so? And to speak it plainly and with honesty, too, he is fit man enough for the place, and good as any that are like to come to it. Why, then, should I spew at him when my profit runs with his? PLAYFAIR. — But those ones among the people that trust to you for guidance, what answer can you make them? QUILLET.— Answer! O it is a droll thing! Answer? O your unmixed simpleness gives me a sort of fondness of you ! Answer? It is rare! But answer me you this: Am I not leader to them? Am I not that libel on God's good handiwork they call labor leader? Am I not it? PLAYFAIR. — You are so thought to be. QUILLET. — There are you answered then, for these dull ones know nothing but to follow their approved leader up, yelling themselves to hoarse- ness in his applause. Why it stands so with them, that if your labor leader does but void water against a barn-door, his followers all will tear the very air to shout their pent applause of such a wise and thoughtful action. They are a pack of restless and uneasy hounds that know no other thing in the hunt than to take up that bark, or cry, or course, OUR NEW HERALDRY 147 or g-ait their leader sets them to. 'Tis easy answer- ing these. PLAYFAIR.— But not long to hold yourself their leader, so treacherously to deal with them. QUILLET. — What care I then for leadership when I no longer need the aid of it? Let me advise you here. Set down this constant star in your mar- iner's chart and steer by it as a fixed and changeless one : Your ambitious leader to base and ignorant men, does use them only as a ladder whereby he mounts, and when he overtops it, gaining the surer ground above, he thinks no more upon the ladder but quits it there, as craftsmen forsake the tools they have no longer need of. PLAYFAIR. — You've often talked to me before in such spirit, but, as I thought, more from a fond- ness of speech than to make it a rule of action. I am amazed to see you do it, and can scarce believe you are more than in sport. QUILLET. — It is your pitiful honesty that has a trick of drawing me on to speak plainly with you, that I would not do to others. But be persuaded now to quit it. Lend your help with me to elect this man and you shall have a fat office for it, for he shall have a dozen score of them to pass among his friends, as they do tarts at evening parties. Put money in your purse, and when it's bursting full and we are older, we'll strut and walk about on canes, like pompous and respected citizens, full of wise observations and virtuous moralizing. Why, 148 OUR NEW HERALDRY there shall no beggar woman ask us a penny on the streets but we shall fall to moralizing it, in- stancing our own youths, how, when we were young, we labored such-and-such long hours a day, and received but such-and-such small wages for it, and with it bought fair education, fed, clothed and kept ourselves, and lent support to such-and-such numbers of dependent and bed-ridden relatives, and the breathless crowd shall stare reverently at us, reporters shall take home our very words and print them, and young men ponder them over in garrets, marveling why it is no longer as it was. But who is this in haste? (Enter Mrs. Playfair.) MRS. PLAYFAIR.— O my husband, my poor husband ! We are ruined ! And for all your work ! PLAYFAIR.— Good heavens! What's the mat- ter? MRS. PLAYFAIR.— The officer! O the officer! PLAYFAIR.— What, what of him? MRS. PLAYFAIR.— He's at our house and with writs and papers and I know not what, to take our furniture all and household things away with him ! O it's a shame ! A shame ! And we tried so hard 1 PLAYFAIR. — On whose account is he? MRS. PLAYFAIR.— Old Bottoms! That old usurer Bottoms, that you made the mortgage to last winter when Moll was sick to pay the doctor OUR NEW HERALDRY 149 off! O, it's shameful, and the disgrace, too, to be thrown out of our own house ! PLAYFAIR.— Do not take it so to heart. I will see Bottoms and AIRS. PLAYFAIR.— It will be useless labor. I was myself already to him, and begged him as I hope never again to beg of beast, and he could an- swer me nothing but "interest," "per cent.," "money," "spendthrift people," and the like, and so he left me, growling! PLAYFAIR. — There! there! It is not so seri- ous ! A few odd ends, more or less ! MRS. PLAYFAIR.— And the chair your mother gave you, and IMoU's little bed that I thought to keep for her when she should grow up ! Even these he will not spare ! PLAYFAIR. — Has he already gone then? MRS. PLAYFAIR.— No, but waits me now at the house, for I begged him an hour's time that I might see my stepfather, hoping he might let us the money. PLAYFAIR.— No ! No! You must not think of that ! MRS. PLAYFAIR.— But I've been to him, and that is the bitterest yet, for when I asked him it, he scowled and said it served me well for marrying with a two-penny fellow who hoped to win a living out of his scribbled nonsense that none were fools enough to read, and chided me so that I had not 150 OUR NEW HERALDRY taken his good advice to marry the brewer's fat son instead. O, to think that I should hear my husband spoken of so, and to my own face ! PLAYFAIR.— Well ! Well ! I will only laugh at that. QUILLET. — (Going) — Pardon me, sir and lady, if you will, but I am in the greatest hurry, and so I bid you both good-day! MRS. PLAYFAIR.— (To Quillet)— Excuse me. sir, and do not think me bold to do it ! I know my husband would not, but you two have been as friends so long, you know his honesty and his worth that will repay it again, therefore help him now in this, and the time shall come when you shall be more than glad you helped so good a man. QUILLET. — This is so sudden ! Were it any other time but this ! Money is of late so tight, so very tight ! It grieves me to deny so good a man ! Tomorrow, if you will, and I'll try what I can ! O, how bitter 'tis to see a friend's distress and have no power to succor him ! Tomorrow, if you will, but do not hope too much ! This indeed is food for thought ! (Exit Quillet.) PLAYFAIR. — I would you had not asked him it. MRS. PLAYFAIR.— Dear! Dear! How flinty are the hearts of men, and this rough world, how harsh and bitter to them that will not dance its music! OUR NEW HERALDRY 151 PLAYFAIR. — You are my brave and trusted wife and I your husband. This thing that frets you now is but a trifle, looked at rightly. Let us brave it in a joyful mood, as we often talked we'd meet misfortune, and have done before. MRS. PLAYFAIR.— O, and to think how you have worked ! (Exeunt both.) SCENE V SCENE IN BEAKS' HOUSE (Enter Beaks and Mrs. Beaks.) BEAKS. — (Holding deeds) — O, to dream of patching up such shame in the exchange of a few poor bits of scribbled paper ! (Hands them to her.) Take them from my sight or they will strike me blind ! O, miserable stuff! Shame will not suffer me to touch them ! MRS. BEAKS.— Then shall I tear them into shreds and let the desert's rankest weeds eat up these lands their only dwellers there. (Offers to tear them.) BEAKS.— (Stopping her)— No! No! Do not tear them. (Puts deeds in his pocket.) Let them lie in here for what future use my poor, oppressed mind 152 OUR NEW HERALDRY cannot now make out. I will forget them if I can ! O, how could you do me such a wrong? , MRS. BEAKS.— Leave all this pass! I could summon up a lame excuse to do indifferent service for me, but leave it pass ! BEAKS.— And the child, too, that fondly I fan- cied to be my own! Last week her little babbling tongue struck out the word "papa" in a clear note, and three times over she repeated it. I seized her up and told her she should have a hobbyhorse, and then the pretty fool tried to speak that word, too! Yet, it's well you yielded my deeds up ! It's well you did it! MRS. BEAKS.— Leave off all this! Address yourself to what is to be done between us. „BEAKS. — And to think that I can say no more I have a home, but must be as the wandering and tim- id hare, chased from his comfortable burrow by un- dermining and intruding floods, for I no more shall sit of evenings at the warm fireside, with feet upon the comfortable stool, drowsily reading the day's gossip in the evening paper, while the hoar frost without, and the shrill northern blasts, write fan- tastic pictures of ferns and tropical foliage upon the pane, adding to the warmth and coziness within ! But it's well you gave me up the deeds without pub- licity! How could you have done me such a wrong? MRS. BEAKS. — My sin was older than my mar- riage. OUR NEW HERALDRY '53 BEAKS. — But 'twas a continuing one. MRS. BEAKS. — As yours was, too, and is. BEAKS.— Mine? What is there of mine? MRS. BEAKS.— The like that I committed. BEAKS. — Do not banter words with me to in- flame me up again ! MRS. BEAKS. — Yet you have sinned as I have; all the gross proportions of my offense sit evenly with yours. Yet I do not value that. I do not speak it in excuse of me. BEAKS. — I've done no such sin. I'm no man's wife. MRS. BEAKS. Nor husband either to any woman? BEAKS. — What is this jest? It ill becomes a fallen one to jest with him she wronged. MRS. BEAKS.— I do not jest, but you in jest told me a true story once, and thought it such a jest that I, your wife, should be moved to laugh at it. In jest you told me truthfully how it was that long ago, you once deceived an Italian girl who lived by your father's house; how that her dark eyes and rounded girlish bosom stirred your amorous love, until by false protests of honorable purposes and promises vowed only to be broken again before they scarce were spoken, you won her heart, and with it, all her body's poor belongings ; you told me then, how in dalliance you played with her daily in a se- cret grove near by, until her womb grew large, and '54 OUR NEW HERALDRY then you left her, tiring. All this you told to me, and further, how to hide her true condition, she married hastily with a stupid lad that before she has put of¥ for you. This much you told me as a pretty jest your wife should laugh to hear. BEAKS. — But I am a man and you a woman. Such things, although confessedly wrong in anyone, are in a measure licensed to a man yet young, and none take note of them in him. There is this differ- ence ever between man and woman. MRS. BEAKS. — Yet his sin is like to hers, and each is like the other, heinous both. BEAKS. — There is a difference. MRS. BEAKS.— I see none! If this fell blot upon her life seals up fair pity's eye against her, so that the whole world will point the silent finger, leaving her no alternative but biting shame, why then should not the like be done on him, her co-laborer in it, also? By what just law does she the heavier punishment undergo and he the lighter? BEAKS. — I will not answer this. It is woman's imposed charge to keep her true virginity and guard her untouched womb in cleanliness for her lawful children's mold. MRS. BEAKS.— But of the father who is to be- get these children, what should his behaviour? BEAKS. — The soiled woman, be she maid or wife, should forego all offices else but the harlot's — a despised vessel to break man's over-teeming iusts upon ! OUR NEW HERALDRY '55 MRS. BEAKS.— And what the function then of your soiled man? Find out his place for me beside this other one ! BEAKS. — Man's build is outward, woman's en- cased within ; the marly vapor falling on the moun- tain's up-raised top, runs oflf and leaves no stain, but in the walled hollow of the ground, a conta- gious pool it lingers. I will not further talk of this. I am moved to wonder that you can command this boldness, having done what you have done. Let us to our business, for I shall not rest but to have divorce of you. MRS. BEAKS. — As you will; as for me it needs not that formality. BEAKS. — A legal divorce between us, quietly done and quickly! MRS. BEAKS. — "Speedily obtained and without publicity," as the lawyers in the card say. BEAKS. — You can be facetious, too, but I am sick at heart ! You'll not resist my reasonable di- vorce and by advertisement call down further shame on me? MRS. BEAKS.— No. BEAKS. — Nor fight in court to reclaim my property? But that were useless. In law the er- ring wife takes nothing at divorcement. MRS. BEAKS. — Nor in this case shall she ask it. BEAKS. — You shall have for your own and your 156 OUR NEW HERALDRY child's support what sum your deceased father left you. I lay no claim to it. MRS. BEAKS.— My father left? BEAKS. — Why do you make a question of that? Did he not leave it so? MRS. BEAKS.— Let us be truthful here. He left me nothing. t BEAKS.— Nothing? MRS. BEAKS.— No. He was a bankrupt; his importuning creditors dogged him to the grave and barked upon it after. BEAKS. — O, your disturbed sense turns fixedly back to falsehood as the needle to the pole! Why will you tell me this untruth that my own knowl- edge can disprove again? For how came this sum that at your marriage was settled on you, if not your father's? And where's the money for your course at school, not a little, and your keeping, too, during your orphaned years? You told me many times it was your father left it. MRS. BEAKS.— And lying I told you so. These came, not from my father, but from my father's friend, who since is friend to you. BEAKS.— Who do you say? MRS. BEAKS. — From Grosscrop, in whose debt I lie for that I am ! My father at the last committed me to his care, and in such way he cared for me. BEAKS. — O, truth is stranger to your tongue OUR NEW HERALDRY '57 that would slander itself in a lie rather than speak the truth to advantage ! I saw in the court the very records, ribboned and sealed, to attest their verity, appointing him the guardian of your effects ! MRS. BEAKS. — It was a feigned thing, done from the first for deceit's sake, though by his family and the world accredited true. BEAKS. — What an artist are you to paint that blacker that was already black beyond com- parison ! You will tell me straight that you quit your mother's milk to take up harlotry for profes; sion ! O, precocious stripling, that could so steal the march on watchful nature as to set her laws at nothing and cheat her ladyship into discharge of a debt not yet due ! Let scientists that bore at paper books take note ! MRS. BEAKS. — You judge me harshly! I was, from the beginning, unfit to oppose my unschooled skill against this stout gentleman's experience. He overcame me to his pleasure at the first by force and fraudulence. BEAKS. — O, now the excuse! It is on the bill, I see, and will have its turn before the curtain ! Come, the excuse now ! Out with it, too ! MRS. BEAKS. — I intended no excuse, and make none of the things I said to you. I could frame one up to do indifferent service for me, but that I will not. I was not guiltless, either. BEAKS. — Remarkable admission ! 158 OUR NEW HERALDRY MRS. BEAKS. — It was your words that led me off a little. What more remains between us? BEAKS. — O, then, let us get our bearing, whither we have drifted from it ! First the divorce, then the deeds, then — MRS. BEAKS. — No, if my memory serves, the deeds went first in your catalogue of it. BEAKS.— Well, that way, then! First the deeds; that is already done. You dealt in fairness there. Second, the divorce, which is to do, and third — third — I will set the third down dinner, and so like a scurvy rhymester ring out a pretty alliteration — deeds, divorce and dinner. Let the dinner be brought in, for my stomach cries out for it. I will drown my troubles in a pudding. MRS. BEAKS.— Then I will leave you, and let your merriment be your company. BEAKS. — No, but wait. You shall not pack your- self so hastily off ! You should sit at table after the daily custom. MRS. BEAKS.— I have no liking for food; I could not taste ambrosia. BEAKS. — (Rings) — Let the dinner be brought. (Enter Julia.) JULIA. — Did you ring for me? BEAKS. — We will have dinner now. (Exit Julia.) OUR NEW HERALDRY '59 BEAKS. — I never yet was master of my house, but always hung on others' becks and nods. (Re-enter Julia and places dinner on table and goes out.) MRS. BEAKS. — It is punishment on me to smell this food. I will leave you. BEAKS. — No, but take your place up ; I will have it so. MRS. BEAKS. — I will sit here, but not to eat. BEAKS. — What a thing is wedded bliss! I have misgivings now the harness sits not well on me, and must have my leathern collar newly padded. MRS. BEAKS.— Unbuckled, rather. BEAKS. — It is the very word; and this unhitch- ing of the tired team we name divorce, and your lawyers are the only licensed liverymen to unyoke again the fagged jades galled by the conjugal leath- er, but these will not do it, unless their dexterous palms be first well greased with a fat fee. There is no more dumb, forsaken or shrunken-visaged beast in nature than your lawyer with a dry palm ; he can scarce tell his own name with any assurance, but for a little fee in it, he will circumvent the twelve Justinian tables, prove that the mountains slumber- ous ledge is far more volatile than water, and Au- gust's torrid sun, colder than December's snow. Such potency is in a little fee. i6o OUR NEW HERALDRY (Enter Kate Grosscrop.) KATE. — O, and here I find you sitting at tea, cosy as two young ducks ! BEAKS. — Ducks ! Young ducks ! Their naked- ness cannot be cosy. You mistake ; we are in our clothes ! KATE. — O, you know my meaning very well ! (To Mrs. Beaks.) — I must ask a favor at the risk of being denied, and you shall grant it? MRS. BEAKS.— How do I know? KATE. — But promise me. MRS. BEAKS.— Let me first hear what 'tis. KATE. — I must borrow Julia of you. MRS. BEAKS.— Julia? KATE. — For the church party tomorrow night. I must have her. She is the trump card of a whole pack of servants. MRS. BEAKS.— As she says. KATE. — (Kisses her) — O, you are a dear! I will run to her. (Exit Kate.) BEAKS.— Who is that comes? (Enter Quillet.) QUILLET. — A thousand pardons for this in- trusion ! I dare not ask if I am welcome. BEAKS. — Be at your ease, sir! OUR NEW HERALDRY 161 QUILLET. — Affairs of politics that know no courtesies ! I've searched you everywhere an hour past. BEAKS.— Me? QUILLET. — You may well look amazed, but I will later explain. This present business of impor- tance excuses my sudden haste ! BEAKS.— What is it? QUILLET.— Politics! Always politics! But the particulars later — I dwell in politics as the pet- rel does in air. I am straight from Grosscrop and on his affairs ! We have a coup d'etat afoot. BEAKS. — Grosscrop ? QUILLET. — And must talk with you privately; but you shall see ! Come, your hat ! Go with me I BEAKS.— I'll see what 'tis. (Exeunt Beaks and Quillet.) SCENE VI A STREET BY NIGHT (Enter Wattles, drunk.) WATTLES.— 'Rah for Grosscrop! Gad, a-had a merry time of it! A-drank old Bourbon at the Horseshoe! rye at the Badger! hot Scotch at the i62 OUR NEW HERALDRY Fig" Leaf ! beer at the Dutchman's ! and claret, sherry and such like drinks everywhere ! And all at Gross- crop's cost ! O he's a rare gentleman and worth any man's vote to this office ! 'Rah for Grosscrop ! A pity now if some beggarly fellow who spent noth- ing in the general entertainment should distance him in it! 'Rah for Grosscrop! (Enter a citizen.) Where's your voice, sir? Are you a Grosscropper or no? CITIZEN. — I am against the man. WATTLES. — O you anarchist to insult a gentle- man! You louse! You mangy cur! You ass! You— CITIZEN.—Go, fool! You're drunk! I'll not quarrel with you. (Exit citizen.) WATTLES. — Come on, coward! Come on, whelp ! He's gone, and with him a rare chance! Why, he grew pale with fear of me, and well might he ! I should have basted him one for a wizzen- lunged coward ! Gad, it's a fault in me that I'm too civil a quarreler to let men escape me ere I baste them. I must study me up a rougher manner and a big voice to fright men ! There's nothing so frights men as a big voice ! Gad ! I would I'd a bull's organ to it ! You should see them run ! For I should come on bellowing! Always bellowing! So ! And they should run ! And women and chil- dren should run. too ! OUR NEW HERALDRY 163 (Enter Quillet, Beaks and laborers. Beaks drunk.) BEAKS. — Gentlemen, I'm intoxicated! I fear, gentlemen, I'm intoxicated ! QUILLET.— No ! no ! You are only drunk ! BEAKS.— Drunk! Not drunk! That is a nasty word ! Damn me if I'm drunk ! QUILLET. — Have it as you will, then ! Where, boys, are your voices now? Come! A round one for Grosscrop ! Come ! A round one, lads ! ALL. — Hurrah for Grosscrop ! Hurrah ! 'Rah ! A VOICE. — The poor man's friend ! QUILLET. — We've won him to our cause; his good heart is softened now to all workmen. You know it well that have drunk free at his cost to- night. He is won, and that it is so I take credit for it more than the least amongst you. You must not thank me that we have now so stout a friend. A VOICE.— We thank you. Quillet ! We thank you ! ALL.— Hurrah for Quillet! BEAKS, — Do know me, gentlemen? I'm Gross- crop's son-in-law, for next week I marry with his daughter Kate! Is't you there, Kate? This way, little Kate ! O Kate ! QUILLET. — He is very drunk; he but fancies this. BEAKS. — Fancies! What is fancies? Is't good drinking? He's father-in-law to me ! My wife and 164 OUR NEW HERALDRY I are at outs. I marry again next week and to Kate! Did ever see Kate, gentlemen? Pinkwort's a clam ! QUILLET. — He is sotten drunk; give him a hand, lads. BEAKS.— Kate! Where's little Kate? I love none but Kate ! (Exeunt all. Enter Mrs. Beaks and Mrs. Crane- bill.) MRS. CRANEBILL.— O, am sure I've heard a thousand drunk and boisterous voices! The whole town's gone mad and bedlam is let loose. What a night it is! And so dark! MRS. BEAKS. — The streets are hideous and these harsh noises ! They are ever so by night, but tonight worse than I have known before. MRS. CRANEBILL.— A dismal forest and wild beasts lurking is not more lonesome than this street by night. MRS. BEAKS. — You have gone with me far enough. The prison is not now far off. Let us stop here and bid good-bye. MRS. CRANEBILL.— O that word prison wakes me to myself again, to remind me of this business we're about! What now if you should fail in it? if you should not get him out at last, and so make bad worse? or getting him out you should fail both to escape? or if any of a hundred likely mishaps should fall? OUR NEW HERALDRY 165 MRS. BEAKS.— Fve considered all. The task seems harder than it is. MRS. CRAISTEBILL.— Yet if the jailer should be- tray you ! MRS. BEAKS.— He will not. MRS. CRANEBILL.— God speed you in it! I hope you are doing the right ! MRS. BEAKS. — Yet you have misgivings? MRS. CRANEBILL.— I have! God knows I have ! MRS. BEAKS.— And well you have! You shall hear rough speeches on me when Tm gone! MRS. CRANEBILL.— O mercy on us! MRS. BEAKS. — Do this much for me, Florence: Give my child a mother's care, and bring her to me when I send. Her little life is innocent! MRS. CRANEBILL.— I will! I promise I will! MRS. BEAKS. — I never in my life held any superstition, but tonight I have a strange forebod- ing not unlike to it. Some large event is pendant in the air and soon will fall, but whether good or bad I cannot say. MRS. CRANEBILL.— It is this business of jail breaking ! MRS. BEAKS.— It is more than that, yet what 'tis I cannot tell ! But let it end there. YouVe heard me in my life say many unwomanly things, and you know what sins Fm guilty of? i66 OUR NEW HERALDRY MRS. CRANEBILL.— I do, and may God par- don you ! MRS. BEAKS.— I deserve no pardon. Yet had the world dealt differently with me, I had been dif- ferent, I think — Your brother is a true man. MRS. CRANEBILL.— He is and a noble one! MRS. BEAKS.— This much, Florence, I beg you ever to believe of me — that it's not from wantonness I do this thing tonight. The world will say it's so and so will all believe, but do not you believe it. MRS. CRANEBILL.— No! no! I will not! MRS. BEAKS.— We are friends, I hope— true friends. There is no higher bond than that, either of blood or the ties of marriage, where nothing^s free but the entrance in, unless true friendship knits the cord to make it holy. How abused is that word friendship in the world, as if it were a common sort, capable to vulgar minds, and met on every hand! But I know you will not understand — few understand ! MRS. CRANEBILL.— I know your heart, Anne, and your proud spirit! May God forgive you as I forgive ! MRS. BEAKS.— I like no bitterness tonight and will not speak as I had thought to do at parting. Let us take good-bye now, for we may never meet again. MRS. CRANEBILL.— O, Anne. OUR NEW HERALDRY 167 MRS. BEAKS.— Come, now! MRS. CRANEBILL.— O it is such grief! Let me go two steps farther with you — I'm bolder than you think — until we see the prison at that corner yonder ! MRS. BEAKS.— As you wish! (Exeunt both. Enter Wattles.) WATTLES. — I thought I spied a pair of pretty Street larks here! Am sure I did! And will find them, for I can smell out such royal game as your setter dog does grouse! Next to a ringed battle on Queensbury rules, I have a weakness for these gay wenches that inhabit lone streets by night, and drink ever gives me a sort of appetite to it ! I will after these two! (Exit Wattles. Enter Beaks.) BEAKS. — Ladies! Fair ladies! Where away, ladies? A gentleman would speak to you! An in- toxicated gentleman ! Stay, ladies ! How do, la- dies! How do! How do! How — how — (Exit Beaks.) i68 OUR NEW HERALDRY SCENE VII LAWN AT GROSSCROP'S HOUSE (Enter Julia and Webfoot at work.) WEBFOOT. — The devil take these church par- ties and all that have to do with them ! Here are two days' work in one and no allowance on the pay- roll. Last week was another, and the week before two. If these fine ones must need save their souls by this folly, let them do it at their own bodies' cost and not at mine. I have a whole covey of kicks coming, and one day I will let all fly, though they hit skirts as well as breeches. JULIA. — You must hurry up faster ! Come, bring me the lanterns here ! WEBFOOT. — O, woman has not even the gift of horse-driving with any touch of human tenderness in it, let alone driving a man ! She never knows a tight tug from a loose one nor any other thing but to lay on the lash stoutly. Look how you drive me, your poor dumb beast, that has run his legs off in your hard service these ten hours ! JULIA. — Are you a horse that you speak of tugs and lashes? WEBFOOT. — You take me to be one. JULIA. — I do not so, but I take you only for OUR NEW HERALDRY 169 an ass, and not a dumb one either, but, like your brothers, one with a rude organ in his throat that he's winding always and never a pity on the poor ears that must hear it. WEBFOOT.— What kind of an ass do you take me to be? JULIA. — A dull one that needs the whip at every step. WEBFOOT. — No, but what gender do you give me? JULIA. — That I scarce know, but you must be a jack, unless there be a worse kind. WEBFOOT. — Then you are my jenny, and both of us together a pair, and a pair of asses at large on a grass plat leads to the getting of numbers; but here is one proviso to this. JULIA.— What proviso? WEBFOOT.— That they be not barren, which is the only one. JULIA. — Leave off this talking and hurry up! Look! what's to be done! And it already seven o'clock ! WEBFOOT.— Hurry up is dry music to tired legs. Who pays you for driving at this dog's gait? JULIA. — Shame on you for a lazy fellow ! Take the chairs away! WEBFOOT.— O, the philosophers may well set it down and no contradiction in a hundred thousand 170 OUR NEW HERALDRY years — woman is a born tyrant where she holds the rod over. I had rather be a stoker by profession than to work at a woman's driving orders. JULIA. — Nor would I wish to have such a tardy one work under me every day. WEBFOOT. — Work under you every day? JULIA.—I would not have it, I said. WEBFOOT.— And I, too, would forego that gladly for the other employment. JULIA. — O, you are an ill-spoken scamp ! WEBFOOT. — So will you be, too, when we are one together, for husband and wife are as the two halves of the same bell, and should but one tongue and that the man's, but now that I remember it, I have a bit of bad news to tell you ! JULIA.— What news is it? WEBFOOT.— Bad news. JULIA.^ — You said so before! What bad news? WEBFOOT. — O bad ! very bad news ! But come, hurry up ! There's no time now for news, good or bad. And by the by, it's gossipy news, too! JULIA. — Tell me what it is. I will not stir until I hear it! WEBFOOT. — No, then, there is no time for it! O, now I have struck at the right key that respites me a little from harsh ordering! It's fearful news, and no one would have dreamt it. JULIA.— Tell me it! OUR NEW HERALDRY 'V WEBFOOT. — Weak woman loves gossip as the bee pollen, and will traffic in it, the more so if it has a smack of naughtiness about it, as this has, for this is naughty gossip. Come, we have no time for all this idleness! JULIA.— If you will tell me it, I'll take back that I said, and you may come tomorrow night to Beaks' house to see me. There's a promise for you. WEBFOOT. — And one you cannot keep, for you'll not be there. That makes part of my news. JULIA.— Not be there? I will not be there? At Beaks' house? WEBFOOT. — No, you've lost your graft there, as the politicians say. You'll not be there unless it be to pack your duds. JULIA.— How so? WEBFOOT.— Mrs. Beaks is gone. JULIA.— Good God! She's not dead? WEBFOOT.— No, not dead! I did not say dead. Did I say dead? JULIA.— No. WEBFOOT.— Well, then! JULIA.— What is it? WEBFOOT.— She's gone. JULIA. — O tell me what has happened ! You kill me with this slowness. WEBFOOT. — You chide me now for ever talk- 172 OUR NEW HERALDRY ing. I have my tongue at your school to learn silence. JULIA. — You may well talk less and say more! What did Mrs. Beaks do? WEBFOOT. — Changed her clothes out of sea- son, which is a grievous offense committed against polite etiquette. JULIA.— How did she? WEBFOOT.— By putting off the old garment and putting on the new. JULIA. — What meaning is in that? I see none. WEBFOOT. — O you would have me go about followed by an interpreter, like a Chinese pro-con- sul ! The meaning is plain, for it means that she has forsaken the halting old love for the sprightly new one that has snap to it. The dull botanists of old set love down as a perennial vegetable, but our new science proves it to be no more than an annual or a biennial at the very most, and its seedlings chiefly die at six short months; the frost of two winters measures its life's extremest compass, and wistful maids and melancholy youths that say dif- ferently say falsely. JULIA. — What? She did not leave her husband? WEBFOOT.— Not till she found another forked warming-bottle to cosy her bed with. She's off with young Feathers. JULIA.— He that is in jail? OUR NEW HERALDRY 173 WEB FOOT. — That was but is not now in jail. JULIA. — You tell me miracles if you tell me true! How did he get out of it? I saw a jail once and the bleached and wasted men that lay upon the damp floor hemmed in with masonry and frown- ing black bars of woven steel, and looked like poor limber fishes jerked from their native water and in a noisome cavern left to waste themselves with thirst and longing. How were these bars opened? WEBFOOT.— It's not the first time love picks a lock, nor will it be last unless men and women grow below with different organs. She played the whole lot of them smartly, for here she comes into the dark passage at night and lays her little hand on the very key, and rolls the rust door back on its unwilling hinges, and Feathers steps out to her like a young cock to meet his favorite Partelote, and the aged keeper none the wiser for it all. Reynard, the fox, will have a pretty chase to catch up with his bird again. JULIA. — Fve read in books of happenings such as this, but not before in life to witness it. O, if they should now be caught. WEBFOOT.— If they be caught? What if they be caught? JULIA. — Heaven forbid they should be caught! WEBFOOT.— Go along with such talk, and to uphold them in it! It would serve them right if they were caught. 174 OUR NEW HERALDRY JULIA. — I would not wish it so. WEBFOOT.— They should be caught, and quickly, too, had I my wish to it. There is no rea- sonable woman but will fix her last faith on lovers' causes and plead heaven devoutly for their safe- ness. How is it, then, about the husband wronged and home deserted? JULIA. — She was not happy in it, though to the world appearing so. Her deeper spirit drooped a prisoner. Your news leaves me no will to work; but we are near done. I will give you your dis- charge now. WEBFOOT.— Until tomorrow? JULIA. — Until I call you again. WEBFOOT. — Until you find me, you may bet- ter say, for who finds me out to do any further work tonight must wear spectacles. (Exit Webfoot.) JULIA. — (Calling after) When the guests come you must be about. (Enter Pinkwort and Kate.) KATE. — ^^What! and you are working still, Julia? You must think me a hard task-maker to set you so much. Leave ofif now; it is good enough. JULIA. — It is nearly finished in such way as I've been able. OUR NEW HERALDRY 175 KATE. — You work beyond your strength to stand. You should not. JULIA.— O, it is nothing! KATE. — Rest now awhile until the guests ar- rive. (Exit Julia.) PINKWORT.— She seems a faithful worker KATE. — I never saw her better. Let us sit here under the arched vine. The day is fading and gentle twilight steals softly up. I love this hour above the rest, though it, mostly, makes me sad. PINKWORT. — Look where the vanished sun gilds with his burning fire the tall western peaks marking the place he sank ! KATE. — It is the year's richest season in these sun-set dyes. How calm the high mountain is that lifts his bold head there in state ! I am fast friend to him and he to me. PINKWORT.— A cold friend in such an icy cloak, and who speaks little, as I think. KATE. — Yet his silence has a voice to teach pa- tience with. His snowy crown lodged above the battling storms to shake or time to alter him, sleeps peacefully. PINKWORT.— And see where his lesser broth- ers stoop at his feet to acknowledge him for their true monarch. They are shrouded, too, in white. 176 OUR NEW HERALDRY so high their points are, though seeming low in the comparison. KATE. — My eye gives them a yellowish tint — a creamy yellow — rather than pure white. PINKWORT.— So indeed they are. KATE. — I think that mountains should be na- ture's statuary, whose perfect hand, whether she folds up the solid continent into these sky-piercing piles or in the little cup within the primrose builds, builds perfectly. Man's work is not so. PINKWORT. — The reason is man is yet appren- ticed. KATE. — It may be so, but not to nature's school. His gaudy work shows outwardly most, which, labored surface gone, leaves but an ugly heap, but in her hidden inward parts the excellencies of na- ture most appear. PINKWORT.— Yet man is himself of nature, and his works likewise. KATE. — I cannot rightly place pretentious man. He is a noisy singer in the orchestra who does not sing to the tune with his fellows. PINKWORT.— He is builder, rather than one who sings. KATE. — He is truly, and yet the ambitious house he builds of marble, polished and glassy plates re- fined from moulten sands to reflect a thousand suns for one, dazzling the beholder's eye, has not the OUR NEW HERALDRY 177 touches of universal, sweet concord in it that the bee's small chamber has, that taught geometry to Achimedes. How quick the tints have changed above ! PINKWORT. — They have so, and give place now to a soft green stain. The belief is current that such wealth of coloring in the evening sky foretells approaching rain, which, like the orchard's ripening fruit, shows in rich colors ere it falls. The darting light beats from his true course by the over- charged moisture in the air, which waits the thun- der's voice to shake it loose for falling. KATE. — I do not know its cause, but only that it is. But my melancholy grows on me, and will soon hold me in full possession. PINKWORT.— You have no cause. KATE. — I have none but of gladness, yet I am no longer so tonight. PINKWORT.— (Kisses her) My love is light- ness if it cannot summon your cheerfulness again. KATE. — You do me wrong to say it. I well know the unmeasured worth of a good man's love, and what in return is due to it from her. PINKWORT.— This thing you heard of Mrs. Beaks discomfits you too much ; you should not let it. KATE. — It is beyond me to prevent. An hour ago my glass was bubbling at the brim, until I heard this news, but it has proved the suctious 178 OUR NEW HERALDRY siphon dipped into my full cup that runs its con- tents now upon the thirsty sands; 'twill fill again presently. PINKWORT.— You're moved too much by it. KATE. — I cannot help it. PINKWORT.— You should not take it so to heart. KATE. — My reason tells me that I but lack in strength. PINKWORT.— We should bear it well in mind that, for all our power to stay them off, foul things are common still. Blacker than this are of hourly happening in some quarter throughout the popu- lous globe. It is the field we work in to mend these. KATE. — I know it well, yet this is no good medi- cine now to my touched sense. PINKWORT.— It is our christian quality to withstand firmly. KATE. — So it is written down in my rules, but this one chiefly holds me in its debt for many leaps over it. PINKWORT. — Our peaceful constancy should imitate the constant sun's that in his burning course looks daily down upon many loathsome and de- tested things, and is not hindered from his true path, but at the appointed stroke shuts up his OUR NEW HERALDRY 79 western gate. Such fixed, unerring purpose he holds should mark the christian's life also. KATE. — I have not that strength, nor ever hope to have it. It is the nearness of this thing afi'ects me. PIlsTKWORT. — Its nearness is but a thing of place, and place no part of the true action. You should reason it out so. The event transpired is the same one whether at our door 'tis done or as far from us removed as the space that parts the frozen from the torrid zone ; we should look on it both ways alike. KATE. — I think it is philosophy's part to make many rules and humanity's to break them, and this one with the rest. The rule is not for her. Place is an ingredient of the action that philosophy can- not bar out. We take no note of it that the light- ning strikes a distant tree, but when its live bolt rips down the friendly trunk that stands within the circuit of our eye, breaking the hurtling dust upon our cheek to sting it, we cannot but look pale, no matter what behavior philosophy may instruct us in for such use. And so it is with me in this ; I cannot be but moved to sadness by it. PINKWORT.— I'd never a mind to this woman ; she was listed in my distrust; my better part of judgment always set her down as a wayward and capricious one. KATE. — I never thought her such. i8o OUR NEW HERALDRY PINKWORT.— But that stands now approved. She'd a kind of look in her strong eyes — I hardly know exactly what — but a kind of look to set one thinking. KATE. — It may be. My sense reads nature poorly in man's or woman's face. But how does her afflicted husband bear his grief? It must sit heavy on him. PINKWORT.— It does indeed. His whole coun- tenance tells how much. He is now within in pri- vate conversing with your father. His sore case needs a friend's good office. KATE. — He has my heart's compassion ; and she also ; I know not which the most. PINKWORT.— It's pity poorly spent that's spent on her, and yet I do it. KATE. — What trials have suffering ones throughout the spreading world to plague them ! I that escape them most, am most ungrateful, and value the exemption lightly, returning for it only my poor melancholy. PINKWORT. — It is true you are at times too melancholy; it's a fault to repair; I must hold you to account for too much sadness. You should not yield to these obstinate and ungrateful fits, but hold them in correction rather. You offend against heaven not to receive his gifts with a better grace. KATE. — That you say I know to be the truth. Heaven has dealt in kindness with me from the OUR NEW HERALDRY i8i first, who into my undeserving hand delivered to me all and made no draft of payment on me in return nor held me to account of it, but cancelled the due demand unpaid. Saving a dear mother's death when my years were fewer than could taste of such a loss, I've had no biting cause of grief in my whole course of life ; yet I repay all this again with dolorous sighs wrung from my empty bosom, weighing the light air with heaviness. I've heard said my darling mother when she lived endured like spells. It is a grievous fault I know in me, but one I have no will to conquer. PINKWORT.— Nor will you have the will until you first dissuade yourself you have it not. What our confident ability tells us we can do is by that confidence already half accomplished. KATE. — I suck strength from your fair speech as the cub nourishment from its dam that languishes without it. PINKWORT. — When your wilted sadness steals on let your better part of judgment count over the list you stand indebted to heaven's good grace for, as health, youth, a whole mind, friends, fortune, home, with the thousand particulars embraced in these, that stand all upon your side to teach you cheerfulness. What cause of grief outweighing these have you? KATE. — None I have, but only another one of God's good bounties to me, unnumbered by you. i82 OUR NEW HERALDRY that outweighs all these and tips them to the beam. PINKWORT.— Life follows unnamed within the list. KATE. — It is not life, but that to me that's dearer far than life, and which I could not lose but with it would lose life ; it is your love I mean, bestowed on me unworthy it. PINKWORT.— That too you have, and wholly. KATE. — And holily I will guard it, that I may never lose it. But tell me a little tale here in the shade. Come, it will drive me straight into better spirits? PINKWORT.— What tale? KATE. — I will shut my eyes and listen ; there is no music but in your voice. You know it well, for you were chief party to it. It is the little one of how you "wooed and won me," as the story- books say. My memory holds it as a sweet dream ; let me fresh dream it again in your words. Begin at the very first, and leave nothing out. PINKWORT.— Let me see, then! At the first you held me oi¥, and — KATE.— No! no! Not that way! But begin like this, as the fairy tales do — "Once upon a time" — and make a pretty story. You have only to leave nothing out. PINKWORT.— Well, then. Once upon a tim? there lived, there lived — It will take me to think a little first. Once upon a time there lived — OUR NEW HERALDRY 183 MRS. GROSSCROP.— (Within) Pinkwort! Oh Pinkwort ! KATE. — It is my step-mother calls you. PINKWORT.~I will go to her and return again. (Exit Pinkwort.) KATE. — I dearly love him and he me also; I owe him much, but should heaven spare to me my life, it's a debt I will repay again when Fm his wife. (Voices within.) But voices come this way! It is my father's and this distressed Beaks. I would not now meet this afflicted man. (Hides.) I will lay in here while they pass. (Enter Beaks and Grosscrop.) GROSSCROP. — Yet now you show discerning sense. How fair a thing is guiding reason in man that marks him apart from lesser animals. BEAKS. — O, but you should have seen me at the first to judge how I was moved by it ! Good reason then in me had like to meet his death and give me over to intemperate fury for its prey; I was on the very point of it. GROSSCROP.— And it is a thing that proves you for a whole man, that at last your reason ruled you. BEAKS. — I hope I'm reasonable ! I hope I come for reason. He was ever part name to me, and never parted his company further than last night 184 OUR NEW HERALDRY when I learned first this thing of you and her; but it set me on the very edge, and I could easily have fallen either way. GROSSCROP. — How fair a thing is reason ! And fairest then where most it's needed, though hardest to support! In the large trials of fate, man's rea- son is a lighted candle borne in tempest warring night with many blasts to quench it, but who saves it burning saves to his feet a necessary guide. BEAKS. — I hope I'm so guided, but last night I would not wager on it. There was a storm then and a heavy sea against, as it were, and the tumbling waves, every one white-capped, and my struggling reason afloat ! It was a toss-up what I'd next do, but that's past and gone! I hope I'm reasonable ! GROSSCROP.— You are truly. BEAKS. — You may well believe it when I smelled her out for your former mistress that was with child by you at her marriage to me, it was like — I know not what — it was like molten lead poured on, or suffocating air, or I cannot say what was like it! KATE.— What thing is this ! GROSSCROP.— You dwell too much on it. BEAKS. — And her boldness denied nothing, but admitted freely that she had done every office to you, and that before she left off short skirts! OUR NEW HERALDRY 185 KATE. — Do my senses fail me? Or am I ra- tional? GROSSCROP.— Do not, I beg of you, dwell fur- ther on it that can serve no other good than to inflame you up again and oppress me the more, that am already sore oppressed! Do not, I beg! BEAKS. — O she'd never a blush to confess it! Had I not been strong-willed I had done some rough action upon her. How could you two hold me so in blindness? GROSSCROP,— The strongest flesh is weak- ness ; this oft repeated truth philosophy takes never sufficiently to the account, and so comes off short- handed at the reckoning. BEAKS. — But to think she had been in your use so? GROSSCROP.— My part in it I dearly have re- pented, and plead in its excuse our common weak- ness only. What living innocent one is it that has done no hidden sin, and would not stammer, blush and look with giddy paleness to see his secret ac- tion probed by the searching light for all to gaze at? There is no such guiltless one, but the sum of them is numberless who in their heart's closed cen- ters, locked safely up, conceal battalions of such monstrous and misshapen deeds; yet this for all, excuses nothing. KATE. — Just God! What nightmare monster is it that creeps on me to make me doubt if I am i86 OUR NEW HERALDRY waking? My father! I'll call him to my side to shake me from this abhorred dream ! It cannot be but that I dream! My father! GROSSCROP. — Did not someone speak there? BEAKS. — My buzzing ears hear poorly or it was the breeze that rises now a little. O but that word buzzing calls up last night again. There was a pretty rumpus then in my poor head ! I was hot and cold together; I was both wet and dry; I was a chafed lion and one, too, with tfie staggered hen that looks too long at the shining metal pan ; I was unshaken and shaken also, like an apothecary's bot- tle of contents to mix disliking liquors. I know not which contrary emotion possessed me most, but each in turn played on me to the full. GROSSCROP.— You fall to living it over again in such speeches. Do not, I pray, but look rather on the brighter side ! Remember what I have promised you. So much for the present use, but my more leisure time will devise what further ben- efit I can recompense you with, and so you have my word to it. BEAKS. — I do not forget it's so, and your kind- ness is a lump of sweetness dropped into my bitter cup that gives me better heart to drink it. Yet there's another something I scarce dare speak of, and still would have you know. GROSSCROP.— Be bold to tell me it. What is it you would say? OUR NEW HERALDRY 187 BEAKS. — I scarce can tell, for my poor head swims, but I've been cheated of a wife, is't not? GROSSCROP.— It is confessed. BEAKS.— And child and children, too? GROSSCROP.— Is that the thing? BEAKS. — Not that you think I mean to say! You have a daughter? GROSSCROP.— Why will you revert again to this to wound me deeper? BEAKS. — But you mistake me there. It is your daughter Kate I speak of. GROSSCROP.— What is it of her? She knows nothing of this business. BEAKS. — I trust she does not and never may. I must speak more plain ! I nurse a hope I yet may win her for my wife in place of her that's gone, from whom I mean to take divorcement. GROSSCROP.— Your wife? BEAKS. — It is but a hope, I said. Yet now I fear to speak with too much suddenness. My thought goes to it and likes no pause. Such happy happening would breach the broken fragments of my life across and knit them close again. Her modest virtue and quiet qualities have long lived in my observance to win esteem of me. It would restore me quite to know that I had your kindly will and helpful office to it. GROSSCROP.— This is so unexpected ! So hasty i88 OUR NEW HERALDRY fallen! Her frame of mind is delicate in its parts and sensitive to the touch ol any grossness. But here others come that now must end our present talk of this. Some future time we'll weigh it over. (Enter Mrs. Grosscrop and Rev. Pinkwort.) MRS. GROSSCROP.— And still the long face bears you in its company? Such ancient manner- ing for a wife that's dead, hints at ill-breeding and no refining smack of our new gentility about it. BEAKS.— My wife's not dead but left me only. MRS. GROSSCROP.— It is the same thing by a different word, for a wife deserting is a wife al- ready dead to him she has deserted. O you're but an untrimmed plank still, rough fallen from the saw, and no touch of the smoothing plane or pol- ishing paper yet given it. Your knowledge of the game stamps you for green. BEAKS. — You do not give me that my under- standing bites. MRS. GROSSCROP.— It is a toothless under- standing, and must to the bottle as other nurslings do. When a wife dies what next pin does the lonesome husband move upon the board? There's no well bred boy at school but knows it. BEAKS.— What pin? MRS. GROSSCROP.— Why he beds another wife. It is writ down in every husband's memory to do that upon the present one's death, and age OUR NEW HERALDRY 189 and attendant aches are no impediment to it. O there's never a superannuated and wrinkled grey- beard whose shrunken-gummed mate, Joan, did him honest duty in his hard service for two score years, but every time she's abed with a colic or the cramp, bethinks his bald noddle how soon it will be until he puts this rule to the practice. It is a particular rule to wedlock that bears exceptions thinner against it than any other, to keep up this proces- sion. PINKWORT.— What procession is it? MRS. GROSSCROP.— Of marriages following funerals and funerals marriages to the last tick of time. And it is chiefly noted there for a strange anomaly that rubs wooly nature's fur counter, that widowered bald-pates hold a noble affinity for young and hot virginity, and therefore you shall never see a watery-eyed old man and face of scabby dryness but will fix his election fast upon a strip- ling girl not yet above sixteen years; but 'tis from the grammar school they all will pick a second wife, yet the old man picks his the youngest. PINKWORT.— You cut our gentlemen too sharp in such a speech. There is no marriage but woman too is party to it and holds her free voice with it to answer either yes or no. Old men would never marry maids if maids w^ould marry not with them. She must find in it some equalling thing to tempt her to it. 190 OUR NEW HERALDRY MRS. GROSSCROP.— It is his tempting dough she finds that tempts her itching fingers to stick their prettiness into it, and so holds them fast as the spider's web the flies. It needs that proviso. PINKWORT.— What proviso? MRS. GROSSCROP.— That one of the money; the old man must have it or his lean legs shall lie alone and no young blood to warm them. (Enter Quillet.) QUILLET. — The caucusing committee is clam- oring for you loudly, and dispatched me off in haste to fetch you. You must go at once. GROSSCROP.— What? Is anything amiss? QUILLET.— Nothing; but all bids well to make a speedy choice of you. Our iron is hot to white- ness, and every light blow leaves now his deep in- dent. The galleries are hoarse with shouting of your name, and the opposing voices smothered into silence. GROSSCROP.— But there's no surety yet; the issue hangs still upon uncertainties. QUILLET. — By as safe a guess as any happen- ing not yet arrived, can be foretold, your election is a surety. GROSSCROP. — Yet is there no concealed intent in this? What purpose prompted them to send for me at such a time? QUILLET. — Be assured on that; it was done on OUR NEW HERALDRY 191 motion of your friends by my suggestion that the sight of you might wind enthusiasm higher. GROSSCROP.— I will go at once. QUILLET. — You should frame a little speech to greet them, a few soft-falling, oily words, that do no hurt to anyone. It is windy nothings such as these that touch the stops open on that rude and thunderous organ, the popular voice. (Exit Grosscrop, Beaks and Quillet.) MRS. GROSSCROP.— They will sure make elec- tion of him. PINKWORT.— It is stoutly to be hoped, but why do you so confidently express it? MRS. GROSSCROP.— For that nature has af- fixed to him the tags and seals that mark him for one to win the popular favor. There is no ill part in man to catch their votes but he wears loudly the badge of it upon his vest. PINKWORT.— What do you esteem these need- ful parts? I beg you tell me. MRS. GROSSCROP.— The main one is a good cover hiding a rotten core, for the herd never look beneath the painted skin, and in that particular they imitate those playful insects which are drawn on by gaudy coloring to sip at it, though the ingredient of it be poison to them. PINKWORT.— And the next? MRS. GROSSCROP.— The next— you press me 192 OUR NEW HERALDRY too close to run over such foul ground ; I must take breath — the next, no god but self; no friends but serve as stones to mount by; no honor but cun- ning; no directness but indirection; no practice but a false one ; no — O, the catalogue of bad qualities is too many to word it over ! But why do you look about so? PINKWORT.— It is for Kate I look; I left her here a moment since, but now it seems she's gone. MRS. GROSSCROP.— Your mind runs to her constantly. I must check you for too much atten- tion shown to her of late; you should take care how you kindle me up to jealousy of her. PINKWORT. — Indeed I have given you no cause, though confessing I esteem her highly. MRS. GROSSCROP.— But I fear your esteem grows contemplative, which is the sure precursor of sighs and love ballads. You show me scanty courtesy when she is by ; you avoid my eye, finding out hers with yours. You do not care a doit for me longer ! PINKWORT.— O, you mistake! You mistake indeed ! You interpret me wrongly ! MRS. GROSSCROP.— I guess the wind's direc- tion by the idle chaff that rides with him. PINKWORT. — It is almost dark, and none can see us here! (Kisses her hand.) KATE. — And kisses, too ! Merciful heaven ! OUR NEW HERALDRY 193 MRS. GROSSCROP.— But why do you hold aloof from me so much of late? PINKWORT.— It is that our love is covert, and may only show himself in secret, that your ob- servance makes me seem a little cold when those are by that might take note of it. MRS. GROSSCROP.— And Kate above the rest? PINKWORT. — Her intuitive sense is quick to read more than on the surface shows. MRS. GROSSCROP.— She eyes you much of late, and grows moody, too, both signs that love in her is making measurement of you. YouVe en- couraged her to it. PINKWORT. — I have not so by word or any action that she might construe to it. MRS. GROSSCROP.— Still I am in part re- solved to tell her something that in justice she should know. PINKWORT.— Not of my wife? MRS. GROSSCROP.— You guess it rightly; it would be better to tell her frankly you've a wife yet living, whom you're parted from. This much, since she looks on you, she should in fairness know, with injunction to hold it secret. Let me tell her of it tonight. PINKWORT.— No ! no! Not for the world; I beg you earnestly do not tell her it! KATE. — What place — what evil place is't here 194 OUR NEW HERALDRY I stand in, where every sound is keener than a ser- pent's sting and every sight a basilisk to strike out my eyes? All-seeing God that dwellest above in peace — a witness to thy traitorous and false serv- ant, man, who, in thy sight, spurns thy ordinance, mocks at thy sovereign law, and spits against high heaven's face, forbear no more thy wrathful hand to split open the purple dome above and spill out the sulphurous rains upon his scornful head ! Leave thy divinity now, thy patience and forgiveness, too, and be a vengeful God, not a merciful, that this, thy rebel and haughty-hearted subject, may taste his true deserts ! Strike fear, strike quaking fear into his ungrateful bowels, that he may beg thee mercy now, but show him none ! Awake thy slumbering ministers that tend on man's destruction ! Call up the hoarse and pitiless whirlwind out of the droop- ing south, that her horrid and fierce threatening brow may over-top the sun and blot him out; fix no confine, no place or boundary to her licensed play but give her o'er the spacious world to frolic in, until her climbing and pent rage gains such pro- portions that from its firm axle the globe itself be ript and man tossed out ! Shame ! Shame ! Shame ! (Exit Kate hurriedly.) PINKWORT.— What noise was it there? Did you hear nothing? MRS. GROSSCROP.— I did, but do not know what 'twas. OUR NEW HERALDRY 195 PINKWORT. — Some one concealed ran from the bushes there! MRS. GROSSCROP.— The sound was like it. PINKWORT.— 'Twas Kate who overheard our talk ! Fm sure 'twas Kate ! I am undone if it was she! MRS. GROSSCROP.— No ; you mistake! Your fear too hastily jumps. (Enter Julia with lights.) It is Julia that this way comes to light the lan- terns up. It is the hour and the guests will soon arrive. PINKWORT. — I am much relieved since it is so! I feared we had been seen. MRS. GROSSCROP.— Or heard, you may bet- ter say. PINKWORT.— Both seen and heard, and either bad enough. MRS. GROSSCROP.— And look how you trem- ble at it! For shame on your man's courage! It is more timid than the timorous hare in spring that flies his own shadow on the moon-lit grass. PINKWORT.— Yet where is Kate? Her ab- sence and that noise both lend me some uneasiness. MRS. GROSSCROP.— I will speak to this girl of her. (To Julia) Where is my daughter Kate? Did you see her as you came? JULIA. — I did not, ma'am. MRS. GROSSCROP.— Then go and search for 196 OUR NEW HERALDRY her and tell her that we wait her here. Remind her that it's near the hour. (Exit Julia.) PINKWORT.— Our watchfulness should be more wary or it will call detection on us. MRS. GROSSCROP.— You are too fearful. But here the first installment of our dowdy company comes. Now for the clap of parrots' tongues, and smirks, and quirks, and gossips' yarns, and aged jokes, and compliments stale, and whatever else goes with a ladies' congress of promiscuous dames ! (Enter several ladies.) 1st L. — And so we are the first to come? MRS. GROSSCROP.— The first and therefore first in welcome ! You're precisely on the hour ; the others will be here directly. 2nd L. — Good evening, pastor! How noble 'tis of you to sit apart in lonesome meditation and read- ing of the stars, I'll warrant. 1st L. — It is a very night for star-reading! 3rd L.' — Most like it is his petition against Sab- bath-breakers ! How goes it, pastor? PINWORT.— Good evening, ladies! And good welcome to you all ! 1st L. — O, did you hear the dreadful news? I'm dying to tell it! 2nd L. — O shocking news ! OUR NEW HERALDRY 197 3rd L. — O, simply horrid news! MRS. GROSSCROP.— What is it? Tell us what 'tis? ist L. — That wicked Mrs. Beaks — 2nd L. And Feathers, too ! My husband said Feathers ! 3rd L. — They ran away together — MRS. GROSSCROP.— Your news is old. We've known it long ago they ran away. 1st L. — Our news is more than that; you have not heard the last nor worst of it. 2nd L. — My husband said it was worse, and worst he'd heard for many a day. 1st L. — When they were fleeing from the officers in pursuit, and reached the straits — 3rd L. — The officers were hard upon their track— 2nd L. — And tried to cross the windy straits — 1st L. — In a small boat that there they had picked up— 3rd L. — They both were drowned ! 2nd L. — Drowned in the very water, my husband said! MRS. GROSSCROP.— What ! She was not drowned? 1st L. — Yes, drowned! 2nd L. — A hundred fathoms deep or more, my husband said ! 198 OUR NEW HERALDRY 3rd L. — Both were drowned! MRS. GROSSCROP.— It was a dreadful fate so suddenly to overtake her ! Yet this may be a flying rumor merely, lacking confirmation. Invention waits upon all noisy happenings to breed a hundred false reports of them. 2nd L. — But this report is true ! Is true ! I know it's true ! My husband saw a man that saw an offi- cer that saw them sink, and never raised for a third time, which he took for an evil sign. MRS. GROSSCROP.— How so an evil sign? 2nd L. — They did not raise three times ! Had their poor souls been right they had raised three times, as all good folks in drowning do. It's bad enough to drown in any sense, but God spare me a drowning and not to raise three times adoing it! MRS. GROSSCROP.— In your emergency I trust your better luck will float you up a thousand times instead of three, and the last on firm dry ground, with your good breath still in you. 2nd L. — Only three times ! I would not wish it more nor less than three even times. MRS. GROSSCROP.— This is a sad thing! 2nd L. — And to sink like stones ! There is the worst I And not for a third time to put their heads up ! I would not for the world they were kith or kin to me and drown so ! MRS. GROSSCROP.— Yet now her end is made OUR NEW HERALDRY 199 and no more harm can touch her. The remorse- less sisters at the wheel can spin no other tangled skein with length enough to reach her freed feet to trip them up to any further harm. 2nd L. — You speak too feelingly of her ! MRS. GROSSCROP.— She has paid her bond to nature in the full and holds in its discharge a bank- rupt's good acquittance and true receipt exempting her from any further draft, while we, poor, blind, bewildered traffickers here, dreading the unwelcome hour this stern creditor shall call us to the like ac- count with him, do fiercely sweat ourselves and loudly pant for breath, to stretch the cinctures wider of our poor merchandise that only its grosser bulk may win on us our petty neighbors' envy, until a little while has run, a little while whose uncertain term we do not know, and then comes the execu- tion bailiff down with his sealed writ from that court whence lies no appeal, to strip us naked of our all in payment, and level down our great bigness to equal theirs that lie the flattest. For in the end we only pay this debt at last that being paid, leaves us no remnant behind of anything. She has paid the debt, and therefore, her poorness now is not more poor than we ourselves who have it still to pay by rendering all to it. 2nd L. — You speak too feelingly of her to give her so much credit ! Too feelingly indeed ! She paid nothing unless it be she paid the round price of 200 OUR NEW HERALDRY her capering folly with some addition fixed to it for usury's sake! For as my husband says, who does a dance must pay his piper's price, and so I think she paid hers, and think you wrong to say these speeches on her that might be said upon her betters who drowned properly and three comings up ! God between us and harm, that is what I say, and think you wrong that say otherwise ! MRS. GROSSCROP.— I said nothing but that it was a sad thing. 2nd L. — Sad, but not sad so ! 3rd L. — And I agree it's sad! Now that she is dead and gone, I agree it's sad ! And I do not say it either that any should mistake me to upholding such a drowning, which I hope not so to be mis- understood of me, but I say still it's sad, and said so first, as my girl Susan knows, who is a good servant of her kind, and can bear me witness that I did. ist L. — Indeed it's sad, and the hearing it made me feel so strangely sad, I had scarce been here tonight but to see the Danish count that's coming, and how counts act in company, and to make judg- ment for myself how the affair stands between him and big Miss Stoutly, who they say has set her cap for him, backed by her father's money, though I would not wish to speak my true opinion of such a match. 3rd L.— 'Twill be no match between these two! OUR NEW HERALDRY 201 Her saucy fatness will win little good of it to set her feathered cap for him for all her father's money, which is not more than May Meeks' uncle has, who holds the count a lump of dough within her hand to make of it what thing she will, and a far more likely match it would be though some few think her old, and her left eye cast, which looked at rightly does not mar her looks at all, as I've heard many say, and judges, too, that well might speak, and — 2nd L. — But young Narrows that was her suitor! Where is young Narrows? She surely has not broke with Narrows, a poor and struggling doctor of two years' practice at it and patiently waiting his first patient still ! You do not tell me she has broke with Narrows? 1st L. — Where have you slept this while and not to hear she has? 2nd L. — O then, so much for learning if that's the reward it meets with! Narrows is a scholar and knows all kinds of things from books and writes such verses too, you'd swear you read a very poet to read them. I am for Narrows, and she has no sense otherwise. 1st L. — And far too good for her he is! That was a shameful thing of hers over on Windy Beach ! I had not believed any girl to be so indecent ! 2nd L.— O tell us! 3rd L. — Do tell us ! 202 OUR NEW HERALDRY 1st L. — O it is too indecent! I have no will to harm her! Yet I think 'twas the most immoral thing, and for a young girl too, and decent parents I 2nd L. — Pray tell us ! O it must be good ! Tell us pray! 3rd L.— O tell us! ist L. — I am no gossip and I fear to harm her! Let you take my word for it that 'twas a most in- decent and immoral thing for a young girl ! As immoral and indecent as may well be imagined. Let me not do her the injury to tell what it was ! • 2nd L. — O if you love us tell ! 3rd L. — We'll give you no peace else ! 1st L. — Well then I will tell you but not from any love of gossip, and you must not think it. 2nd L. — O God forbid that any should think you gossipy or any of us here. We are Christian ladies all, I hope. 1st L. — Why then this it was: She owns a bathing gown and breeches, and with them went a-bathing on the beach, and men standing not far off, and God knows what! 2nd L. — O the horrid thing! 3rd L.— O! O! O! 2nd L. — O we will cut her! 3rd L. — Yes! Yes! I am for cutting her! 1st L. — O true she deserves a cutting! OUR NEW HERALDRY 203 (Enter Wattles.) WATTLES.— It's done ! It's done ! And here I am leaving my breath behind me to be the first to tell it ! It was a cold knock-out, and in ten minutes from the first note of the gong! I would not call it above three straight bouts when it's finished and the referee throws down the staff! PINKWORT.— What is it? What is done? WATTLES. — He whipped them to the pit and they may make their choice of jumping into it! (Cheers within.) And there the mad rabble come madly riding him on their shoulders, if he were the true champion had won the world's best belt a thousand times ! Hurrah for Grosscrop ! MRS. GROSSCROP.— Why what is the matter? WATTLES. — Grosscrop is elected ! We did it ! We swore we'd do it and will not be damned for perjury unless it be perjury to swear a true oath and keep it! We whipped them to their holes in a malady of sickness for healing liniments and pota- tions, and the best doctors name their ailment dumbness, for the sharpest ear can hear no voice of them that were before louder than croaking frogs ! Hurrah for Grosscrop ! The new senator ! My voice is cracked now that had my best wind through his horn before the lazy sun climbed him out of bed this day and no rest since ! Hurrah for the new senator ! Let the new senator not for- get his true friends ! Rah ! Rah ! I am in no voice 204 OUR NEW HERALDRY now to what I was at sunrise ! 'Twould ha' done you good to hear me then ! Rah ! Rah ! My name is Wattles ! Tell him that you heard Wattles' good pipe blowing! Rah! Rah! (Enter numerous citizens bearing Grosscrop on their shoulders, Quillet and others following.) GROSSCROP. — Set me down, good gentlemen ! (They set him down.) VOICES. — Hurrah for Senator Grosscrop ! Hurrah, the new senator ! GROSSCROP. — I am not worth so much honor heaped on me I VOICE. — A thousand times worthy! ALL. — A thousand times ! QUILLET. — A speech, senator! A speech! ALL. — A speech ! Speech ! Speech ! GROSSCROP.— I hold no gift of speech making! I am a plain man as you all know well that truly loves his fellow citizens ! VOICE.— Hear! Hear! ALL.— Hurrah ! Rah ! Rah ! QUILLET. — To a platform, senator! ALL.— Platform! Platform! (They lift him to a platform.) GROSSCROP. — Since you will have it so! But I lack art in it ! Most worthy friends — OUR NEW HERALDRY 205 A VOICE.— Quillet! Three cheers for Quillet! ALL.— Hurrah ! Hurrah ! MRS. GROSSCROP.— They would have him speak and will not hear him when he does it. PINKWORT.— The fire of their enthusiasm sets them so ablaze that in its heat they are as children, not knowing what they want save noise and mad- ness. i\IRS. GROSSCROP.— Nor what they do either. PINKWORT.— Nor what they do- MRS. GROSSCROP.— It is most strange that in the mass the people show so little wisdom in them ! Their collective voice will hasten to pronounce with thunderous assurance bespeaking knowledge of the matter, those evil judgments that the poorest man's wisdom amongst them all, standing by it- self alone, would do more wisely than they do. They are as twenty deaf musicians that play at different tunes together, making of the result a fury of discordant sounds, yet taken severally alone, each has a touch of music in him. Together they have no judgment, but apart each has a mite of it. PINKWORT.— The level people have body only but no head. And therefore to supply this felt de- fect, you shall see them prone at last to come clamoring on behind some single leader's guide, though professing loudly to despise all leadership, save their free will. But in this choice too, they are as children, for they pick as leader always the 2o6 OUR NEW HERALDRY noisiest flatterer of their weakness, and him that promises most and therefore performs the least. MRS. GROSSCROP.— But look, they give him some atention now ! GROSSCROP. — Respected citizens and my most honored countrymen ! That you are wise and by your wisdom governed and governing, needs not my voice in its support; that you are generous, noble and bear alive in you the honored spark of liberty, stands approved by your high action. 1st VOICE. — Good senator! 2nd VOICE. — Honorable, good senator! 3rd VOICE. — Excellent, honorable, good senator! GROSSCROP. — I humbly thank you, gentlemen ! That I am selected now your humble servant to do your pleasure's bidding! That you make choice of me, I am honored in it; but that you chose me from among yourselves, where were so many honor- able ones to make a choice of, is honor thrice be- stowed on me ! VOICE.— Hear! Hear! ALL. — Thrice honorable senator! GROSSCROP.— Good friends ! Dear friends ! Be- fore you here I stand your chosen servant, in your deep debt, that renders in its payment to you his constant love and dearest service ! ALL.— He:ar! Hear! Hurrah! 'Rah! 'Rah! OUR NEW HERALDRY 207 MRS. GROSSCROP.— They are moved now to an ecstacy of madness. PINKWORT.— So they are. (Enter Julia.) But look to this girl ! How pale and ghastly as with fright as she comes ! MRS. GROSSCROP.— They look so that look on death's face ! She brings some bad report ! My fear interprets what it is! JULIA. — O mercy! O God! Kate in her room lies dead in a pool of blood ! MRS. GROSSCROP.— I feared 'twas so! PINKWORT.— Kate dead! Not dead? JULIA. — Stone dead and cold ! A grinning knife tight clasped within her bloody hand she did it with ! God ! God ! The sight ! PINKWORT.— A suicide! A suicide! It was she ran from the vines then ! MRS. GROSSCROP.— I knew it was she. JULIA. — O the sight of it ! I touched her cheek before I knew and it felt like ice ! O the sight ! PINKWORT.— Let the others know it! Pro- claim it loudly that all may hear ! It is not fit that these proceedings should go further on. MRS. GROSSCROP.— Do not so ! Twould bring confusion down on us and with this motley group ! Let us rather hasten quick to where she lies for what last service we may find to do. JULIA.— O that sight! 2o8 OUR NEW HERALDRY (Exeunt Mrs. Grosscrop, Pinkwort, Julia and ladies.) GROSSCROP.— Brave men love liberty; I shall not ask you if you love it. ALL.— We do! We do! Hurrah for liberty! GROSSCROP. — It is most plain that you love it ; therefore are you brave men ! So were your fore- fathers brave men that on the field purchased this liberty for you ! Brave men love morality ; I read in your wise laws you love morality; brave men — A VOICE. — The people in the public square are by the thousand gathering to greet their senator! To the public square ! ALL.— To the public square! Bear him to the square ! (Exeunt all bearing Grosscrop aloft.) (The End.) H 488 85 4 •lo^ Q*^ ^ ** ^o Ho^ <- *'V..*\.0^ ^^. '«•* X* _ -^, ^ --XVVN^ /N^ ^A •'S .-^^-c. * ' * • *^ * » » HECKMAN BINDERY INC. ^^ OCT 85 W~W' ^- MANCHESTER, }?-n^. ► «Vo'> .0'