Classic Poem

SCENE II

The same. The torches have burnt out: the glow of the fire is still great enough to illumine the lower part of the hall, but the upper part and the arcade are lost in darkness. The ENVOY is asleep in the chair by the fire, his head on his hand .
ENVOY , awakening and sitting up.

Yes. Who is that? . . .
Disquiet that is not sound wakes me again.
I watch becalmed on a dark tide of sleep
That has no murmurs; yet when its small motion
Withdraws me from myself I hear each time
A voice that has no substance.
Too many men have died in this old fastness;
Or else the spirits of its living cannot
Suspend their eager operation and sleep,
As bodies that waste must sleep.
I would pray to sleep if I could dream of her,
And to sleep long.
I lose myself in her with every thought;
Yet when I lose myself in drifts of sleep
She never comes as I could come to her;
I only hear behind a shaking curtain
An unknown presence wrapt with rumourings
Of urgency, quick flame and wilful wreck.
It seems she does not turn to me in sleep;
So I'll not sleep again.
A small light passes slowly from right to left along the high arcade .
The ENVOY shifts in his chair and handles his dagger .

A light? A light? Though light is honesty,
Yet light at midnight oftenest shines on knaves,
And deeds of darkness sometimes seek a glimmer
To bud and open in.
Is this the oaf that comes to spy or stab?
GRUACH descends the stair, walking in her sleep and bearing a small and lighted night-lamp; she is in her night-clothes, and tumbled, tangled masses of hair that escape from her night-cap fall about her like a golden shawl .
ENVOY , half rising and huskily.

Lady, how did you know?
She is unconscious of him, and, as she emerges from the arch, turns from him toward the place where he stood at their first meeting: she moves slowly and uncertainly, and in bearing and demeanour reproduces FERN'S description of her appearance on the previous night .
GRUACH , speaking always in a veiled hesitating tone.

Beautiful stranger, why are you here?
I did but change my gown,
And in a moment you come
From empty valleys.
O me, if I had missed you, my lord.
You are so kingly made,
Fair and desireable,
I am drowned in flushes of gladness.
I would cover you with my being like a veil
To hide you from women;
I would pour out my being over you
Like faint moonlight that is yet universal
And enfolds kings and their kingdoms.
Will you take me? Will you not?
ENVOY , simulating her tone, but with repressed eagerness.

Ay.
GRUACH , as before.

The light is going fast.
I cannot see you plainly now.
O, where, where are you? ENVOY

Here.
Repeat thyself: be thine own mirror
And shew me twice thy heart.
When wilt thou take me? GRUACH
Say it again. Tell me once more, blest spirit. ENVOY

Now. GRUACH

You have gone farther off. Will you leave me?
Whence do you speak to me? ENVOY

Out of the darkness.
I shall not leave you until you bid me go.
Am I a stranger now?
I to myself am strange; I do not know
My voice, my stumbling senses, or my will.
But there is nothing strange in you, white lady;
As in a welcome dream nothing is strange
When newly come delight seems in a moment
To have been ours for life.
I have believed that you were on the earth,
As some believe in gods they cannot see.
In this first hour love is not born in me:
I recognize; I remember; I possess:
I am here to take my own. GRUACH

Yes; yes. O, do not cease.
You utter many words; I am tired,
I catch in vain at them as they gleam past;
But in your voice is truth,
And truth, that oftenest means unkindness,
This once is joy. ENVOY

Men have too many words: but there's a word
That holds all others, as you hold for me
The provocation of all disquieting women:
This love is to strike deep, and when you awake
You shall be sure of me, you shall devote
Fire of your brain, fire of your heart, to me. GRUACH

Where? Where? Your voice sounds close below me.
You must not kneel to me.
Come, come to me: I would bend down
And clasp you into my breath,
But creeping palsies hold me;
My arms and thighs are heavy things
That will not move for me.
You know she binds me:
You can loose me: you dare not act.
ENVOY , in a clear, natural voice as he starts to his feet and approaches GRUACH .

Falter no more in the dim passages
That in the outer walls of life's house burrow
And endlessly return upon themselves.
Awake and with me dare. Awake! Awake!
GRUACH , awaking, loosens her hold of her lamp, which goes out in falling: she stares, startled; then, with a plaintive, long sigh, reels and sinks: the ENVOY reaches her barely in time to receive her in his arms .

Have I broken the bird's wings to catch the bird?
Have I shattered the door of her mind to enter there?
This ruin is done in me; I have unbuilt
The only hallowed place where I can worship.
A slight pause .

Her heart begins anew;
And nascent life is trembling everywhere.
He kisses her .

Not any words shall peril her again
By sudden occurrence; I'll use a quieter means,
And through a more unwary sense infuse
My life into her sources, into her thought.
He kisses her repeatedly . GRUACH

Where am I? What have I done?
Some distillation lately touched my lips:
A freshness that awoke me lingers there.
What will you do with me, beautiful stranger?
Why are you here? Who are you? Go from my chamber.
Loose me. Leave me. Loose me. Let me go.
She first seizes his shoulders to push him from her, then slips her arms about his waist and wrestles with him. Her onset almost overthrows him, and he only continues with difficulty to hold his own . ENVOY

Listen. . . . I am the same Macbeth. . . .
It was the distillation of my soul. . . .
GRUACH , unbeedingly.

Thieves are men of the night: murderers
Are men of the night. You have the stoat's and foumart's
Passion for throats in the dark: you are not one
Who kills in the open, you would kill in sleep and
In the vile safety of a private room.
Faugh, you foul treacherous beast. . . . Aha, aha,
My hand is on your dagger: let go your hold,
Or I'll drive it down the side of your neck. ENVOY

Strike.
Her bare arm shoots up to bring the dagger down with force: be catches her wrist in the air .

Lately I heard your spirit take a voice
And from outside our earth-taught reticence
Speak: sure and clear and deathless and afar,
Like the first half-waked bird in Spring's first dawn,
Its darkling dewy murmurs then gave up
Your mind to me, your being to me.
Would you undo it in a waking dream? GRUACH

You! You! O, dangerous knife.
What thoughts have you pressed into its haft of old?
Not many breaths ago its touch lit in me
Conceptions of destroying unknown to me:
My mind was ready, and I did intend
To strike you down and desolate my years.
The dagger falls from her hand .

Speak softly, my lord; but speak.
How have you found my chamber? ENVOY

Look about you. GRUACH

Why have you brought me here? ENVOY

You came alone. GRUACH

Were you here before me? ENVOY

Surely. GRUACH

But why? But why? ENVOY

I have slept here. GRUACH

Had you, then, thought to meet me? ENVOY

We might have met no more. GRUACH

Did you not care? ENVOY

I cared to do your wish more than my duty:
I was cheated of choice. Your elder kinswoman
Denied to me your offered bridal bed
(I would have lain beside it on the floor),
Deprived me of the kneeling room you gave
Near to your feet at the altar, and of the seat
Upon your bench at the board; and left me nothing
But leave to ride away before you rose. GRUACH

I am sick in my limbs and my mind to learn so late
I might have lost you while I dreamed of you —
For I have dreamed of you to-night, my lord,
In the security of a sweet to-morrow:
I am sick in my reins and my compassionate body
To feel each time you speak that I have meant
To tear your flesh with a sharpened piece of iron.
You know what it means to me, do you not?
And yet I do not know why I am here. ENVOY

You sought in sleep the stations of our meeting,
As holy women the stations of the Cross
To act again life's chosen, passionate hour. GRUACH

I am not a sapless girl to walk in sleep:
I can control my force. ENVOY

You came to me:
You told me all I know. GRUACH

I did not speak:
I dreamed I heard your voice, but not my own.
A slight pause .

If women spoke in sleep they would awake,
They have suspicious ears.
A slight pause .

What have I said? ENVOY

The things you felt last night, heart-shaking things
That timid men teach women to wait to hear;
The truth of your live spirit loosed unaware,
That, rising suddenly from ancient darkness,
Took on its wings the light of the next dawn
Before the lonely night below was past.
The rapture of presence; the offering of love;
The radiance of surrender: of these you spoke. GRUACH

All, all is true. What more have I said? What else? ENVOY

You uttered no more but love. GRUACH

It was well said. I could not say it now,
Conscious that you would hear. I am glad it is done.
And you? I dreamed your voice, but not your words. ENVOY

The rapture of presence; the offering of love;
A sense of strange remembrance: I told of these. GRUACH

I knew it all last night: what will you do?
Time and men's rules will part us quickly now,
And nothing will be left.
My father's race is ruined, my mother's kin
Hems me in here in grim solicitude;
My cousin and his mother demand my hand;
They mean my land. I cannot stand alone:
Even the trees and mountains in this wildness
Huddle together against the blasts of time
And planetary tempests: what should I do?
This is my hour of fate, this is the time
When I must break the blind restricted seed
That I am now, move with the winds of life
And yield my mental issue to them again,
Or in this present burial rot and change.
Is your love strength or weakness? What will you do?
Help me, and now. ENVOY

I shall not ride away as I was bidden;
I shall remain.
When Fortingall has all his guests about him
I will declare our love and, by the weight
Of Duncan's kinship insisting on obedience,
Forbid your marriage until I come again,
My errand to Caithness done, and claim your troth,
Marry you here and carry you to Scone. GRUACH

You will not get away from them alive:
There are no King's men here.
And if the King sends men to look for you
They will not know which rock in this rough valley
Was chosen for your grave-stone.
You must ride now as you were bidden. And yet
You must not ride from me: take me to Scone:
I should be here no more if you returned. ENVOY

That will not much commend us to the King. GRUACH

Then I'll to Caithness too; but now, now, now.
You must ride now; and I must go with you. ENVOY

But shall we not be followed? GRUACH

To the death. ENVOY

Why must I risk your life? GRUACH

The chance is good.
Conan can only think one thought at once:
His hunt will storm to Inverness, while we
Ride North by East until we are far from here. ENVOY

And wed in Caithness' church? GRUACH

And swiftlier wed
In the first church we come to when we are clear. ENVOY

Ride with me: let us go. GRUACH

Sir, are you sure of me? Before you take me
You should be told I was born your enemy:
I am of a more ancient house of kings
Than you: King Kenneth was among my fathers. ENVOY

Then with your love
You bring a power over many minds
That, if we are added truly to each other,
Can set us higher than either house has stood. GRUACH

You can be great if you are so great-hearted.
You are my redeemer, you shall have my faith;
Service, and I can serve you with men's truth;
Devotion, and I could wreck myself, my world,
To reach its end, your good.
One thing is mordant in me at thought of you;
When we fought body to body you overcame.
I must undo it; let us strive again.
Come, let me grasp you.
She holds out her arms to him .
He takes her hands and draws her toward him; with a low cry she feigns to faint, and be catches her to him; she lays her head on his shoulder, and laughs lightly and gently . ENVOY

Circling each other so in soft enclosure,
Loosening our folds with mutual-moving breath,
Our wreathing seems to rustle and expand,
As crushed, unwrinkling petals in a bud
Widen together in unbroken touch,
Begin a blossom's effluence, concede
A blossom's trembling welcome to the night
That fills it, and that it believes it fills. GRUACH

Beloved, we are foolish: we should ride.
ENVOY , loosening her.

Put on your clothes: I go to saddle horses. GRUACH

I have no clothes: all that I ever had
Are in my chamber under the tower roof.
I dare not fetch them, I might rouse many sleepers.
Everything I have worn since my hair grew long
Was spun and woven and stitched in Fortingall:
My kin shall feel my clouts flung back at them
If I go out with nothing. I can endure it:
I have gone barefoot in snow before to-night,
And there is now no snow. ENVOY

You cannot live against the rushing sharpness
If we push North to-night.
Going to the curtained recess .

There are furs here;
You shall be wrapt in them.
He brings furs piled on his arm, and throws them down before her . GRUACH

No, not the white one
The white bear-skin is Fern's from Norroway;
She was born cold and bloodless; she is soon chilled,
She needs it. Bring the wolf-cloak. Put it round me. ENVOY

Your thin white feet are far too cold already
To start on such a journey. Are there no shoes? GRUACH

Ay, in the tower: but shoes in the air are useless.
We shall find old brogues in the stable. ENVOY

What horse shall I saddle for you? GRUACH

Saddle no horse for me: I must ride with you:
Two tracks would tell our tale more certainly.
ENVOY , unbarring the door.

Will you mount black Fingal here? GRUACH

His hoofs would sound on the stones.
Halter him to the ring at the outer gate:
I will shortly join you there.
ENVOY , having opened the door.

Snow: there is snow.
O, tranquil, dreadful calm: O, deadly peace.
We are shut back into the cast-off life
By pale, relentless, softly closing gates
That no man ever opened.
We may not ride to-night: your fate has fallen.
Or is it mine that hurts you?
He throws open both doors: the ground is seen to sink sharply away from the threshold to a narrow white valley among white mountains. A faintness in the sky permeates a dense mist of lightly falling snow . GRUACH

O, joyful silence; soundlessly dropping curtains
About the secret chamber of the earth
That shall contain our bridal bed. O, sleep,
The bride's white hush is in me; I will part
The soundless curtains, and meet what is within —
Either continuing sleep, that can withdraw me
From this dead life with love my latest hope,
Or delicate, wildering waking in some pale room
To find my love with me.
Will you not come, my lord?
The snow is but a salting yet: I go,
For in an hour the breeding, feeding storm
Will cover our foot-prints, stifle all pursuit.
We can point straight for Inverness untracked,
And thread the perilous pass ere drifts are deep. ENVOY

Know you the roads? GRUACH

I know them. ENVOY

I am ready. GRUACH

If the storm clears, our dark shapes will be seen
Afar in the sharp air.
She steps to the pile of furs, throwing off her cloak as she goes .

Wear Conan's sheepskin coat. Help me to don
Fern's bear-skin cloak; lift up the hood . . . Stay, stay;
I must put my hair up first.
She tears off her nightcap and throws it into the sinking fire .

I have no pins.
Where is your little dagger?
ENVOY , stooping where the dagger lies.

It fell in the rushes.
GRUACH , holding her upcoiled hair with one hand.

Give it to me.
She thrusts it through the coil of hair .

Cover my head with the hood.
Is your horse dark like you? ENVOY

He is black as smoke. GRUACH

You can abandon him.
Conan's white battle-horse will serve us better:
Few men can see him moving against new snow. ENVOY

He saved me in a clenched, stark river-fight,
When armoured men went down a falling spate
And heavier horses under them: again
He saved me from a murderer in the night
By crying out in his stall across a garth:
When I shall enter the stable presently
He will speak to me before I am in his sight,
He will stamp until I speak to him, and touch.
I cannot leave him here. GRUACH

You set me in more danger.
Although you should devote your life to him
You cannot keep him more than a dozen years.
Do you put a horse before me? Speak. Be sure. ENVOY

The King could send a rout of men-at-arms
To claim him later — soon — in his own name.
Turning to the door .

Which is the horse? GRUACH

White Uthal is near the door. ENVOY

Shall I return for you? GRUACH

I would first write
This life's last things: I cannot forego it now.
Give me some leaf to write on, I have nothing;
Her scrivening-skins are locked away. ENVOY

I have nothing. GRUACH

What is there in your wallet? ENVOY

Nothing is there,
Save my King's letter to the Caithness Jarl. GRUACH

The margin of that will serve. ENVOY

We must not touch it, lady. The King's hand
Is hallowed, the King's seal is inviolable:
With it I lose my life. GRUACH

Your life is not your own: it is now mine.
Shew me the letter. ENVOY

Beloved, it must not be.
GRUACH , laying one hand on his shoulder, and taking the letter from his wallet with the other.

It must; it is my pride that it shall be.
She breaks the seal and opens the letter . ENVOY

Your dear hands are soon cruel. GRUACH

Look, it is well;
This piece is bare save for a superscription. ENVOY

And half of the King's name within the fold.
It is too thick to tear. GRUACH

Not for the teeth.
She bites the edge, then tears off one portion of the letter .

Keep this. It is enough. I have not hurt you.
There is still more left than the Jarl will care to read. ENVOY

I must blame some serving-man for this.
It is not wise for a well-born man to say
He has been so familiar with a menial
That such a letter could come into base hands. GRUACH

Dearest and dearer, pardon me for the sake
Of the true words I shall write on it to my kin. ENVOY

You have no pen.
GRUACH , searching among the ashes on the hearth.

A wood-coal twig writes well.
Beloved, you loiter long: hasten, and ever more hasten:
The bridal dawn is near, my enemies awake.
ENVOY , as he goes out by the great door.

I serve you for ever, white spouse. GRUACH

I shall be ready ere you.
He disappears downward to the right . GRUACH lays the fragment of the letter on the table to the right and stoops over it to write .

Is it so soon? What, shall I suddenly
Believe this life is done and I can go?
I am not foolish yet: in my deep places
I know it is not so. I know the way
In which hope gutters out in a cold draught,
And life is seen to be a habit, heavy
To put down courage, vision and eagerness.
The marvel of this night being perfect now,
Some meagre unexpected chance can soon
Flaw and disperse it in a long, sick moment,
Perfection being momentary of nature;
And when, the kind, deceitful darkness over,
Impoverishing daylight shews to me
The dead life here, I shall be here alone.
O, let me dream anew, and in a dream
Of uttered scorn sting vivid life to spring
Back to my sinking heart.
She writes .

To The Lady of Fortingall.
I am not of your blood to obey you; I will not mother your blood.
I would live, so I leave you. For your lodging and nurture take the Bride of Fortingall's clothes in payment; you will find a doll to fit them who will sit where you put her. I have given away my lands; keep your hands and feet from them.
She writes .

To The Heir of Fortingall.
If you would be married, choose your wife for yourself. I have gone away with a man, and you will not see me again.
She writes .

To Fern.
I leave you my love with my wisdom. When you meet a proper man, take him before another woman can. You will not come to life until you cross your own threshold and sit by your own hearth.

Gruach.

It is an aged woman's hand.
I cannot write to-night.
The hand may waver, the flanks shake, the limbs
Tremble, as mine do now, and yet the heart
May hold its firm and steadfast course untouched,
Being nearer to the mind;
But here the immediate substance of my heart
Slackens and shivers, my mental force withdrawn;
I have no strength to continue this delay.
He is too long.
Why should a fair, strange man regard my lot,
Or reverence my will? He need not do it.
He will not come again; and this is all.
I'll go to him.
Is that a sound? A door upstairs; a footfall?
She runs to the stair-foot and listens .

Nothing. A gown trailing? Nothing. Nothing.
ENVOY , as he approaches the doorway from the right.

The outer gate is locked. GRUACH

The key is here.
She disappears through the low doorway to the right and returns instantly with a large, long key .

We can lock the door outside and ride away with it.
She laughs softly . ENVOY

As we go down and pass the stable-door,
Do not ask me to speak. Fingall would hear. GRUACH

Let me go first; step then upon my footprints
And wipe them off my kindred's soil for ever. ENVOY

Before our life begins,
Before we go, tell in this hallowed place
The name I have not heard; whose sound I await
As waking, eager birds await the light:
Your name, my light, your name. GRUACH

Within the dark immuring womb a blind
And unseen child is nameless, and I too,
Unliving and immured, will have no name
In my subjection; this white waif of night
Shall have no name for you.
The altar-priest shall speak it first to you.
Before we leave this iron-coloured prison,
Vow you to me that, when you have the weight
In the King's mind to do a lawless thing,
You will return and tumble down these walls
Into a cairn of stones, and burn the stones
To ashen dust wherein no weed will strike. ENVOY

This is a holy house for me; the hands
I lay on it would turn to hands of blessing.
The husk that has shed you is still a shrine
Which in my old age I shall seek again.
We cannot burn the past; it would stand yet
In you, in me. Then let it stand for me. GRUACH

Lift up your hand and vow, for love of me. ENVOY

I will do all that any man can do,
For love of you.
GRUACH , going to the hearth, and gathering a handful of wood-ash.

It shall go down, or like a broken tree
Whiten and crumble to a hollow bone;
The moon shall soften it to a cowering dread,
And shapeless noises shall inhabit it.
She moves slowly from the hearth to the great door, scattering the ash with a sower's motion as she goes .

I sow and I sow the chaff of the seed of fire:
The waving, barren harvest of wilding flame
Shall here spring up, nourished by stormy air.
Come ruin, ruin and grief upon this old
Dwelling of sorrow and my captivity.
My mother died of grief; it is not ill
Her hard, unfaithful race should die of grief.
Come, ruin, down upon their greedy life,
Destruction and unseating of the mind;
Woe, be embodied to their unclosing eyes
While brackish tears run down and lodge in their lips,
And all they have flies up in flakes of flame,
To fall as now these ashes.
With the last words she reaches the threshold, where she turns to the ENVOY .

Come, Macbeth.
She goes out by the great door and, descending to the right, quickly disappears. The ENVOY follows her .
After a short pause an owl cries twice with a long retreating sound, as if disturbed and flying away .
A light passes from right to left of the high arcade: DOMHNAL descends the stair, a lamp in his hand . DOMHNAL

The stranger is not here. He has gone, maybe.
That would be well; we want no King's men here
Among the annoyances of a day of rejoicing.
How cold the house has grown.
Both doors left open? He has certainly gone.
He must be highly born to be so careless.
Snow, snow, snow.
It is the last injustice of the order of things
For snow to be added to the burdens of a feast-day.
Men will tread it in, and out, and in again;
Fine ladies will tread it upstairs and downstairs,
And spread it with their skirts until the bride's chamber
Is like the track to the cowsheds in a wet Autumn.
I can but shut it out awhile.
He turns to go out by the low door, then he sees GRUACH'S letter on the table .

A letter? This is the stranger's courtesies:
He is not graceless, though an upstart's man.
" Gruach." What have I here?
The young man has truly gone, and with what he could carry.
The new King's men are all reivers and robbers.
" I will not mother your blood . . . I have given away my lands . . .
I have gone away with a man . . . You will not see me again. . . ."
Oho, Oho; here are great things to do.
But which is first?
He stands in deep consideration, the letter in his hand .
A sound of scuffling and women's voices wrangling comes from the high arcade. Presently one of the young women hurries down the stair, pulling the girl after her by the arm and followed by the other young woman, who thrusts the girl forward from behind. The girl stands sobbing and rubbing her eyes; she is only half dressed, and carries the rest of her clothes under one arm .
FIRST YOUNG WOMAN

Come on, Onion-Peeler, Grease-Skimmer, Rancid Rags;
You shall learn not to lie in bed like an earl's daughter. GIRL

I will not go: I will not. SECOND YOUNG WOMAN

Lig-a-bed, you are to be up first. ( Pinching her .) Will you remember?
If you are not down in time to kindle my fires,
You shall be pinched all over, all over, all over,
Until you are like a bush of ripe blackberries.
So. ( GIRL . O!) And so. ( GIRL . O!) And so. ( GIRL . O!) GIRL

I'll not bear it. I'll not stay, you murderers.
My mother told me to go straight home to her
If the kitchen-ladies at the Castle were unkind to me. FIRST YOUNG WOMAN

Go home to her now: she will be glad to see you,
And gladder still to see old Marget after you. GIRL

I cannot help it: I cannot: indeed I cannot.
When I am with you by day I only see what is there;
But every night when I am alone the Sight comes on me.
It will not let me sleep until the dawn begins:
Then I am heavy and sick. Let me lie down. Pity, pity me. FIRST YOUNG WOMAN

What do you see, you mole, when the Sight is on you? GIRL

I see the Lady Gruach.
Both women laugh . SECOND YOUNG WOMAN

We all see the Lady Gruach
More than we choose; but she never keeps us awake. FIRST YOUNG WOMAN

Nor do we call it second sight when she appears.
GIRL , desperately.

I tell you I see the Lady Gruach every night.
She is covered from shoulder to foot with a trailing, spreading cloak
That is not red like blood, nor blue like the deep lake,
Yet gleams of both in the folds: it is covered with green, bright eyes.
There are large green lights in her hair over both her ears.
She wears a golden crown as if she is a queen.
Her pitiless face alarms, yet I must look and look:
Her gaze is hard to me, yet when we meet by day
She holds no memory of me in those cold eyes.
Nightly she bears a dagger. . . . FIRST YOUNG WOMAN

Shivering liar,
That finds you out: you have neither sight nor truth:
Queens carry sceptres, they are not seen with daggers. SECOND YOUNG WOMAN

And how can Gruach ever become a queen?
She is to wed long Conan after sunrise. GIRL

She bears a dagger, a red dagger. . . .
Your second sight is not worth waiting for:
You had better see your own ghost lighting fires,
For that is all you are worth. Come on.
SECOND YOUNG WOMAN , seizing the GIRL'S hanging hair on the other side .

Come down:

Come down, you shall draw me the water. GIRL

O, no, no!
They hurry the GIRL by her hair out through the low doorway to the right: she sobs and protests inarticulately and struggles as they go .
The BOY descends the stair quickly, and follows the women out .
MARGET follows the BOY down the stair . MARGET

The women are too noisy. DOMHNAL

Let them alone:
The girl from the clachan has been marred at home,
She needs rough teasing. MARGET

They are not too rough,
They are too noisy: they must be spoken to. DOMHNAL

Let them alone: there is a graver thing
To speak of now
The man who yester-eve knocked at our gate
Has carried off young Gruach in the night.
Go down and stop the roasting and the boiling:
I go to raise the house and the whole township,
To send out riders to hunt the naughty child,
And others to meet the wedding-guests who ride
And turn them home again. MARGET

How have you heard of it? DOMHNAL

By Gruach's hand:
I found this writing on the table here.
MARGET takes the letter, turns it about all ways, and throws it on the table . MARGET

Leave it for others to find. All shall go on.
Again, old friend, you are about to be
A foolish, vain, officious, blind old man.
What have you to do with it? What have I?
Morag is ageing: when the old devil dies
We do not want a ferret-eyed young mistress
To keep us still uneasy. Let her go:
Fern is mild: Conan will follow her.
And let the feast go on: Conan would feast
If Gruach were dead, and welcome the event
That brought him many guests: he will not miss
A bride he feared, if he may eat. Come down;
I'll lift the crust of the lamb pie for you.
She goes out by the low door . DOMHNAL

Elderly women believe they are always right:
But this one may be now.
He follows MARGET out .
The two SERVING-MEN descend the stair; one supports the other . FIRST MAN

You are drunk. SECOND MAN

I am not drunk. FIRST MAN

I say you are drunk. SECOND MAN

I am not drunk: I was comfortable last night,
But now I have slept it off. You can see for yourself. FIRST MAN

You have not had the time to sleep it off:
We are fetched out of bed at an immoral hour. SECOND MAN

A most unhealthy hour; an immodest hour.
But all will be well to-morrow in the morning.
The new young mistress, the pink and coy young mistress.
Will not forsake her bed to-morrow morn
At the unwise hours ordained by the old mistress. FIRST MAN

That is deep wisdom. You are drunk, nevertheless. SECOND MAN

I say I am not drunk.
They go out together affectionately by the low door .
CONAN descends the stair stealthily, peeping round the corner mistrustfully as he comes. He is in his shirt and cross-gartered braccae, and bare-footed; he holds a sword out of sight at his side . CONAN

The disquieting stranger has gone. He has truly gone.
I could have slept again had I believed it.
He has not finished here: he will return:
He shall not pass my outer gate again.
But he is gone: I should be easy now,
If this were not my wedding-day.
The Thane of Ardven's daughters will look at me,
To watch with mocking eyes what I shall do;
And Gruach will not look at me, nor seem
To know I stand or kneel or sit by her.
But that's no grief; when she does look at me
She brims me with discomfort. She is not fit
To be a wife: she follows her own will.
I had liefer wed the bridge-end blacksmith's daughter:
She fills her clothes as well as my lady cousin,
And her lips bring thoughts of dew on rosy plums.
I am not afraid to touch her. If I touch Gruach
I feel her body go hard beneath my hand,
And danger crouching there: if she does nothing,
She makes me feel outside her.
I would not wed her if she had no land:
The inconvenient wisdom of my mother
Is not to be avoided; land is land.
The knightly stranger shall not imperil it.
He has gone. It is early. I'll get to bed again,
And sleep till I am called.
He turns to ascend the stair .