Chapter IX: Act V: Scene I.--MORALITY (1)

Leave things so prostitute, And take th’ Alcaic lute, Or thine own Homer, or Anacreon’s lyre.--_Ben Jonson_.

It was the day of the dance at the Strath. Early in the morning mist rose before the sun, and a hollow silence prevailed upon the hills. Windy sighs followed, and the trees began to shake, and dead leaves scurried along the roads, and the cart-ridges were brimming with black water. At noon dark clouds raced over the valley to the sound of an anapaestic march. Then a deep haze settled, and the atmosphere was heavy with odours of decaying vegetation.

Never had the valley of Thorlund looked more lonely. Early in the afternoon Maude came to the hamlet and found the rector conducting a funeral. He saw her and with the solemn words of the office upon his lips smiled dreamily. She passed on alone into the Strath, without fear, for the place had lost its terror. She could not remember the incidents connected with her first visit; she only understood that she had suffered of late, but the cause of that suffering and its definite nature she had yet to learn. She called herself the same, both outwardly and inwardly, being unwilling to confess that she had changed; although her glass revealed a face where the white predominated over the pink, and her inner vision might have shown a picture, had she cared to contemplate it, of a mind which had been awakened. She went again, and willingly, to the Strath, not dreaming that she too had fallen beneath the influence of the goat-song, to suffer there as one may suffer when a frost-bitten limb is being restored gradually to vitality; but whenever she left the house she believed that this suffering was caused by the troublesome world, and so longed for the Strath where she might be at peace.

A few ordinary preparations had been made for the forthcoming party. The young women had made ready certain delicacies which had been brought from Kingsmore that morning; they had also been occupied over their costumes, and had made themselves masks of silk and lace.

But within the Strath all designs were brought to nothing. Not an article of furniture had been removed from the saloon, the ragged carpet still cumbered the floor, and the impossible harpsichord had not been replaced by any modern instrument of music. Conway was upstairs dreaming, Drayton sat and worked in the ante-room, Nancy Reed sang her old ballads.

Maude entered full of schemes, but when the house had received her she forgot the world and the approaching festivities which she had arranged, and seating herself before the pictures of Hogarth’s Marriage _à la Mode_ wondered why destiny handled her victims so roughly, so like a thoughtless child breaking her toys and flinging them aside.

She heard the moaning of wind, and dead leaves creeping upon the stone floor of the hall. She passed into the room opposite, and stood between the brown masks, which had watched the recluse Biron ruining mind and body with morbid fancies, and the struggles of the unknown family of Branscombe, before the solitude of a century had come to fill their blank eyes with dust.

The wind was strong on that side of the house. Gloom had already settled. She began to long for a companion, not for Flora who lately had drifted from her, but rather for a strong man who might protect her against that terrible depression, or for a child whom she might call her own, that she might show the spirit of the house how willing she was to conform to the dramatic laws. She thought of Peggy vaguely. As for the man whose name she bore, why he, the voice assured her, had grown tired of her insincerity and had found consolation elsewhere. She stood quite alone and a great fear fell upon her. When Dr. Berry entered in his noiseless fashion he discovered her kneeling, white and shivering.

He came and lifted her by the hands. The dim light fell upon his silvered head and invested each feature of his handsome face with a rare softness:

“The summer is over,” he said quietly.

“The wind begins to bite. No more long days to walk and think. The time of imagination has gone. The winter comes when we must work.”

“That poem I read to you,” gasped Maude.

“I told you it was my own, but that was a lie. I copied it, word for word. You have been very much mistaken in me. I am a wicked worthless woman, and have always deceived you.”

The scholar shook his head with a wondering smile, and answered her, “Are we not all foolish, dear sister? We are not the masters of ourselves. He who is wisest among us is but a copyist. We poets sing as the influence directs. The song is not our own, because nothing that we have is ours. The tongue is a loan, and the mind itself but the tenant of a short-lived body. There is truth therefore in your sublime humility. Your verses are copies, and so are mine; but let us console ourselves with the knowledge that to few is given even sufficient power to repeat an old tale well. No, you shall not answer me. No barrier of false humility should be raised between a brother and sister of Mount Parnassus.”

“You will not understand,” she cried. “I have no learning--none at all. I could not even understand the meaning of those lines I read to you.”

“Still upon that strain,” he murmured. “Why then, I must answer you. By your definition I too am false. I am unable to comprehend the great realities which move around us and bend us to their will. I too have no learning, because when I take up that which I have written the finite mind, which has merely suggested the theme, refuses to add an understanding of the meaning. We aim at the clear sky, and find we have only struck the earth. The most inspired poet cannot soar higher than the clouds.”

As he spoke Drayton entered, and standing just within the door asked in a scarcely intelligible voice, “What is the first stage of tragedy according to the classical model?”

“The prologue,” answered the scholar with his head down. “Why do you ask?”

“We propose to give a representation of Comedy in this house to-night,” said Drayton in the same low voice. “I only desire to know the various stages in which tragic destiny moves, so that I may know what to expect. This is the prologue. Well?”

“Followed by the entry of the chorus and the first continuous song,” went on the scholar. “Then the first entry of a principal character followed by the second song, and so on, the entry and song alternating, until all the characters have been introduced. Later comes the tragic dirge, sung between a principal and the chorus; finally the solemn marching out.”

Drayton bent his head, inclining his ear as though to listen for the repetition of some distant sound, and withdrew, muttering to himself. His voice died away into the house, and the wind and the rain made the continuous song.

“I have forgotten why I came,” said Maude, resting her white forehead upon her hand. “I am miserable. I know I have done wrong, and I cannot see how to make amends. I do not even know who it is that I have wronged.”

“You have wronged me a little,” said the voice of the poet.

“I have deceived you. I have made you believe I am good and clever.”

“Cease from this perversity,” he cried. “You have wronged me by not confiding in me, by keeping me at a distance, and in withdrawing, as you have done lately, the light of your learning from my work. Do you not see how we suffer when separated, what peace we enjoy when together? Souls are joined by a look of the eyes and the word exchanged. For a week I have been idle, and you--confess now you too have put aside the pen. See how unprofitable the parting has been.”

“No, no,” she cried. “I have tried to think of my duty.”

“Which is twofold,” he urged. “The duty of song and the duty of love. By neglecting both you have wronged yourself and me. Do you not remember our first meeting on the warm hillside? I worshipped you then as you appeared before me in clinging white, with the fire of poetry in your eyes. My heart sang to you and yours answered. Let our songs be lyrics always. Let us not descend. Be to me now, as then, as you stood in the sun on the side of the hill.”

“What is this?” she murmured, half rising and sinking back.

“It is spiritual love. Perfect love,” the poet whispered.

“Tragic love,” she cried.

The wind came moaning into the house and the dry leaves were whirled about the hall, and after that a door closed with a hollow sound. Both dreamers were awakened. Both saw themselves. What the man saw was a cold empty life spent among books, with eyes on crabbed characters and fingers upon pen, a life which had never tasted the heady wine of passion nor sought after companionship, an unprofitable life of body-starving, of brain-glutting, of groping after communion with unseen powers.

And the woman saw the wasted heartless career of a butterfly, flitting from flower to flower, neglecting all things but pleasure, making no provision for the future. She saw her husband, knowing that he was her husband, bent by work and lined with care, starting from his occupation of business when she spoke scoldingly, and answering with a kindly word; she saw her little daughter playing alone, asking often in the perplexing manner of childhood why her mother never came. This was a part of her punishment. First the Strath had shown her what might have occurred, had she allowed the evil in her to mature fully; now it put before her the simple truth, shedding across it its own sombre light. Still she saw the captured butterfly struggling to escape, and as she looked all its bright plumage was rubbed away, and there escaped a grey little creature, which somehow seemed a more beautiful object than the pink and white beauty which had been held and bruised.

“It is the love of the soul,” a voice said into her ear; and the door fluttered as though with the touch of the eager tragic wind.

“Let me go,” she cried. “It is getting late, and it is dark.”

“You cannot see the light which you shed around,” answered the scholar in rapt tones. “And what is time with us? We are lovers, and for us time and place are of no account. This shall become our brightest day, in spite of the wind and the rain. Beloved, do not tell me you are blind. You have seen in my eyes what I have seen in yours. Together we shall tell the love-tales of the past. And now you shall hear my tale, and I will listen to yours.”

“Mine you know,” she said.

“I would hear it from your lips.”

“You shall,” Maude cried coldly and sternly, rising and standing in the darkened room between the masks. “I know a man whose every action is unselfish, whose only fault is that he loves me. That man has permitted me to drive him as I would. He has repaid my scorn of him by kindliness. When I rejected some plan which he made for my comfort he has immediately taken the blame upon himself.”

“You did not love this man?” he interrupted in his ringing voice.

“I did not.”

“Because his soul could never be in tune with yours. Destiny had never ordained that you and he should meet. The same destiny brought you to me.”

“I have a husband,” she said. “And of him I was speaking.”

“Have you not a soul also? That is mine. Day and night it has spoken to me. You have joined your body to a husband, but your soul you shall join with mine. There is no mystery in that union. The body wedded to a body lives under the cypress. The soul united to its affinity soars above the earth.”

“Once I might have listened to you,” she said.

“You have come out of the darkness, and the first glimpse of the day bewilders you.”

“I know myself,” she replied. “I have wronged you deeply. I have flattered you and led you on with lies. I have made you believe I am a poetess, while I am, as you see me, a very weak and ignorant woman with nothing to my credit that is good. Pardon my wickedness. I will go out of your life to-day, and face my duty, and you shall never be troubled with me again.”

A shudder went through the house as the lyres and flutes of the wind and rain changed from strophe to final antistrophe.

“You and I at discord,” the scholar muttered. “Would you throw your life out of tune and mar the harmony of mine? You may go from me, but you shall not forget me. You will come back to me when I call.”

“You too have neglected your duty,” she said. “You have lived among the dead and forgotten the living. By much study you have lost the body. Wake as I awake, and know that you are still a man treading the stage of life, not a disembodied spirit flying among the hills of Athens or along the valley of Colonus.”

These were strange words from ignorant Maude.

He came and seized her hands. She was cold and he was burning, and both were shivering. There was a light in his eyes which she had not seen there before, and she shrank from the sight, because it seemed to her that the man and the mind were drifting apart. She struggled a little, and as her eyes groped into the gloom she saw the door opening very slowly and noiselessly, and she heard the worm-eaten floor giving beneath foot-steps. Then Juxon walked in, pale and bent, with his hands clasped behind.

How ill he looked, she thought. His clothes were hanging to him loosely, and there was upon his face that grey expression which speaks of midnight sleeplessness coupled with days of anxiety. His eyes appeared to glance between them, passing from one mask to the other. There was the knife, the emblem of tragedy, and this was not the time to don the cap and bells. How, Maude wildly wondered, would the new character play his part? There was no good reason for the doubt. Juxon had maintained a high standard of living; he had not rebelled against the dramatic laws; therefore the frown of the tragic mask was not for him.

Dr. Berry looked round when he beheld a hand upon his sleeve. From his height he looked down upon the man, whom he recognised, neither as the husband of the woman near him, nor as a principal character. “Who are you?” he asked sharply. “What brings you here?”

“A caprice,” said the stockbroker. “Fortune has been hard upon me of late. While I have sat alone during the night a voice has been with me, calling me to the Strath. Is not this the Strath?”

“I do not know,” said the scholar querulously. “Let us have light that I may see you.”

Juxon stepped forward and lighted a candle. Maude saw his agitated face and marked the trembling of his hands. She called him in a low voice, but he did not appear to hear. He lifted his head and faced the scholar who watched him with hard unreasoning eyes.

“I must ask your forgiveness,” said Juxon. “You believe my wife has done you wrong, but I assure you no blame is to be attached to her. What she has done she did unwillingly, indeed upon compulsion. I am the one who has injured you.”

The scholar said nothing. There was vengeance on his face as he looked round the walls for some weapon, with which he might strike the man who stood between him and the desire of his soul.

“You may ask why I should wrong one who has never sought to harm me,” Juxon went on in a steady voice. “Attribute it to the evil which is in all of us, to an inexplicable longing to make a fellow-creature suffer. I have only to confess my sin and clear the character of my wife.”

While he spoke the man was battling with the horrible inclination, which bade him fling himself upon his enemy. He steadied himself by a great effort. All his determination and strength were required. Had he spent in the past an evil life nothing could have saved him then.

“My wife came here to recover her health,” he went on hoarsely. “In her letters she told me of you, describing you as a clever poet, completely enwrapped in yourself and your work. I was brutal enough to ask her if she thought she could lure you sufficiently out of your work to make you admire her, and she replied, yet only in jest you must understand, that she believed it would be possible.”

Maude comprehended her husband’s plan. It was correct. The drama required it. He was sacrificing himself for her.

“In an idle moment I made a wager with a friend, who knew my wife, to the effect that she would succeed in making you believe she possessed knowledge equal to yours. My friend, averring it to be impossible, accepted the wager. I wrote to my wife and entreated her to make the attempt, instructing her to flatter and admire you--in short to make a fool of you--until she had attained my object. I need hardly say she was horrified at the suggestion. She begged me not to press her. The idea was utterly distasteful to her loyal mind. But I refused to spare her. She yielded at last, with what results you know. I won my wager at the cost of my wife’s reputation. I dare not ask you to forgive me. I know it must be impossible for you to feel anything but hatred for so mean a creature as he who stands before you. All that I ask is your forgiveness for my wife.”

Juxon broke off with a gasp. Dr. Berry towered above him, his face malignant, and its features contorted into a horrid semblance of one of the hanging masks. Suddenly he darted forward, and seizing a candlestick hurled it at the stockbroker. Juxon started aside, and as the missile clattered into a corner snatched his wife’s hand and pulled her to the door. The scholar hurled himself against it and the rotten panels shivered into fragments; but the Juxons were gone, into the garden and the wind.

Scene II.--MASQUE

And let the Masquers, or any other, that are to come down from the Scene, have some motions, upon the Scene itself, before their comming down: For it drawes the Eye strangely, and makes it with great pleasure, to desire to see that, it cannot perfectly discerne.--_Bacon_.

The squire of Kingsmore and the rector of Thorlund stood in the latter’s study. The clock pointed to forty minutes past seven. Mr. Price looked more solemn than usual, while his companion was haggard and agitated.

“I know now you have spoken the truth,” the scholar was saying. “All along you have maintained that the Strath was haunted by an unholy influence, and I would not believe, because I could not feel it. What has come to me now I do not know. I am afraid of the place.”

He turned and striding across the room snatched a volume of old English poetry from a shelf. “I was drawn there this afternoon. The house fought against me,” he went on. “I was punished there. I was warned that with the falling of the house I too must fall.”

“Berry,” muttered the old squire. “During all the years of our acquaintance you have strained your brain upon thankless work. I do not know what to say about the Strath. One time I am certain it is badly haunted. Another time I have my doubts. Nothing has frightened me when I have been there, so far as I know, but--and this is the point--after leaving the place it has been impossible to remember what has happened there.”

The scholar was not listening. He bent the book of poetry open, so roughly that the binding broke, and cried, “‘Go, bid the world with all its trash farewell.’ Do you hear that? She has deceived me, laughed at me, mocked me. ‘Leave it, I say, and bid the world farewell.’ I trusted her. Can you not tell me what happened in the Strath this afternoon?”

“I can tell you one thing,” said the squarson. “You are doing yourself a lot of harm. Leave your poetry and get out into the air. Why, man, you are shivering from head to foot.”

“I am going to the Strath,” Dr. Berry muttered.

“I don’t like it,” said Mr. Price. “I don’t want to go, and Flora does not want to go either. My sister has the excuse of rheumatism, and she is the best off. It’s a regular wild night, dark as pitch, with a howling wind. If there are phantoms at the Strath they will show themselves to-night. I’ll order the carriage and go home. Flora!” he called, going to the door. “Here, Flora! We will go back.”

The girl came out of the drawing-room with a mask dangling from her gloved hand.

“I want to go now, uncle,” she said firmly. “Besides we must. There will be nobody there except ourselves, and Maude--and Dr. Berry.” She added the scholar’s name as he revealed himself.

“He must not go,” said Mr. Price decidedly. “He is going to bed. I’ll tell Mr. Conway he is not well.”

“I am coming,” said the poet.

It was, as the old squire had said, a wild night, full of wind and strange cries. They groped through the churchyard, found the door in the wall, and entered the garden. A heavy beam of light fell from the house and guided their steps. The bridge across the moat swayed perceptibly. The hall door stood ajar. They passed in and saw candles glowing in the saloon. Nance was kneeling in the great hall, warming her hands by a fire of logs, and looking up met Flora’s eyes without flinching.

“The wind is rough,” said Mr. Price in a melodramatic voice, responding as far as his simple nature allowed to the dominant influence.

As he spoke a tall figure crossed the hall, passing from one room to another, clad in close-fitting black with ruffles of yellow lace at its wrists and throat, its face hidden behind a brown mask. This tragic figure went towards the saloon with a dejected step, casting furtive glances to right and left as it disappeared.

“Abandoned and accursed,” muttered Dr. Berry. He turned and strode away into the silence of the house.

“Come aside with me,” said Flora in a thrilling voice, seizing her uncle and drawing him back. “Put on your mask,” she whispered. “They must not suspect who we are. I can trust you? You are my relative. You will not fail me?”

“I will serve you as I can,” said the old gentleman, with a wild shiver. “But let us be discreet, let us be watchful. Methinks our plans may be overheard. We will go to some more secret place, but let us carry ourselves boldly, so that no one may suspect we have anything on hand.” He stepped away from her and bowed low. “Will it please you to walk with me and study the pictures?” he said; and when she had accepted his invitation they walked away into the gloom, two tragic puppets, like all the other beings who were to cross, or had crossed, the threshold of the house that night.

Presently a little lady in Arcadian costume appeared, and beside her a stout man closely muffled. They were the Juxons. They had been called and could not refuse to come. Strange had been the feeling between husband and wife during the drive homeward after that remarkable meeting at the Strath. On Maude’s side there was a novel content; upon Juxon’s a sense of happiness. He understood that his wife had changed. While they rattled through the wind she talked, with none of the empty vivaciousness of former days; and had never a scolding word, nor any impatient frown. She inquired after his health with genuine solicitude, and asked fondly after Peggy, stating her intention of returning forthwith to devote herself to her child. And he, jealous of this new-found happiness, did not venture to confess that he had no home, that his business was almost ruined.

She had gained in beauty, he thought, with that pale seriousness. As he felt the wind sweeping in life-giving strength across the hills, he made for the hundredth time the resolution of another effort for her sake. His pretty little wife should have all that she had been accustomed to. As for the scene which had so recently closed it was gone from them both; but Maude knew that Dr. Berry would never fascinate her again. Juxon was not aware that he had been put to the ordeal, that his nature had triumphed, that his character had stood firm for his wife’s defence. He only knew that he had gone to the Strath, in obedience to the message, and that his wife had been restored to him there.

The group of tragic characters made a sombre party. The actors were six in number, for the two wearers of the brown masks had ceased to be human entities. They had become conflicting influences. The guests, who had been led to the house under the pretext of a dance, found themselves playing the part of conspirators. They instinctively mistrusted one another. In the saloon Mr. Price was gambling with the figure of tragedy. Upstairs Dr. Berry paced the corridors, biting his fingers, and planning vengeance. Juxon, the object of his hatred, stood with his dazed wife near the fireplace in the hall.

He had told her everything, and to his story of defeat and failure added the words:

“I have played my last card. There is nothing left with which to start afresh. I understand it all now,” he went on firmly. “No man can struggle against destiny. It was never intended that I should be wealthy, and though riches were for the time forced upon me it was only that they might be taken away. I am a poor man now, with only these hands, a clear conscience, and a strong head left to aid me in the struggle for existence.”

“And I have been a hindrance to you,” said Maude gently.

“If we have failed to agree perfectly in the past it was the fault of neither of us,” said Juxon. “Riches have been a curse, both to you and to me. For the future there will be no barrier to hold us apart.”

“Herbert,” she whispered, with a shudder. “You must go your way alone. The warning comes to me now that I have not much longer to live. I am to be punished for my heartlessness.”

“Hush,” said the man, almost fiercely.

“Only stay with me,” Maude entreated. “There is danger here for you, as well as for me.”

“There is horror in the very air,” Juxon shivered. “Let us go into the light.”

They crossed the hall with stealthy movements, and crept into the saloon, there to discover Mr. Price upon his knees, playing his cards madly, while the tragic figure opposite shook with laughter as it won again and again. The squire of Kingsmore had never gambled in his life before, and now he was losing everything he possessed, his invested capital, house, farm, and lands. The perspiration stood upon his face.

“I have an assignation which I must not fail to keep,” he cried. “But I will beat you first.”

Maude seated herself at the harpsichord, and drew from its loose keys and clogged wires some fantastic sounds, while her husband leaned beside her, watching and listening, all his faculties keenly alert.

As Mr. Price sent up his defiant cry Flora rushed into the supper room. Filling a glass with wine, she searched in all the cabinets, then snatching up the glass turned to the door. A figure appeared before her with a jingling of bells, a short figure clad in many colours, with a cap like a cock’s comb upon its head, a flute in its hand, and the leering mask of Comedy enveloping its face.

“Let me pass,” she screamed.

“What do you seek?” demanded the motley figure.

“Poison,” she cried.

With his flute he struck the glass from her hand. “You are one of my enemies,” he laughed. “You have set before your mind unnatural ideas, and sought to follow them. You have a friend who has been heartless, but she has submitted of her own free-will and shall be happy. You continue to resist and shall be broken. You shall harm no one while I am near.”

Flora could not recognise the voice of Drayton beneath the comic mask; but when the figure turned, and the light of the candles fell across the brown face, she shrank from the shape. Was that a mask? If so, it was a mask controlled by muscles, trembling with life, heated by blood: a mask that had grown upon the face like skin, moulding the features that bore it into its own grinning shape.

Dr. Berry was creeping cat-like about the house. He heard a sound of music and the wild ejaculations of the man who believed himself ruined. A smile crossed his face, and he murmured cunningly, “Extreme circumspection is necessary. I will hide in the ante-room, and behold what is taking place.” Stealthily descending the stairs he passed through a side door. An antique lamp was burning low upon a table which was littered with sheets of manuscript. The curtains which divided this room from the saloon were closed. The poet halted on the threshold. It seemed to him that he was standing upon the brink of an open grave.

Four of the rotten planks which comprised the flooring had been broken away. Taking the lamp he went to his knees, and lowering the light perceived a small cellar bricked in like a vault. The damp walls shone when the light flashed across them. The lamp-bearer saw two iron hooks driven into the crumbling cement; and to one of them clung a twisted fragment of what might have been leather, or rope, or even muscle.

“The grave is prepared,” he said craftily. “It remains with me to supply an occupant.”

He replaced the lamp, and sat in wild thought beside the table. Some sheets of manuscript lay beneath his eyes. Recognising a portion of Drayton’s Tragedy, he bent his head to read a fragment, which had been marked by the author’s hand, “Written when Comedy was in the ascendant, and therefore worthless.” The fragment ran thus:--

_St. James’s. A room in the palace. Enter the King, led by a page, singing, and beating time with a roll of music._

_King._
They say I’m not the King.
Here, scapegrace! powder-head! let me hear truth!
Who is he whom you lead?

_Page._
His Gracious Majesty George the Third, by the Grace of God King of
Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith--

_King._
Defender. Ha! Defender is my name.
Old George was not afraid. He mocked the Pope,
Witheld all justice from the Catholics,
Broke up their churches, chased the cunning priests
Back to their Roman cells. He beat them all.
Did he not, boy?

_Page._
Yes, your Majesty.

_King._
Bah! I do hate great men:
These politicians, with their quips and cranks;
These big-wigs, with their tape and rhetoric,
Brass trumpets of sedition. I stand
Free of the highwaymen, that Pitt, that Burke.
I’ll stand alone to fight. I will be king,
Though I lose Colonies. Shall a king kneel,
To beg a favour of his ministers?
A king bow down to seek his subjects’ will,
And crave their gracious leave to wear his crown?
Will he not rather drive the rabble forth,
And swear to all the rout he is the law?
Boy, how long have I reigned?

_Page._
’Tis fifty-five years, your Majesty.

_King._
Has any King of England reigned so long?

_Page._
No, your Majesty.

_King._
Then get you out,
And call the guard, and bid them cheer the King.

_Exit Page. King goes to a harpsichord and sings a hymn, accompanying himself._

_The Queen enters, kneels at his side, and sings with him. A cheer from the palace yard, and shouts, God save the King._

_King._
Bid them be silent. They have spoilt my hymn.
I am no king. I am a tired old man,
Weighed down with grief. My darling is so quiet!
They snatched her from me. I can smell the flowers
They heaped upon her, and I feel the arms
Of those who drew me from her bed of earth.
That day I lost my crown.
He lifteth up the lowly, and casts down
The great ones to the dust.
_Another cheer._
Hark, how they mock me there! Long live the King.
Now let me speak--God grant the King may die.

_An uproar in the street. Loud cries of_ “_Victory_” _and_ “_Wellington._” _Queen closes the window._

_King._
’Tis time to hold my court. See there the troops,
Who fought in Flanders, waiting for review;
A noble band. Soldiers, I’m proud of you.
Fine fellows are ye, disciplined and bold.
March past, my guards; march past, and sound your drums.
_Claps his hands as the ghosts pass._
Right, Left! Right, Left! Aye, that’s the English swing,
The tread that startled Louis and his French,
The march that shook the Spaniards. Where are ye?
Gone past already. Soft! What have we here?
I know those faces and those powdered heads:
My House of Commons. I’ll see to them straight!
The stubborn knaves, who would have broke my will.
Oppose me if ye dare. I know the means
To break your party, to unseat each man,
And drive him cringing to his rural poll.
I’ll do it, if ye force me, and refuse
To aid my plans. Traitor is every man
Who power denies to kings.
Out, villains! Out from here!
What! Must I drive ye forth?
_Runs among the ghosts, beating at them._
_Noise in the street continues._
Away, place-seekers! Out of this my court.
I will not hear ye. Look now how they come!
Fawning and sighing, each to kiss my hand,
And seek a favour. Bishops sleek in lawn,
Clergy corrupt, and politicians smooth,
Two-faced, four-handed, Jacobite at night,
Cringing before the man in power by day.
They come on, more and more.
_Noise increases._
And here we have bespangled generals,
Savage for titles. Here bold Whig-patched dames
Crowd on the stairs, and push some favourite up,
To pay his hollow vows to win a post.
Is this a Court? Call it a market-place,
And me a merchant. Hear those whispered words,
“Give me a Bishopric, and loyal I’ll be,”
Or, “Grant me office, and I’ll be your man,”
And there again, “Hand me authority,
And I will preach the justice of the king.”
Is there not here a man? Are these but masks,
Stamped with some semblance of humanity?
Are truth and honour dead and gone? Away,
Trumpets and heraldry, and power and pomp,
And find me here some loyal flesh and blood.
Away, ye mummers! Out, ye titled clowns!
And hide yourselves in graves. I’m still the King.

_Bursts into tears and falls, fainting. The Queen bears him up. Enter an officer noisily._

_Officer._
Great news, Your Majesties! Napoleon
Has met defeat. His army is destroyed
By the allies, and he, a fugitive,
Must soon be taken.

_Queen._
Go with your tales of battle,
And shout to them that live.

_Officer goes out sneering. Queen goes to window and opens it._

_Queen._
They do not look this way. For fifty years
I’ve been the Queen of England. They forget.
The Prince goes on his way to Carlton House;
The crowds close round his carriage, crying out,
“God save the King,” and “Victory.” The King!
There lies the King.

The curtains were drawn apart. The reader started up to behold a fearful face with drooping mouth, cruel and thin-lipped, narrow forehead and sunken checks, quivering and palpitating with all the passions of evil. It was the figure of Conway; but the face was the face of Tragedy.

“I have ruined the old man yonder,” he mouthed. “Hear him howl! I have won everything that he possessed, and now all he asks for is a pistol that he may shoot himself. Tell me, friend, where I may find that young woman who lately entered this house. I would decoy her outside to a lonely part of this garden, and there--nay, but I was ever too free with my tongue.”

“I need your assistance,” muttered the scholar.

“It is yours,” came the answer. “I see you are a brave fellow, accustomed to use the knife.”

“See that man!” exclaimed the other, pointing out Juxon through a rent in the curtain. “He has made me a laughing-stock.”

“Trust in me, friend. We will despatch him together. Do you go into the long corridor and conceal yourself, while I engage the man in conversation. Presently I will bring him that way, and as we pass do you leap out upon him. I will have him held. He shall not have time to shout.”

“I will procure a knife,” the poet chuckled.

The garden of the Strath was plunged in total darkness outside the shafts of light proceeding from the windows. There was no rain, but the wind howled and worked havoc among the trees and shrubs. The few labourers of the hamlet, safe inside their shuttered cottages, were convinced that the Strath had never been so noisy before.

October blasts had howled as fiercely over Thorlund; but the grim influence of the house had never predominated as upon that night when all the ways were shaded.

The miserable squire of Kingsmore rushed into the hall, shouting the one word, “Ruined!” He saw himself a dishonoured man, deprived of the lands and house which his family had held for generations. He was half-mad to know that he should have come to this in his old age. True there were rumours in his family of an ancestor upon whose career the gambling element had been plainly marked; but even he was never so deeply dipped as to have forfeited the estate. He hung to Juxon and implored him for a loan upon easy terms, and when refused sought Dr. Berry with a like request. The scholar pushed him back with a curse. When Flora came to him, the miserable old man snatched her hand and tried to drag the bracelet from her wrist. She caught his hand and whispered a fierce reminder into his ear.

“Ha! I had forgotten,” he gasped. “Say, child, has she money? Let us go in search of the trollop.”

A sound of flute-playing entered their ears. They looked up to see Comedy descending the stairs. Recognising an enemy they shrank back against the draperies. He cast his grinning eyes upon them and cried, “Do your will. Do your worst. You shall find me near.”

That instant Tragedy came out and stopped, shivering with fear and fury, when it saw the motley. During that moment, while the two masks were glaring at each other, the hearts of the watchers seemed to cease. Then the fiend slunk abjectly away, and the merry flute piped onwards like a bird.

The Juxons were alone in the saloon. Maude was clinging to her husband, still haunted by the terrible prospect of death by violence. Beside them the table was overturned and the cards were scattered about the floor. While Juxon was attempting to calm her fears with words of consolation Nance fled into the saloon pale with terror, and screaming for help. Flora and Mr. Price pursued her with murder upon their faces. They caught the girl as she reached the Juxons and bore her to the floor; but as the old gentleman, whom his own sister could not then have recognised, hissed out, “Strangle her!” a tinkling of bells was heard, and Comedy jumped through the curtains with his mocking laugh. The tragic characters fell back. The figure in motley lifted the girl and led her away, leering upon the baulked couple and saying, “Did I not promise I would follow you?”

“We are foiled, child,” muttered the old gentleman with a ghastly smile. “But no matter. We can bide our time.”

The atmosphere of the Strath was charged like the thunder-cloud which is about to break. The two forces, through which destiny works her will, were fighting for supremacy. In the presence of Comedy, Tragedy had so far been powerless. Wherever the spirit of destruction went with its frown, the spirit of protection followed with its laugh. It was a battle between despair and happiness. It did not occur to any of the characters that safety might be found in flight. By the laws of the drama, they were compelled to remain upon the scene, until the entry of the final character and the exodic march.

A dark figure glided into the saloon. Taking its stand beside the Juxons, it engaged them in conversation with the subtility of Mephistopheles. Its tongue was full of flattery, and they yielded to it. There was a picture in the corridor above which deserved their attention, and he, the soft speaker, sought the privilege of conducting them there, having some poor knowledge of the arts, that he might point out its merits and its beauty. They went with him, and as the figure stopped in the dimly-lighted corridor and pointed with a horrible laugh towards a dark copy of The Plague at Athens, Juxon was held and a cry of exultation rang down the house.

“Blunderer! The knife,” hissed Tragedy.

But the bells again jingled. Through the gloom of the house danced Comedy, to strike down their hands with his flute and to hunt his enemy before him; and with the dark figure fled the scholar hand in hand.

For the greater part of another hour the struggle continued. Maude and her husband were also absorbed into the maelstrom and sought to be avenged. The Strath was occupied with conspiracies and stealthily moving creatures filled with the lust of slaughter. The dark spirit of tragedy hounded them on. And whenever the blow appeared certain to fall the bells jingled. Amid the frowns and screams and muttered words sounded the laugh of the flute-player. And the wind howled and beat upon the house in a wild chorus heralding the approach of the final character.

Apart from that final entry the supremacy of one of the opposing powers was inevitable. Although Tragedy feared its rival, the time came when repeated defeats goaded it to fury; until it dared to attack the motley figure, and the characters drew round to watch the fight.

The wind fell and there was silence throughout the garden. The old house seemed to be aware that its last hour had come. A stranger had passed through the gates, one who was able for a time to resist the influence, because he understood the secret of the power and his mind was not open to receive impressions but resolutely set upon the removal of the cause. This was the final character, who came in ignorance as to what was taking place at the crucial moment ordained by the dramatic laws.

The spectators of the struggle between the rival powers marvelled at the courage displayed by the last principal character of the drama when he entered and drove them aside to pass and fling himself upon the figure of Tragedy. The stranger’s body seemed to them a mere frame of bones, and his arms were like wire-ropes for strength and thickness. He held the dark shape upon the floor, one hand clutching its throat, the fingers of the other tearing at the hot palpitating mask, raising it by the edges where it adhered less powerfully to the skin, dragging and peeling it away. Off came the limp horrible face; and the stranger pressed it upon the fire and held it down, until the room was full of odours and a nauseous soot, and all its occupants shivered and grew sick, and the house seemed to thrill with groans. Then came the turn of comedy; and with the consigning of that mask also to the flames the power fled from the house, the influence came to an end; and the two men who had been controlled that night by those rival influences, which beat with fierce activity upon actors on and off the stage, were lying unconscious upon the floor, their faces blistered and their limbs rigid.

Then the wind arose and with it came a noise of thunder. A portion of the roof had fallen in. The Strath was a rotten carcase. It had lost its power of evil and its power of good. Biron, for he it was who had reached Thorlund at the time appointed, turned to the astounded guests, introduced himself, and briefly explained why he was there, and how he had served them.

“Destroyed the masks!” exclaimed Mr. Price feebly. “What masks? God bless my soul! what has been happening?”

PROSCENIUM

Tragedy is an imitation, not only of a completed action, but also of an action exciting pity and terror.--_Aristotle_.

Drayton and Conway were carried into the hall where they could receive the benefit of the cold wind. The little party abandoned the saloon in silence, Flora being supported by her uncle. Biron, after bending once more over the charred remains in the fire, joined them, closing and fastening the door behind him. The late mummers regarded each other with a curious suspicion, scarcely daring to speak, and feeling as though they had awakened from a drugged sleep. Already one of the company was missing. Dr. Berry had gone back to his solitude; and after a short interval the Juxons followed.

At last the survivors were able to regard the Strath with undistorted judgment. It appeared to them an impossible residence, damp, windy, and tottering. It had no more romance than an old barn filled with curiosities; it was a tumbledown museum, filled with draughts and dust, a place for owls and rats like the ruined parsonage house of Queensmore.

Drayton was the first to recover and stand upon his feet. Several more minutes elapsed before Conway was restored to consciousness. Both were depressed, troubled by nausea, and tormented by blistered faces. Neither had the slightest recollection of what he had undergone. Indeed the entire life of those past months remained a blank sheet unwritten on by time. There were memories of a dream-like nature, which could not be framed in words.

Refreshments were placed in the dining-room, and there the company betook itself, sane, human, and no longer theatrical. Presently Mr. Biron gave the tale, as he knew it, of the masks, from their creation by Joseph Falk, toy-maker of Nuremberg, to his own unexpected and dramatic arrival that night. He told them how his great-grandfather had entombed the horrible things in the vault--where, owing to decay of the flooring in the ante-room, Drayton had discovered them--and then had disappeared leaving the Strath to become impregnated with the rival influences. “From certain records handed down to me,” Biron proceeded, “I am convinced that these masks must have exerted a fearful power. They would have influenced not only this house and garden, but the surrounding country and its inhabitants also.”

“You have told us a strange story. You must forgive me when I say it is not easy to accept,” said Mr. Price in a bewildered voice. “I knew there was something unnatural here, indeed everybody knew that, but the curious part about it was that no one ever thought of organizing any active crusade against the Strath. I do not know what has been going on to-night. I am only painfully conscious of my aching limbs.”

“Do you suggest that my friend and myself have been under the control of these masks all the summer?” asked Conway.

“I say also you may consider yourselves fortunate in having escaped,” Biron answered. “Fine weather would have been favourable to you. During the long dark nights of winter you might have lost your reason and committed suicide. I speak from my small knowledge of the masks.”

“What brought you here in time to save us?”

“I can answer that,” said Drayton, coming forward, his face still bearing the comedian’s leer. “I pawned the masks which used to hang in your room in town. I wanted to tell you, but for some reason or other could not. It was a mean thing to do, but I wanted to reach you, and had no money.”

“You could not have rendered your friend a better service,” said Biron. “It is owing to your action I am here. I had offered a reward for information which might lead to the discovery of the originals. It was the least I could do to atone for my ancestor’s irresponsible conduct--I do him the credit of believing it to have been so. Unfortunately I was away from my home in Naples when the information was sent, or I should have been here much earlier.”

“You are right when you suggest that this neighbourhood has suffered,” said Mr. Price thoughtfully. “Everyone has left it, except those who are tied to the land. A little village yonder called Queensmore lies in ruins. Sheep-farming has been a failure. As for this valley of Thorlund, it has remained indifferent to everything. The villagers could talk of nothing but the Strath.”

Conway moved across to the wall and taking down the wooden copies of the masks turned them thoughtfully between his hands.

“They are harmless,” said Biron with his cadaverous smile.

Conway made no reply. Removing one of the logs he placed the masks in the hottest part of the fire and savagely watched the process of immolation.

“Flora, we must go,” said the old squire, lifting himself stiffly. “Take your last look at the inside of the Strath, for I doubt if you will ever see it again.”

“Indeed you may not, Miss Neill,” said the owner. “The house is coming down, and the wilderness outside shall be reclaimed.”

As the uncle and niece were about to take their departure Biron bent his bony figure to whisper into the squire’s ear, “If this young lady has been much under the influence of the masks I should advise you to send her away for a change of scene.”

At that warning the old gentleman looked at his niece and noticed the heaviness of her eyes. He dimly wondered what would have befallen her, and himself, had the masks been permitted to live, but dismissed the thought because it was not a pleasant one. He wished the men good-night and turned to leave the house for ever.

But Flora as she shook hands with Conway could not refrain from confessing in a low voice, “I think I have learnt something here.”

Biron, who was near, overheard and said, “I have always believed that there was good as well as evil in the power--or shall I call it the teaching?--of the masks. Unfortunately they could only impart that teaching, or we could only receive it, in a manner that was full of danger both to body and mind.”

“And we never knew anything about it,” said Mr. Price solemnly. “That is the strangest thing of all.”

“We know nothing of the influence which controls us in the state before birth or in the conditions after bodily death,” said Biron. “I have discharged the duty of my life,” he went on. “The masks are destroyed. Results must live after them, but I am content to know they cannot claim any more victims. I rejoice with all my heart at your escape.”

When Mr. Price and Flora had gone the three men continued to speak upon the subject which was uppermost in their minds; and presently it was Biron’s turn to listen while Conway spoke upon his uncle’s fate. When he had concluded, having indeed very little to state, the attenuated man took up the matter with interest.

“You tell me your uncle was found dead in this place, under conditions which precluded the possibility of anyone having placed violent hands upon him. You say also that the police, after making every effort to discover a murderer, were forced to relinquish their search for lack of material upon which to work. But surely the truth is obvious. Your poor uncle came to Joseph Falk’s end. He destroyed himself.”

“No,” cried both the listeners together, and Conway added, “it was shown at the inquest he had been strangled.”

“Not hanged?”

“He was discovered lying across the threshold of the hall-door.”

“Then here we have a mystery,” said Biron. “Some material influence must have been brought into requisition that night. You must give me time to think over it. And now with your permission, I will walk through the house.”