The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays by Gordon Bottomley et al. (i read a book TXT) 📗

CAMPBELL (to STEWART). Weel, sir, it is within the cognizance of the law that you have knowledge and information of the place of harbor and concealment used by certain persons who are in a state of proscription. Furthermore, it is known that four days ago certain other proscribed persons did join with these, and that they are banded together in an endeavor to secure the escape from these dominions of His Majesty, King George, of certain persons who by their crimes and treasons lie open to the capital charge. What say ye?

(STEWART makes no reply.)

CAMPBELL. Ye admit this then?

(STEWART as before.)

CAMPBELL. Come, come, my lad. Ye stand in great jeopardy. Great affairs of state lie behind this which are beyond your simple understanding. Speak up and it will be the better for ye.

(STEWART silent as before.)

CAMPBELL. Look you. I'll be frank with you. No harm will befall you this night—and I wish all in this house to note my words—no harm will befall you this night if you supply the information required.

(STEWART as before.)

CAMPBELL (with sudden passion). Sandeman, put your sword to the carcass o' this muckle ass and see will it louse his tongue.

STEWART. It may be as well then, Mr. Campbell, that I should say a word to save your breath. It is this: Till you talk Rannoch Loch to the top of Schiehallion, ye'll no' talk me into a yea or nay.

CAMPBELL (quietly). Say ye so? Noo, I widna be so very sure if I were you. I've had a lairge experience o' life, and speaking out of it I would say that only fools and the dead never change their minds.

STEWART (quietly too). Then you'll be adding to your experience to-night, Mr. Campbell, and you'll have something to put on to the other side of it.

CAMPBELL (tapping his snuff-box). Very possibly, young sir, but what I would present for your consideration is this: While ye may be prepared to keep your mouth shut under the condition of a fool, are ye equally prepared to do so in the condition of a dead man?

(CAMPBELL waits expectantly. STEWART silent as before.)

CAMPBELL. Tut, tut, now, if it's afraid ye are, my lad, with my hand on my heart and on my word as a gentleman—

STEWART. Afraid!

(He spits in contempt towards CAMPBELL.)

CAMPBELL (enraged). Ye damned stubborn Hieland stot. (To
SANDEMAN) Have him taken out. We'll get it another way.

(CAMPBELL rises. STEWART is moved into barn by soldiers.)

CAMPBELL (walking). Some puling eediots, Sandeman, would applaud this contumacy and call it constancy. Constancy! Now, I've had a lairge experience o' life, and I never saw yet a sensible man insensible to the touch of yellow metal. If there may be such a man, it is demonstrable that he is no sensible man. Fideelity! quotha, it's sheer obstinacy. They just see that ye want something oot o' them, and they're so damned selfish and thrawn they winna pairt. And with the natural inabeelity o' their brains to hold mair than one idea at a time they canna see that in return you could put something into their palms far more profitable. (Sits again at table.) Aweel, bring Mistress Stewart up.

(Old woman is placed before him where son had been.)

CAMPBELL (more ingratiatingly). Weel noo, Mistress Stewart, good woman, this is a sair predeecament for ye to be in. I would jist counsel ye to be candid. Doubtless yer mind is a' in a swirl. Ye kenna what way to turn. Maybe ye are like the Psalmist and say: "I lookit this way and that, and there was no man to peety me, or to have compassion upon my fatherless children." But, see now, ye would be wrong; and, if ye tell me a' ye ken, I'll stand freends wi' ye. Put your trust in Erchie Campbell.

MARY STEWART. I trust no Campbell.

CAMPBELL. Weel, weel noo, I'm no' jist that set up wi' them myself. There's but ae Campbell that I care muckle aboot, after a'. But, good wife, it's no' the Campbells we're trying the noo; so as time presses we'll jist "birze yont," as they say themselves. Noo then, speak up.

(MARY STEWART is silent.)

CAMPBELL (beginning grimly and passing through astonishment, expostulation, and a feigned contempt for mother and pity for son, to a pretence of sadness which, except at the end, makes his words come haltingly). Ah! ye also. I suppose ye understand, woman, how it will go wi' your son? (To his clerk) Here's a fine mother for ye, James! Would you believe it? She kens what would save her son—the very babe she nursed at her breast; but will she save him? Na! na! Sir, he may look after himself! A mother, a mother! Ha! ha!

(CAMPBELL laughs. MACKENZIE titters foolishly. CAMPBELL pauses to watch effect of his words.)

Aye, you would think, James, that she would remember the time when he was but little and afraid of all the terrors that walk in darkness, and how he looked up to her as to a tower of safety, and would run to her with outstretched hands, hiding his face from his fear, in her gown. The darkness! It is the dark night and a long journey before him now.

(He pauses again.)

You would think, James, that she would mind how she happit him from the cold of winter and sheltered him from the summer heats, and, when he began to find his footing, how she had an eye on a' the beasts of the field and on the water and the fire that were become her enemies—And to what purpose all this care?—tell me that, my man, to what good, if she is to leave him at the last to dangle from a tree at the end of a hempen rope—to see his flesh given to be meat for the fowls of the air—her son, her little son!

MARY STEWAET. My son is guilty of no crime!

CAMPBELL. Is he no'! Weel, mistress, as ye'll no' take my word for it, maybe ye'll list to Mr. Mackenzie here. What say ye, James?

MACKENZIE. He is guilty of aiding and abetting in the concealment of proscribed persons; likewise with being found in the possession of arms, contrary to statute, both very heinous crimes.

CAMPBELL. Very well said, James! Forby, between ourselves, Mrs. Stewart, the young man in my opeenion is guilty of another crime (snuffs)—he is guilty of the heinous crime of not knowing on which side his bread is buttered.—Come now—

MARY STEWART. Ye durst not lay a finger on the lad, ye durst not hang him.

MACKENZIE. And why should the gentleman not hang him if it pleesure him?

(CAMPBELL taps snuff-box and takes pinch.)

MARY STEWART (with intensity). Campbell of Kilmhor, lay but one finger on Dugald Stewart and the weight of Ben Cruachan will be light to the weight that will be laid on your soul. I will lay the curse of the seven rings upon your life: I will call up the fires of Ephron, the blue and the green and the gray fires, for the destruction of your soul: I will curse you in your homestead and in the wife it shelters and in the children that will never bear your name. Yea, and ye shall be cursed.

CAMPBELL. (Startled—betrays agitation—the snuff is spilled from his trembling hand.) Hoot toot, woman! ye're, ye're—(Angrily) Ye auld beldame, to say such things to me! I'll have ye first whippet and syne droont for a witch. Damn thae stubborn and supersteetious cattle! (To SANDEMAN) We should have come in here before him and listened in the barn, Sandeman!

SANDEMAN. Ah, listen behind the door you mean! Now I never thought of that!

CAMPBELL. Did ye not! Humph! Well, no doubt there are a good many things in the universe that yet wait for your thought upon them. What would be your objections, now?

SANDEMAN. There are two objections, Kilmhor, that you would understand.

CAMPBELL. Name them.

SANDEMAN. Well, in the first place, we have not wings like crows to fly—and the footsteps on the snow—Second point—the woman would have told him we were there.

CAMPBELL. Not if I told her I had power to clap her in Inverness jail.

MARY STEWART (in contempt). Yes, even if ye had told me ye had power to clap me in hell, Mr. Campbell.

CAMPBELL. Lift me that screeching Jezebel oot o' here; Sandeman, we'll mak' a quick finish o' this. (Soldiers take her towards barn.) No, not there; pitch the old girzie into the snow.

MARY STEWART. Ye'll never find him, Campbell, never, never!

CAMPBELL (enraged). Find him! Aye, by God I'll find him, if I have to keek under every stone on the mountains from the Boar of Badenoch to the Sow of Athole. (Old woman and soldiers go outside.) And now, Captain Sandeman, you an' me must have a word or two. I noted your objection to listening ahint doors and so on. Now, I make a' necessary allowances for youth and the grand and magneeficent ideas commonly held, for a little while, in that period. I had them myself. But, man, gin ye had trod the floor of the Parliament Hoose in Edinburry as long as I did, wi' a pair o' thin hands at the bottom o' toom pockets, ye'd ha'e shed your fine notions, as I did. Noo, fine pernickety noansense will no' do in this business—

SANDEMAN. Sir!

CAMPBELL. Softly, softly, Captain Sandeman, and hear till what I have to say. I have noticed with regret several things in your remarks and bearing which are displeasing to me. I would say just one word in your ear; it is this. These things, Sandeman, are not conducive to advancement in His Majesty's service.

SANDEMAN. Kilmhor, I am a soldier, and if I speak out my mind, you must pardon me if my words are blunt. I do not like this work, but I loathe your methods.

CAMPBELL. Mislike the methods you may, but the work ye must do! Methods are my business. Let me tell you the true position. In ae word it is no more and no less than this. You and me are baith here to carry out the proveesions of the Act for the Pacification of the Highlands. That means the cleaning up of a very big mess, Sandeman, a very big mess. Now, what is your special office in this work? I'll tell ye, man; you and your men are just beesoms in the hands of the law-officers of the Crown. In this district, I order and ye soop! (He indicates door of barn.) Now soop, Captain Sandeman.

SANDEMAN (in some agitation). What is your purpose? What are you after? I would give something to see into your mind.

CAMPBELL. Ne'er fash aboot my mind: what has a soldier to do with ony mental operations? It's His Grace's orders that concern you. Oot wi' your man and set him up against the wa'.

SANDEMAN. Kilmhor, it is murder—murder, Kilmhor!

CAMPBELL. Hoots, awa', man, it's a thing o' nae special significance.

SANDEMAN. I must ask you for a warrant.

CAMPBELL. Quick then: Mackenzie will bring it out to you.

(CLERK begins writing. SANDEMAN and soldiers lead STEWART outside, CAMPBELL sits till they are out. CLERK finishes, CAMPBELL signs warrant—and former goes. CAMPBELL is alone, save for MORAG CAMERON, who is sitting huddled up on stool by fire, and is unnoticed by CAMPBELL.)

CAMPBELL (as one speaking his thoughts aloud). I've been beaten for a' that. A strange thing, noo. Beforehand I would ha'e said naething could be easier. And yet—and yet—there it is!… It would have been a grand stroke for me…. Cluny—Keppoch—Lochiel, and maybe … maybe—Hell! when I think of it! Just a whispered word—a mere pointed finger would ha'e telled a'. But no! their visions, their dreams beat me. "You'll be adding to your experience to-night, Mr. Campbell, and have something to put to the other side of it," says he; aye, and by God I have added something to it, and it is a thing I like but little—that a dream can be stronger than a strong man armed.—Here come I, Archibald Campbell of Kilmhor, invested with authority as law-officer of the Crown, bearing in my hand the power of life and death, fire and the sword, backed up by the visible authority of armed men, and yet I am powerless before the dreams of an old woman and a half-grown lad—soldiers and horses and the gallows and yellow gold are less than the wind blowing in their faces.—It is a strange thing that: it is a thing I do not understand.—It is a thing fit to sicken a man against the notion that there are probabeelities on this earth.—have been