The Saint's Tragedy Part 25

I do not build with straw. I'll trust my pupils To worldlings' honeyed tongues, who make long prayers, And enter widows' houses for pretence.

There dwells the lady, who has chosen too long The better part, to have it taken from her.

Besides that with strange dreams and revelations She has of late been edified.

C. Wal. Bah! but they will serve your turn--and hers.

Con. What do you mean?

C. Wal. When you have cut her off from child and friend, and even Isentrudis and Guta, as I hear, are thrust out by you to starve, and she sits there, shut up like a bear in a hole, to feed on her own substance; if she has not some of these visions to look at, how is she, or any other of your poor self-gorged prisoners, to help fancying herself the only creature on earth?

Con. How now? Who more than she, in faith and practice, a living member of the Communion of Saints? Did she not lately publicly dispense in charity in a single day five hundred marks and more? Is it not my continual labour to keep her from utter penury through her extravagance in almsgiving? For whom does she take thought but for the poor, on whom, day and night, she spends her strength? Does she not tend them from the cradle, nurse them, kiss their sores, feed them, bathe them, with her own hands, clothe them, living and dead, with garments, the produce of her own labour? Did she not of late take into her own house a paralytic boy, whose loathsomeness had driven away every one else? And now that we have removed that charge, has she not with her a leprous boy, to whose necessities she ministers hourly, by day and night? What valley but blesses her for some school, some chapel, some convent, built by her munificence?

Are not the hospices, which she has founded in divers towns, the wonder of Germany?--wherein she daily feeds and houses a mult.i.tude of the infirm poor of Christ? Is she not followed at every step by the blessings of the poor? Are not her hourly intercessions for the souls and bodies of all around incessant, world-famous, mighty to save? While she lives only for the Church of Christ, will you accuse her of selfish isolation?

C. Wal. I tell you, monk, if she were not healthier by G.o.d's making than ever she will be by yours, her charity would be by this time double-distilled selfishness; the mouths she fed, cupboards to store good works in; the backs she warmed, clothes-horses to hang out her wares before G.o.d; her alms not given, but fairly paid, a halfpenny for every halfpenny-worth of eternal life; earth her chess-board, and the men and women on it merely p.a.w.ns for her to play a winning game--puppets and horn-books to teach her unit holiness--a private workshop in which to work out her own salvation. Out upon such charity!

Con. G.o.d hath appointed that our virtuous deeds Each merit their rewards.

C. Wal. Go to--go to. I have watched you and your crew, how you preach up selfish ambition for divine charity and call prurient longings celestial love, while you blaspheme that very marriage from whose mysteries you borrow all your cant. The day will come when every husband and father will hunt you down like vermin; and may I live to see it.

Con. Out on thee, heretic!

C. Wal. [drawing]. Liar! At last?

C. Pama. In G.o.d's name, sir, what if the Princess find us?

C. Wal. Ay--for her sake. But put that name on me again, as you do on every good Catholic who will not be your slave and puppet, and if thou goest home with ears and nose, there is no hot blood in Germany.

[They move towards the cottage.]

Con. [alone]. Were I as once I was, I could revenge: But now all private grudges wane like mist In the keen sunlight of my full intent; And this man counts but for some sullen bull Who paws and mutters at unheeding pilgrims His empty wrath: yet let him bar my path, Or stay me but one hour in my life-purpose, And I will fell him as a savage beast, G.o.d's foe, not mine. Beware thyself, Sir Count!

[Exit. The Counts return from the Cottage.]

C. Pama. Shortly she will return; here to expect her Is duty both, and honour. Pardon me-- Her humours are well known here? Pa.s.sers by Will guess who 'tis we visit?

C. Wal. Very likely.

C. Pama. Well, travellers see strange things--and do them too.

Hem! this turf-smoke affects my breath: we might Draw back a s.p.a.ce.

C. Wal. Certie, we were in luck, Or both our noses would have been snapped off By those two she-dragons; how their sainthoods squealed To see a brace of beards peep in! Poor child!

Two sweet companions for her loneliness!

C. Pama. But ah! what lodging! 'Tis at that my heart bleeds!

That hut, whose rough and smoke-embrowned spars Dip to the cold clay floor on either side!

Her seats bare deal!--her only furniture Some earthen crock or two! Why, sir, a dungeon Were scarce more frightful: such a choice must argue Aberrant senses, or degenerate blood!

C. Wal. What? Were things foul?

C. Pama. I marked not, sir.

C. Wal. I did.

You might have eat your dinner off the floor.

C. Pama. Off any spot, sir, which a princess' foot Had hallowed by its touch.

C. Wal. Most courtierly.

Keep, keep those sweet saws for the lady's self.

[Aside] Unless that shock of the nerves shall send them flying.

C. Pama. Yet whence this depth of poverty? I thought You and her champions had recovered for her Her lands and t.i.tles.

C. Wal. Ay; that coward Henry Gave them all back as lightly as he took them: Certie, we were four gentle applicants-- And Rudolph told him some unwelcome truths-- Would G.o.d that all of us might hear our sins, As Henry heard that day!

C. Pama. Then she refused them?

C. Wal. 'It ill befits,' quoth she, 'my royal blood, To take extorted gifts; I tender back By you to him, for this his mortal life, That which he thinks by treason cheaply bought; To which my son shall, in his father's right, By G.o.d's good will, succeed. For that dread height May Christ by many woes prepare his youth!'

C. Pama. Humph!

C. Wal. Why here--no, 't cannot be--

C. Pama. What hither comes Forth from the hospital, where, as they told us, The Princess labours in her holy duties?

A parti-coloured ghost that stalks for penance?

Ah! a good head of hair, if she had kept it A thought less lank; a handsome face too, trust me, But worn to fiddle-strings; well, we'll be knightly--

[As Elizabeth meets him.]

Stop, my fair queen of rags and patches, turn Those solemn eyes a moment from your distaff, And say, what tidings your magnificence Can bring us of the Princess?

Eliz. I am she.

[Count Pama crosses himself and falls on his knees.]

C. Pama. O blessed saints and martyrs! Open, earth!

And hide my recreant knighthood in thy gulf!

Yet, mercy, Madam! for till this strange day Who e'er saw spinning wool, like village-maid, A royal scion?

C. Wal. [kneeling]. My beloved mistress!

Eliz. Ah! faithful friend! Rise, gentles, rise, for shame; Nay, blush not, gallant sir. You have seen, ere now, Kings' daughters do worse things than spinning wool, Yet never reddened. Speak your errand out.

C. Pama. I from your father, Madam--

Eliz. Oh! I divine; And grieve that you so far have journeyed, sir, Upon a bootless quest.

C. Pama. But hear me, Madam-- If you return with me (o'erwhelming honour!

For such mean bodyguard too precious treasure) Your father offers to you half his wealth; And countless hosts, whose swift and loyal blades From traitorous grasp shall vindicate your crown.

Eliz. Wealth? I have proved it, and have tossed it from me: I will not stoop again to load with clay.