One does not need to discuss whether murders were possible in English social life. They are possible in all life at all times as long as men and women allow their passions to overthrow their reason. The last act, however, illustrates the English poise already referred to; Tresham regains his equilibrium with enlarged vision, his salvation is accomplished, his soul awakened.

ACT III

SCENE I.—The end of the Yew-tree Avenue under MILDRED'S window. A light seen through a central red pane.

Enter TRESHAM through the trees.

Again here! But I cannot lose myself. The heath—the orchard—I have traversed glades And dells and bosky paths which used to lead Into green wild-wood depths, bewildering My boy's adventurous step. And now they tend Hither or soon or late; the blackest shade Breaks up, the thronged trunks of the trees ope wide, And the dim turret I have fled from, fronts Again my step: the very river put Its arm about me and conducted me To this detested spot. Why then, I'll shun Their will no longer: do your will with me! Oh, bitter! To have reared a towering scheme Of happiness, and to behold it razed, Were nothing: all men hope, and see their hopes Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew. But I ... to hope that from a line like ours No horrid prodigy like this would spring, Were just as though I hoped that from these old Confederates against the sovereign day, Children of older and yet older sires, Whose living coral berries dropped, as now On me, on many a baron's surcoat once, On many a beauty's wimple—would proceed No poison-tree, to thrust, from hell its root, Hither and thither its strange snaky arms. Why came I here? What must I do? [A bell strikes.] A bell? Midnight! and 'tis at midnight.... Ah, I catch —Woods, river, plains, I catch your meaning now, And I obey you! Hist! This tree will serve.

[He retires behind one of the trees. After a pause, enter MERTOUN cloaked as before.

Mertoun. Not time! Beat out thy last voluptuous beat Of hope and fear, my heart! I thought the clock I' the chapel struck as I was pushing through The ferns. And so I shall no more see rise My love-star! Oh, no matter for the past! So much the more delicious task to watch Mildred revive: to pluck out, thorn by thorn, All traces of the rough forbidden path My rash love lured her to! Each day must see Some fear of hers effaced, some hope renewed: Then there will be surprises, unforeseen Delights in store. I'll not regret the past.

[The light is placed above in the purple pane.

And see, my signal rises, Mildred's star! I never saw it lovelier than now It rises for the last time. If it sets, 'Tis that the re-assuring sun may dawn.

[As he prepares to ascend the last tree of the avenue, TRESHAM arrests his arm.

Unhand me—peasant, by your grasp! Here's gold. 'Twas a mad freak of mine. I said I'd pluck A branch from the white-blossomed shrub beneath The casement there. Take this, and hold your peace.

Tresham. Into the moonlight yonder, come with me! Out of the shadow!

Mertoun. I am armed, fool!

Tresham. Yes, Or no? You'll come into the light, or no? My hand is on your throat—refuse!—

Mertoun. That voice! Where have I heard ... no—that was mild and slow. I'll come with you.

[They advance.

Tresham. You're armed: that's well. Declare Your name: who are you?

Mertoun. (Tresham!—she is lost!)

Tresham. Oh, silent? Do you know, you bear yourself Exactly as, in curious dreams I've had How felons, this wild earth is full of, look When they're detected, still your kind has looked! The bravo holds an assured countenance, The thief is voluble and plausible, But silently the slave of lust has crouched When I have fancied it before a man. Your name!

Mertoun. I do conjure Lord Tresham—ay, Kissing his foot, if so I might prevail— That he for his own sake forbear to ask My name! As heaven's above, his future weal Or woe depends upon my silence! Vain! I read your white inexorable face. Know me, Lord Tresham!

[He throws off his disguises.

Tresham. Mertoun! [After a pause.] Draw now!

Mertoun. Hear me But speak first!

Tresham. Not one least word on your life! Be sure that I will strangle in your throat The least word that informs me how you live And yet seem what you seem! No doubt 'twas you Taught Mildred still to keep that face and sin. We should join hands in frantic sympathy If you once taught me the unteachable, Explained how you can live so, and so lie. With God's help I retain, despite my sense, The old belief—a life like yours is still Impossible. Now draw!

Mertoun. Not for my sake, Do I entreat a hearing—for your sake, And most, for her sake!

Tresham. Ha ha, what should I Know of your ways? A miscreant like yourself, How must one rouse his ire? A blow?—that's pride No doubt, to him! One spurns him, does one not? Or sets the foot upon his mouth, or spits Into his face! Come! Which, or all of these?

Mertoun. 'Twixt him and me and Mildred, Heaven be judge! Can I avoid this? Have your will, my lord!

[He draws and, after a few passes, falls.

Tresham. You are not hurt?

Mertoun. You'll hear me now!

Tresham. But rise!

Mertoun. Ah, Tresham, say I not "you'll hear me now!" And what procures a man the right to speak In his defense before his fellow man, But—I suppose—the thought that presently He may have leave to speak before his God His whole defense?

Tresham. Not hurt? It cannot be! You made no effort to resist me. Where Did my sword reach you? Why not have returned My thrusts? Hurt where?

Mertoun. My lord—

Tresham. How young he is!

Mertoun. Lord Tresham, I am very young, and yet I have entangled other lives with mine. Do let me speak, and do believe my speech! That when I die before you presently,—

Tresham. Can you stay here till I return with help?

Mertoun. Oh, stay by me! When I was less than boy I did you grievous wrong and knew it not— Upon my honor, knew it not! Once known, I could not find what seemed a better way To right you than I took: my life—you feel How less than nothing were the giving you The life you've taken! But I thought my way The better—only for your sake and hers: And as you have decided otherwise, Would I had an infinity of lives To offer you! Now say—instruct me—think! Can you, from the brief minutes I have left, Eke out my reparation? Oh think—think! For I must wring a partial—dare I say, Forgiveness from you, ere I die?

Tresham. I do Forgive you.

Mertoun. Wait and ponder that great word! Because, if you forgive me, I shall hope To speak to you of—Mildred!

Tresham. Mertoun, haste And anger have undone us. 'Tis not you Should tell me for a novelty you're young, Thoughtless, unable to recall the past. Be but your pardon ample as my own!

Mertoun. Ah, Tresham, that a sword-stroke and a drop Of blood or two, should bring all this about! Why, 'twas my very fear of you, my love Of you—(what passion like a boy's for one Like you?)—that ruined me! I dreamed of you— You, all accomplished, courted everywhere, The scholar and the gentleman. I burned To knit myself to you: but I was young, And your surpassing reputation kept me So far aloof! Oh, wherefore all that love? With less of love, my glorious yesterday Of praise and gentlest words and kindest looks, Had taken place perchance six months ago. Even now, how happy we had been! And yet I know the thought of this escaped you, Tresham! Let me look up into your face; I feel 'Tis changed above me: yet my eyes are glazed. Where? where?

[As he endeavors to raise himself, his eye catches the lamp.

Ah, Mildred! What will Mildred do? Tresham, her life is bound up in the life That's bleeding fast away! I'll live—must live, There, if you'll only turn me I shall live And save her! Tresham—oh, had you but heard! Had you but heard! What right was yours to set The thoughtless foot upon her life and mine, And then say, as we perish, "Had I thought, All had gone otherwise?" We've sinned and die: Never you sin, Lord Tresham! for you'll die, And God will judge you.

Tresham. Yes, be satisfied! That process is begun.

Mertoun. And she sits there Waiting for me! Now, say you this to her— You, not another—say, I saw him die As he breathed this, "I love her"—you don't know What those three small words mean! Say, loving her Lowers me down the bloody slope to death With memories ... I speak to her, not you, Who had no pity, will have no remorse, Perchance intend her.... Die along with me, Dear Mildred! 'tis so easy, and you'll 'scape So much unkindness! Can I lie at rest, With rude speech spoken to you, ruder deeds Done to you?—heartless men shall have my heart, And I tied down with grave-clothes and the worm, Aware, perhaps, of every blow—oh God!— Upon those lips—yet of no power to tear The felon stripe by stripe! Die, Mildred! Leave Their honorable world to them! For God We're good enough, though the world casts us out.

[A whistle is heard.

Tresham. Ho, Gerard!

Enter GERARD, AUSTIN and GUENDOLEN, with lights.

No one speak! You see what's done. I cannot bear another voice.

Mertoun. There's light— Light all about me, and I move to it. Tresham, did I not tell you—did you not Just promise to deliver words of mine To Mildred?

Tresham. I will bear these words to her.

Mertoun. Now?

Tresham. Now. Lift you the body, and leave me The head.

[As they half raise MERTOUN, he turns suddenly.

Mertoun. I knew they turned me: turn me not from her! There! stay you! there!

[Dies.

Guendolen [after a pause]. Austin, remain you here With Thorold until Gerard comes with help: Then lead him to his chamber. I must go To Mildred.

Tresham. Guendolen, I hear each word You utter. Did you hear him bid me give His message? Did you hear my promise? I, And only I, see Mildred.

Guendolen. She will die.

Tresham. Oh no, she will not die! I dare not hope She'll die. What ground have you to think she'll die? Why, Austin's with you!

Austin. Had we but arrived Before you fought!

Tresham. There was no fight at all. He let me slaughter him—the boy! I'll trust The body there to you and Gerard—thus! Now bear him on before me.

Austin. Whither bear him?

Tresham. Oh, to my chamber! When we meet there next, We shall be friends.

[They bear out the body of MERTOUN.

Will she die, Guendolen?

Guendolen. Where are you taking me?

Tresham. He fell just here. Now answer me. Shall you in your whole life —You who have nought to do with Mertoun's fate, Now you have seen his breast upon the turf, Shall you e'er walk this way if you can help? When you and Austin wander arm-in-arm Through our ancestral grounds, will not a shade Be ever on the meadow and the waste— Another kind of shade than when the night Shuts the woodside with all its whispers up? But will you ever so forget his breast As carelessly to cross this bloody turf Under the black yew avenue? That's well! You turn your head: and I then?—

Guendolen. What is done Is done. My care is for the living. Thorold, Bear up against this burden: more remains To set the neck to!

Tresham. Dear and ancient trees My fathers planted, and I loved so well! What have I done that, like some fabled crime Of yore, lets loose a Fury leading thus Her miserable dance amidst you all? Oh, never more for me shall winds intone With all your tops a vast antiphony, Demanding and responding in God's praise! Hers ye are now, not mine! Farewell—farewell!

SCENE II.—MILDRED'S chamber.

MILDRED alone.

He comes not! I have heard of those who seemed Resourceless in prosperity,—you thought Sorrow might slay them when she listed; yet Did they so gather up their diffused strength At her first menace, that they bade her strike, And stood and laughed her subtlest skill to scorn. Oh, 'tis not so with me! The first woe fell, And the rest fall upon it, not on me: Else should I bear that Henry comes not?—fails Just this first night out of so many nights? Loving is done with. Were he sitting now, As so few hours since, on that seat, we'd love No more—contrive no thousand happy ways To hide love from the loveless, any more. I think I might have urged some little point In my defense, to Thorold; he was breathless For the least hint of a defense: but no, The first shame over, all that would might fall. No Henry! Yet I merely sit and think The morn's deed o'er and o'er. I must have crept Out of myself. A Mildred that has lost Her lover—oh, I dare not look upon Such woe! I crouch away from it! 'Tis she, Mildred, will break her heart, not I! The world Forsakes me: only Henry's left me—left? When I have lost him, for he does not come, And I sit stupidly.... Oh Heaven, break up This worse than anguish, this mad apathy, By any means or any messenger!

Tresham [without]. Mildred!

Mildred. Come in! Heaven hears me! [Enter TRESHAM.] You? alone? Oh, no more cursing!

Tresham. Mildred, I must sit. There—you sit!

Mildred. Say it, Thorold—do not look The curse! deliver all you come to say! What must become of me? Oh, speak that thought Which makes your brow and cheeks so pale!

Tresham. My thought?

Mildred. All of it!

Tresham. How we waded—years ago— After those water-lilies, till the plash, I know not how, surprised us; and you dared Neither advance nor turn back: so, we stood Laughing and crying until Gerard came— Once safe upon the turf, the loudest too, For once more reaching the relinquished prize! How idle thoughts are, some men's, dying men's! Mildred,—

Mildred. You call me kindlier by my name Than even yesterday: what is in that?

Tresham. It weighs so much upon my mind that I This morning took an office not my own! I might ... of course, I must be glad or grieved, Content or not, at every little thing That touches you. I may with a wrung heart Even reprove you, Mildred; I did more: Will you forgive me?

Mildred. Thorold? do you mock? Or no ... and yet you bid me ... say that word!

Tresham. Forgive me, Mildred!—are you silent, Sweet?

Mildred [starting up]. Why does not Henry Mertoun come to-night? Are you, too, silent?

[Dashing his mantle aside, and pointing to his scabbard, which is empty.

Ah, this speaks for you! You've murdered Henry Mertoun! Now proceed! What is it I must pardon? This and all? Well, I do pardon you—I think I do. Thorold, how very wretched you must be!

Tresham. He bade me tell you....

Mildred. What I do forbid Your utterance of! So much that you may tell And will not—how you murdered him ... but, no! You'll tell me that he loved me, never more Than bleeding out his life there: must I say "Indeed," to that? Enough! I pardon you.

Tresham. You cannot, Mildred! for the harsh words, yes: Of this last deed Another's judge: whose doom I wait in doubt, despondency and fear.

Mildred. Oh, true! There's nought for me to pardon! True! You loose my soul of all its cares at once. Death makes me sure of him for ever! You Tell me his last words? He shall tell me them, And take my answer—not in words, but reading Himself the heart I had to read him late, Which death....

Tresham. Death? You are dying too? Well said Of Guendolen! I dared not hope you'd die: But she was sure of it.

Mildred. Tell Guendolen I loved her, and tell Austin....

Tresham. Him you loved: And me?

Mildred. Ah, Thorold! Was't not rashly done To quench that blood, on fire with youth and hope And love of me—whom you loved too, and yet Suffered to sit here waiting his approach While you were slaying him? Oh, doubtlessly You let him speak his poor boy's speech —Do his poor utmost to disarm your wrath And respite me!—you let him try to give The story of our love and ignorance, And the brief madness and the long despair— You let him plead all this, because your code Of honor bids you hear before you strike: But at the end, as he looked up for life Into your eyes—you struck him down!

Tresham. No! No! Had I but heard him—had I let him speak Half the truth—less—had I looked long on him I had desisted! Why, as he lay there, The moon on his flushed cheek, I gathered all The story ere he told it: I saw through The troubled surface of his crime and yours A depth of purity immovable, Had I but glanced, where all seemed turbidest Had gleamed some inlet to the calm beneath; I would not glance: my punishment's at hand. There, Mildred, is the truth! and you—say on— You curse me?

Mildred. As I dare approach that Heaven Which has not bade a living thing despair, Which needs no code to keep its grace from stain, But bids the vilest worm that turns on it Desist and be forgiven,—I—forgive not, But bless you, Thorold, from my soul of souls!

[Falls on his neck.

There! Do not think too much upon the past! The cloud that's broke was all the same a cloud While it stood up between my friend and you; You hurt him 'neath its shadow: but is that So past retrieve? I have his heart, you know; I may dispose of it: I give it you! It loves you as mine loves! Confirm me, Henry!

[Dies.

Tresham. I wish thee joy, Beloved! I am glad In thy full gladness!

Guendolen [without]. Mildred! Tresham! [Entering with AUSTIN.] Thorold, I could desist no longer. Ah, she swoons! That's well.

Tresham. Oh, better far than that!

Guendolen. She's dead! Let me unlock her arms!

Tresham. She threw them thus About my neck, and blessed me, and then died: You'll let them stay now, Guendolen!

Austin. Leave her And look to him! What ails you, Thorold?

Guendolen. White As she, and whiter! Austin! quick—this side!

Austin. A froth is oozing through his clenched teeth; Both lips, where they're not bitten through, are black: Speak, dearest Thorold!

Tresham. Something does weigh down My neck beside her weight: thanks: I should fall But for you, Austin, I believe!—there, there, 'Twill pass away soon!—ah,—I had forgotten: I am dying.

Guendolen. Thorold—Thorold—why was this?

Tresham. I said, just as I drank the poison off, The earth would be no longer earth to me, The life out of all life was gone from me. There are blind ways provided, the foredone Heart-weary player in this pageant-world Drops out by, letting the main masque defile By the conspicuous portal: I am through— Just through!

Guendolen. Don't leave him, Austin! Death is close.

Tresham. Already Mildred's face is peacefuller. I see you, Austin—feel you: here's my hand, Put yours in it—you, Guendolen, yours too! You're lord and lady now—you're Treshams; name And fame are yours: you hold our 'scutcheon up. Austin, no blot on it! You see how blood Must wash one blot away: the first blot came And the first blood came. To the vain world's eye All's gules again: no care to the vain world, From whence the red was drawn!

Austin. No blot shall come!

Tresham. I said that: yet it did come. Should it come, Vengeance is God's, not man's. Remember me!

[Dies.

Guendolen [letting fall the pulseless arm]. Ah, Thorold, we can but—remember you!

In "Ned Bratts," Browning has given a striking picture of the influence exerted by Bunyan upon some of his wicked contemporaries. The poet took his hints for the story from Bunyan himself, who tells it as follows in the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman."

"At a summer assizes holden at Hertford, while the judge was sitting upon the bench, comes this old Tod into the Court, clothed in a green suit, with his leathern girdle in his hand, his bosom open, and all on a dung sweat, as if he had run for his life; and being come in, he spake aloud, as follows: 'My lord,' said he, 'here is the veriest rogue that breathes upon the face of the earth. I have been a thief from a child: when I was but a little one, I gave myself to rob orchards and to do other such like wicked things, and I have continued a thief ever since. My lord, there has not been a robbery committed these many years, within so many miles of this place, but I have either been at it, or privy to it.' The judge thought the fellow was mad, but after some conference with some of the justices, they agreed to indict him; and so they did of several felonious actions; to all of which he heartily confessed guilty, and so was hanged, with his wife at the same time."

Browning had the happy thought of placing this episode in Bedford amid the scenes of Bunyan's labors and imprisonment. Bunyan, himself, was tried at the Bedford Assizes upon the charge of preaching things he should not, or according to some accounts for preaching without having been ordained, and was sentenced to twelve years' imprisonment in the Bedford Jail. At one time it was thought that he wrote "Pilgrim's Progress" during this imprisonment, but Dr. Brown, in his biography of Bunyan conjectured that this book was not begun until a later and shorter imprisonment of 1675-76, in the town prison and toll-house on Bedford Bridge. Dr. Brown supposes that the portion of the book written in prison closes where Christian and Hopeful part from the shepherds on the Delectable Mountains. "At that point a break in the narrative is indicated—'So I awoke from my dream;' it is resumed with the words—'And I slept and dreamed again, and saw the same two pilgrims going down the mountains along the highway towards the city.' Already from the top of an high hill called 'Clear,' the Celestial City was in view; dangers there were still to be encountered; but to have reached that high hill and to have seen something like a gate, and some of the glory of the place, was an attainment and an incentive." There Bunyan could pause. Several years later the pilgrimage of Christiana was written.

Browning, however, adopts the tradition that the book was written during the twelve years' imprisonment, and makes use of the story of Bunyan's having supported himself during this time by making tagged shoe-laces. He brings in, also, the little blind daughter to whom Bunyan was said to be devoted. The Poet was evidently under the impression also that the assizes were held in a courthouse, but there is good authority for thinking that at that time they were held in the chapel of Herne. Nothing remains of this building now, but it was situated at the southwest corner of the churchyard of St. Paul, and was spoken of sometimes as the School-house chapel.

Ned Bratts and his wife did not know, of course, that they actually lived in the land of the "Pilgrim's Progress." This has been pointed out only recently in a fascinating little book by A. J. Foster of Wootton Vicarage, Bedfordshire. He has been a pilgrim from Elstow, the village where Bunyan was born near Bedford, through all the surrounding country, and has fixed upon many spots beautiful and otherwise which he believes were transmuted in Bunyan's imagination into the House Beautiful, The Delectable Mountains, Vanity Fair and so on through nearly all the scenes of Christian's journey.

The House Beautiful he identifies with Houghton House in the manor of Dame Ellen's Bury. This is one of the most interesting of the country houses of England, because of its connection with Sir Philip Sidney's sister, Mary Sidney. After the death of her husband, Lord Pembroke, James I. presented her with the royal manor of Dame Ellen's Bury, and under the guidance of Inigo Jones, it is generally supposed, Houghton House was built. It is in ruins now and covered with ivy. Trees have grown within the ruins themselves. Still it is one of the most beautiful spots in Bedfordshire. "In Bunyan's time," Mr. Foster writes, "we may suppose the northern slope of Houghton Park was a series of terraces rising one above another, and laid out in the stiff garden fashion of the time. A flight of steps, or maybe a steep path, would lead from one terrace to the next, and gradually the view over the plain of Bedford would reveal itself to the traveler as he mounted higher and higher."

From Houghton House there is a view of the Chiltern Hills. Mr. Foster is of the opinion that Bunyan had this view in mind when he described Christian as looking from the roof of the House Beautiful southwards towards the Delectable Mountains. He writes, "One of the main roads to London from Bedford, and the one, moreover, which passes through Elstow, crosses the hills only a little more than a mile east of Houghton House, and Bunyan, in his frequent journeys to London, no doubt often passed along this road. All in this direction was, therefore, to him familiar ground. Many a pleasant walk or ride came back to him through memory, as he took pen in hand to describe Hill Difficulty with its steep path and its arbor, and the House Beautiful with its guest-chamber, its large upper room looking eastward, its study and its armory.

"Many a time did Bunyan, as he journeyed, look southwards to the blue Chilterns, and when the time came he placed together all that he had seen, as the frame in which he should set his way-faring pilgrim."

Pleasant as it would be to follow with Mr. Foster his journey through the real scenes of the "Pilgrim's Progress," our main interest at present is to observe how Browning's facile imagination has presented the conversion, through the impression made upon them by Bunyan's book, of Ned and his wife.

NED BRATTS

'T was Bedford Special Assize, one daft Midsummer's Day: A broiling blasting June,—was never its like, men say. Corn stood sheaf-ripe already, and trees looked yellow as that; Ponds drained dust-dry, the cattle lay foaming around each flat. Inside town, dogs went mad, and folk kept bibbing beer While the parsons prayed for rain. 'T was horrible, yes—but queer: Queer—for the sun laughed gay, yet nobody moved a hand To work one stroke at his trade: as given to understand That all was come to a stop, work and such worldly ways, And the world's old self about to end in a merry blaze. Midsummer's Day moreover was the first of Bedford Fair, With Bedford Town's tag-rag and bobtail a-bowsing there.

But the Court House, Quality crammed: through doors ope, windows wide, High on the Bench you saw sit Lordships side by side. There frowned Chief Justice Jukes, fumed learned Brother Small, And fretted their fellow Judge: like threshers, one and all, Of a reek with laying down the law in a furnace. Why? Because their lungs breathed flame—the regular crowd forbye— From gentry pouring in—quite a nosegay, to be sure! How else could they pass the time, six mortal hours endure Till night should extinguish day, when matters might haply mend? Meanwhile no bad resource was—watching begin and end Some trial for life and death, in a brisk five minutes' space, And betting which knave would 'scape, which hang, from his sort of face.

So, their Lordships toiled and moiled, and a deal of work was done (I warrant) to justify the mirth of the crazy sun As this and t'other lout, struck dumb at the sudden show Of red robes and white wigs, boggled nor answered "Boh!" When asked why he, Tom Styles, should not—because Jack Nokes Had stolen the horse—be hanged: for Judges must have their jokes, And louts must make allowance—let's say, for some blue fly Which punctured a dewy scalp where the frizzles stuck awry— Else Tom had fleered scot-free, so nearly over and done Was the main of the job. Full-measure, the gentles enjoyed their fun, As a twenty-five were tried, rank puritans caught at prayer In a cow-house and laid by the heels,—have at 'em, devil may care!— And ten were prescribed the whip, and ten a brand on the cheek, And five a slit of the nose—just leaving enough to tweak.

Well, things at jolly high-tide, amusement steeped in fire, While noon smote fierce the roof's red tiles to heart's desire, The Court a-simmer with smoke, one ferment of oozy flesh, One spirituous humming musk mount-mounting until its mesh Entoiled all heads in a fluster, and Serjeant Postlethwayte —Dashing the wig oblique as he mopped his oily pate— Cried "Silence, or I grow grease! No loophole lets in air? Jurymen,—Guilty, Death! Gainsay me if you dare!" —Things at this pitch, I say,—what hubbub without the doors? What laughs, shrieks, hoots and yells, what rudest of uproars?

Bounce through the barrier throng a bulk comes rolling vast! Thumps, kicks,—no manner of use!—spite of them rolls at last Into the midst a ball which, bursting, brings to view Publican Black Ned Bratts and Tabby his big wife too: Both in a muck-sweat, both ... were never such eyes uplift At the sight of yawning hell, such nostrils—snouts that sniffed Sulphur, such mouths a-gape ready to swallow flame! Horrified, hideous, frank fiend-faces! yet, all the same, Mixed with a certain ... eh? how shall I dare style—mirth The desperate grin of the guest that, could they break from earth, Heaven was above, and hell might rage in impotence Below the saved, the saved!

"Confound you! (no offence!) Out of our way,—push, wife! Yonder their Worships be!" Ned Bratts has reached the bar, and "Hey, my Lords," roars he, "A Jury of life and death, Judges the prime of the land, Constables, javelineers,—all met, if I understand, To decide so knotty a point as whether 't was Jack or Joan Robbed the henroost, pinched the pig, hit the King's Arms with a stone, Dropped the baby down the well, left the tithesman in the lurch, Or, three whole Sundays running, not once attended church! What a pother—do these deserve the parish-stocks or whip, More or less brow to brand, much or little nose to snip,— When, in our Public, plain stand we—that's we stand here, I and my Tab, brass-bold, brick-built of beef and beer, —Do not we, slut? Step forth and show your beauty, jade! Wife of my bosom—that's the word now! What a trade We drove! None said us nay: nobody loved his life So little as wag a tongue against us,—did they, wife? Yet they knew us all the while, in their hearts, for what we are —Worst couple, rogue and quean, unhanged—search near and far! Eh, Tab? The pedler, now—o'er his noggin—who warned a mate To cut and run, nor risk his pack where its loss of weight Was the least to dread,—aha, how we two laughed a-good As, stealing round the midden, he came on where I stood With billet poised and raised,—you, ready with the rope,— Ah, but that's past, that's sin repented of, we hope! Men knew us for that same, yet safe and sound stood we! The lily-livered knaves knew too (I've balked a d——) Our keeping the 'Pied Bull' was just a mere pretence: Too slow the pounds make food, drink, lodging, from out the pence! There's not a stoppage to travel has chanced, this ten long year, No break into hall or grange, no lifting of nag or steer, Not a single roguery, from the clipping of a purse To the cutting of a throat, but paid us toll. Od's curse! When Gipsy Smouch made bold to cheat us of our due, —Eh, Tab? the Squire's strong-box we helped the rascal to— I think he pulled a face, next Sessions' swinging-time! He danced the jig that needs no floor,—and, here's the prime, 'T was Scroggs that houghed the mare! Ay, those were busy days!

"Well, there we flourished brave, like scripture-trees called bays, Faring high, drinking hard, in money up to head —Not to say, boots and shoes, when ... Zounds, I nearly said— Lord, to unlearn one's language! How shall we labor, wife? Have you, fast hold, the Book? Grasp, grip it, for your life! See, sirs, here's life, salvation! Here's—hold but out my breath— When did I speak so long without once swearing? 'Sdeath, No, nor unhelped by ale since man and boy! And yet All yesterday I had to keep my whistle wet While reading Tab this Book: book? don't say 'book'—they're plays, Songs, ballads and the like: here's no such strawy blaze, But sky wide ope, sun, moon, and seven stars out full-flare! Tab, help and tell! I'm hoarse. A mug! or—no, a prayer! Dip for one out of the Book! Who wrote it in the Jail —He plied his pen unhelped by beer, sirs, I'll be bail!

"I've got my second wind. In trundles she—that's Tab. 'Why, Gammer, what's come now, that—bobbing like a crab On Yule-tide bowl—your head's a-work and both your eyes Break loose? Afeard, you fool? As if the dead can rise! Say—Bagman Dick was found last May with fuddling-cap Stuffed in his mouth: to choke's a natural mishap!' 'Gaffer, be—blessed,' cries she, 'and Bagman Dick as well! I, you, and he are damned: this Public is our hell: We live in fire: live coals don't feel!—once quenched, they learn— Cinders do, to what dust they moulder while they burn!'

"'If you don't speak straight out,' says I—belike I swore— 'A knobstick, well you know the taste of, shall, once more, Teach you to talk, my maid!' She ups with such a face, Heart sunk inside me. 'Well, pad on, my prate-apace!'

"'I've been about those laces we need for ... never mind! If henceforth they tie hands, 't is mine they'll have to bind. You know who makes them best—the Tinker in our cage, Pulled-up for gospelling, twelve years ago: no age To try another trade,—yet, so he scorned to take Money he did not earn, he taught himself the make Of laces, tagged and tough—Dick Bagman found them so! Good customers were we! Well, last week, you must know His girl,—the blind young chit, who hawks about his wares,— She takes it in her head to come no more—such airs These hussies have! Yet, since we need a stoutish lace,— "I'll to the jail-bird father, abuse her to his face!" So, first I filled a jug to give me heart, and then, Primed to the proper pitch, I posted to their den— Patmore—they style their prison! I tip the turnkey, catch My heart up, fix my face, and fearless lift the latch— Both arms a-kimbo, in bounce with a good round oath Ready for rapping out: no "Lawks" nor "By my troth!"

"'There sat my man, the father. He looked up: what one feels When heart that leapt to mouth drops down again to heels! He raised his hand.... Hast seen, when drinking out the night, And in the day, earth grow another something quite Under the sun's first stare? I stood a very stone.

"'"Woman!" (a fiery tear he put in every tone), "How should my child frequent your house where lust is sport, Violence—trade? Too true! I trust no vague report. Her angel's hand, which stops the sight of sin, leaves clear The other gate of sense, lets outrage through the ear. What has she heard!—which, heard shall never be again. Better lack food than feast, a Dives in the—wain Or reign or train—of Charles!" (His language was not ours: 'T is my belief, God spoke: no tinker has such powers.) "Bread, only bread they bring—my laces: if we broke Your lump of leavened sin, the loaf's first crumb would choke!"

"'Down on my marrow-bones! Then all at once rose he: His brown hair burst a-spread, his eyes were suns to see: Up went his hands: "Through flesh, I reach, I read thy soul! So may some stricken tree look blasted, bough and bole, Champed by the fire-tooth, charred without, and yet, thrice-bound With dreriment about, within may life be found, A prisoned power to branch and blossom as before, Could but the gardener cleave the cloister, reach the core, Loosen the vital sap: yet where shall help be found? Who says 'How save it?'—nor 'Why cumbers it the ground?' Woman, that tree art thou! All sloughed about with scurf, Thy stag-horns fright the sky, thy snake-roots sting the turf! Drunkenness, wantonness, theft, murder gnash and gnarl Thine outward, case thy soul with coating like the marle Satan stamps flat upon each head beneath his hoof! And how deliver such? The strong men keep aloof, Lover and friend stand far, the mocking ones pass by, Tophet gapes wide for prey: lost soul, despair and die! What then? 'Look unto me and be ye saved!' saith God: 'I strike the rock, outstreats the life-stream at my rod! Be your sins scarlet, wool shall they seem like,—although As crimson red, yet turn white as the driven snow!'"

"'There, there, there! All I seem to somehow understand Is—that, if I reached home, 't was through the guiding hand Of his blind girl which led and led me through the streets And out of town and up to door again. What greets First thing my eye, as limbs recover from their swoon? A book—this Book she gave at parting. "Father's boon— The Book he wrote: it reads as if he spoke himself: He cannot preach in bonds, so,—take it down from shelf When you want counsel,—think you hear his very voice!"

"'Wicked dear Husband, first despair and then rejoice! Dear wicked Husband, waste no tick of moment more, Be saved like me, bald trunk! There's greenness yet at core, Sap under slough! Read, read!'

"Let me take breath, my lords! I'd like to know, are these—hers, mine, or Bunyan's words? I'm 'wildered—scarce with drink,—nowise with drink alone! You'll say, with heat: but heat's no stuff to split a stone Like this black boulder—this flint heart of mine: the Book— That dealt the crashing blow! Sirs, here's the fist that shook His beard till Wrestler Jem howled like a just-lugged bear! You had brained me with a feather: at once I grew aware Christmas was meant for me. A burden at your back, Good Master Christmas? Nay,—yours was that Joseph's sack, —Or whose it was,—which held the cup,—compared with mine! Robbery loads my loins, perjury cracks my chine, Adultery ... nay, Tab, you pitched me as I flung! One word, I'll up with fist.... No, sweet spouse, hold your tongue!

"I'm hasting to the end. The Book, sirs—take and read! You have my history in a nutshell,—ay, indeed! It must off, my burden! See,—slack straps and into pit, Roll, reach, the bottom, rest, rot there—a plague on it! For a mountain's sure to fall and bury Bedford Town, 'Destruction'—that's the name, and fire shall burn it down! O 'scape the wrath in time! Time's now, if not too late. How can I pilgrimage up to the wicket-gate? Next comes Despond the slough: not that I fear to pull Through mud, and dry my clothes at brave House Beautiful— But it's late in the day, I reckon: had I left years ago Town, wife, and children dear.... Well, Christmas did, you know!— Soon I had met in the valley and tried my cudgel's strength On the enemy horned and winged, a-straddle across its length! Have at his horns, thwick—thwack: they snap, see! Hoof and hoof— Bang, break the fetlock-bones! For love's sake, keep aloof Angels! I'm man and match,—this cudgel for my flail,— To thresh him, hoofs and horns, bat's wing and serpent's tail! A chance gone by! But then, what else does Hopeful ding Into the deafest ear except—hope, hope's the thing? Too late i' the day for me to thrid the windings: but There's still a way to win the race by death's short cut! Did Master Faithful need climb the Delightful Mounts? No, straight to Vanity Fair,—a fair, by all accounts, Such as is held outside,—lords, ladies, grand and gay,— Says he in the face of them, just what you hear me say. And the Judges brought him in guilty, and brought him out To die in the market-place—St. Peter's Green's about The same thing: there they flogged, flayed, buffeted, lanced with knives, Pricked him with swords,—I'll swear, he'd full a cat's nine lives,— So to his end at last came Faithful,—ha, ha, he! Who holds the highest card? for there stands hid, you see, Behind the rabble-rout, a chariot, pair and all: He's in, he's off, he's up, through clouds, at trumpet-call, Carried the nearest way to Heaven-gate! Odds my life— Has nobody a sword to spare? not even a knife? Then hang me, draw and quarter! Tab—do the same by her! O Master Worldly-Wiseman ... that's Master Interpreter, Take the will, not the deed! Our gibbet's handy close: Forestall Last Judgment-Day! Be kindly, not morose! There wants no earthly judge-and-jurying: here we stand— Sentence our guilty selves: so, hang us out of hand! Make haste for pity's sake! A single moment's loss Means—Satan's lord once more: his whisper shoots across All singing in my heart, all praying in my brain, 'It comes of heat and beer!'—hark how he guffaws plain! 'To-morrow you'll wake bright, and, in a safe skin, hug Your sound selves, Tab and you, over a foaming jug! You've had such qualms before, time out of mind!' He's right! Did not we kick and cuff and curse away, that night, When home we blindly reeled, and left poor humpback Joe I' the lurch to pay for what ... somebody did, you know! Both of us maundered then 'Lame humpback,—never more Will he come limping, drain his tankard at our door! He'll swing, while—somebody....' Says Tab, 'No, for I'll peach!' 'I'm for you, Tab,' cries I, 'there's rope enough for each!' So blubbered we, and bussed, and went to bed upon The grace of Tab's good thought: by morning, all was gone! We laughed—'What's life to him, a cripple of no account?' Oh, waves increase around—I feel them mount and mount! Hang us! To-morrow brings Tom Bearward with his bears: One new black-muzzled brute beats Sackerson, he swears: (Sackerson, for my money!) And, baiting o'er, the Brawl They lead on Turner's Patch,—lads, lasses, up tails all,— I'm i' the thick o' the throng! That means the Iron Cage, —Means the Lost Man inside! Where's hope for such as wage War against light? Light's left, light's here, I hold light still, So does Tab—make but haste to hang us both! You will?"

I promise, when he stopped you might have heard a mouse Squeak, such a death-like hush sealed up the old Mote House. But when the mass of man sank meek upon his knees, While Tab, alongside, wheezed a hoarse "Do hang us, please!" Why, then the waters rose, no eye but ran with tears, Hearts heaved, heads thumped, until, paying all past arrears Of pity and sorrow, at last a regular scream outbroke Of triumph, joy and praise.

My Lord Chief Justice spoke, First mopping brow and cheek, where still, for one that budged, Another bead broke fresh: "What Judge, that ever judged Since first the world began, judged such a case as this? Why, Master Bratts, long since, folk smelt you out, I wis! I had my doubts, i' faith, each time you played the fox Convicting geese of crime in yonder witness-box— Yea, much did I misdoubt, the thief that stole her eggs Was hardly goosey's self at Reynard's game, i' feggs! Yet thus much was to praise—you spoke to point, direct— Swore you heard, saw the theft: no jury could suspect— Dared to suspect,—I'll say,—a spot in white so clear: Goosey was throttled, true: but thereof godly fear Came of example set, much as our laws intend; And, though a fox confessed, you proved the Judge's friend. What if I had my doubts? Suppose I gave them breath, Brought you to bar: what work to do, ere 'Guilty, Death,'— Had paid our pains! What heaps of witnesses to drag From holes and corners, paid from out the County's bag! Trial three dog-days long! Amicus Curiae—that's Your title, no dispute—truth-telling Master Bratts! Thank you, too, Mistress Tab! Why doubt one word you say? Hanging you both deserve, hanged both shall be this day! The tinker needs must be a proper man. I've heard He lies in Jail long since: if Quality's good word Warrants me letting loose,—some householder, I mean— Freeholder, better still,—I don't say but—between Now and next Sessions.... Well! Consider of his case, I promise to, at least: we owe him so much grace. Not that—no, God forbid!—I lean to think, as you, The grace that such repent is any jail-bird's due: I rather see the fruit of twelve years' pious reign— Astraea Redux, Charles restored his rights again! —Of which, another time! I somehow feel a peace Stealing across the world. May deeds like this increase! So, Master Sheriff, stay that sentence I pronounced On those two dozen odd: deserving to be trounced Soundly, and yet ... well, well, at all events despatch This pair of—shall I say, sinner-saints?—ere we catch Their jail-distemper too. Stop tears, or I'll indite All weeping Bedfordshire for turning Bunyanite!"

So, forms were galloped through. If Justice, on the spur, Proved somewhat expeditious, would Quality demur? And happily hanged were they,—why lengthen out my tale?— Where Bunyan's Statue stands facing where stood his Jail.

The effect which "Pilgrim's Progress" had on these two miserable beings, may be taken as typical of the enormous influence wielded by Bunyan in his own time. The most innocent among us had overwhelming qualms in regard to our sins, as children when we listened to our mothers read the book. I remember having confessed some childish peccadillo that was weighing on my small mind as the first result of my thoroughly aroused sense of guilt. In these early years of the Twentieth Century, such a feeling seems almost as far removed as the days of Bunyan. A sense of guilt is not a distinguishing characteristic of the child of the present day, and it may also be doubted whether such reprobates as Ned and his wife would to-day be affected much if at all by the "Pilgrim's Progress." There was probably great personal magnetism in Bunyan himself. We are told that after his discharge from prison, his popularity as a preacher widened rapidly. Such vast crowds of people flocked to hear him that his place of worship had to be enlarged. He went frequently to London on week days to deliver addresses in the large chapel in Southwark which was invariably thronged with eager worshipers.

Browning's picture of Bunyan shows the instant effect of his personality upon Tab.

"There sat the man, the father. He looked up: what one feels When heart that leapt to mouth drops down again to heels! He raised his hand.... Hast seen, when drinking out the night, And in the day, earth grow another something quite Under the sun's first stare? I stood a very stone."

And again

"Then all at once rose he: His brown hair burst a-spread, his eyes were suns to see: Up went his hands."

It is like a clever bit of stage business to make Ned and Tab use the shoe laces to tie up the hands of their victims, and to bring on by this means the meeting between Tab and Bunyan. Of course, the blind daughter's part is imaginary, but yet it seems to bring very vividly before us this well loved child. Another touch, quite in keeping with the time, is the decision of the Judge that the remarkable change of heart in Ned and Tab was due to the piety of King Charles. Like every one else, however, he was impressed by what he heard of the Tinker, and inclined to see what he could do to give him his freedom. It seems that Bunyan's life in jail was a good deal lightened by the favor he always inspired. The story goes that from the first he was in favor with the jailor, who nearly lost his place for permitting him on one occasion to go as far as London. After this he was more strictly confined, but at last he was often allowed to visit his family, and remain with them all night. One night, however, when he was allowed this liberty Bunyan felt resistlessly impressed with the propriety of returning to the prison. He arrived after the keeper had shut up for the night, much to the official's surprise. But his impatience at being untimely disturbed was changed to thankfulness, when a little after a messenger came from a neighboring clerical magistrate to see that the prisoner was safe. "You may go now when you will" said the jailer; "for you know better than I can tell you when to come in again."



Though Bunyan is not primarily the subject of this poem, it is an appreciative tribute to his genius and to his force of character, only to be paralleled by Dowden's sympathetic critique in his "Puritan and Anglican Studies." What Browning makes Ned and Tab see through suddenly aroused feeling—namely that it is no book but

"plays, Songs, ballads and the like: here's no such strawy blaze, But sky wide ope, sun, moon, and seven stars out full-flare,"

Dowden puts in the colder language of criticism.

"The 'Pilgrim's Progress' is a gallery of portraits, admirably discriminated, and as convincing in their self-verification as those of Holbein. His personages live for us as few figures outside the drama of Shakespeare live.... All his powers cooperated harmoniously in creating this book—his religious ardor, his human tenderness, his sense of beauty, nourished by the Scriptures, his strong common sense, even his gift of humor. Through his deep seriousness play the lighter faculties. The whole man presses into this small volume."

"Halbert and Hob" belongs here merely for its wild North of England setting. We may imagine, if we choose, that this wild father and son dwelt in the beautiful country of Northumberland, in the North of England, but descriptions of the scenery could add nothing to the atmosphere of the poem, for Northumberland is surpassingly lovely. Doubtless, human beings of this type have existed in all parts of the globe. At any rate, these particular human beings were transported by Browning from Aristotle's "Ethics" to the North of England. The incident is told by Aristotle in illustration of the contention that anger and asperity are more natural than excessive and unnecessary desires. "Thus one who was accused of striking his father said, as an apology for it, that his own father, and even his grandfather, had struck his; 'and he also (pointing to his child) will strike me, when he becomes a man; for it runs in our family.' A certain person, also, being dragged by his son, bid him stop at the door, for he himself had dragged his father as far as that." The dryness of "Aristotle's cheeks" is as usual so enlivened by Browning that the fate of Halbert and Hob grows pathetic and comes close to our sympathies.

HALBERT AND HOB

Here is a thing that happened. Like wild beasts whelped, for den, In a wild part of North England, there lived once two wild men Inhabiting one homestead, neither a hovel nor hut, Time out of mind their birthright: father and son, these—but— Such a son, such a father! Most wildness by degrees Softens away: yet, last of their line, the wildest and worst were these.

Criminals, then? Why, no: they did not murder and rob; But, give them a word, they returned a blow—old Halbert as young Hob: Harsh and fierce of word, rough and savage of deed, Hated or feared the more—who knows?—the genuine wild-beast breed.

Thus were they found by the few sparse folk of the countryside; But how fared each with other? E'en beasts couch, hide by hide, In a growling, grudged agreement: so, father and son aye curled The closelier up in their den because the last of their kind in the world.

Still, beast irks beast on occasion. One Christmas night of snow, Came father and son to words—such words! more cruel because the blow To crown each word was wanting, while taunt matched gibe, and curse Completed with oath in wager, like pastime in hell,—nay, worse: For pastime turned to earnest, as up there sprang at last The son at the throat of the father, seized him and held him fast.

"Out of this house you go!"—(there followed a hideous oath)— "This oven where now we bake, too hot to hold us both! If there's snow outside, there's coolness: out with you, bide a spell In the drift and save the sexton the charge of a parish shell!"

Now, the old trunk was tough, was solid as stump of oak Untouched at the core by a thousand years: much less had its seventy broke One whipcord nerve in the muscly mass from neck to shoulder-blade Of the mountainous man, whereon his child's rash hand like a feather weighed.

Nevertheless at once did the mammoth shut his eyes, Drop chin to breast, drop hands to sides, stand stiffened—arms and thighs All of a piece—struck mute, much as a sentry stands, Patient to take the enemy's fire: his captain so commands.

Whereat the son's wrath flew to fury at such sheer scorn Of his puny strength by the giant eld thus acting the babe new-born: And "Neither will this turn serve!" yelled he. "Out with you! Trundle, log! If you cannot tramp and trudge like a man, try all-fours like a dog!"

Still the old man stood mute. So, logwise,—down to floor Pulled from his fireside place, dragged on from hearth to door,— Was he pushed, a very log, staircase along, until A certain turn in the steps was reached, a yard from the house-door-sill.

Then the father opened eyes—each spark of their rage extinct,— Temples, late black, dead-blanched,—right-hand with left-hand linked,— He faced his son submissive; when slow the accents came, They were strangely mild though his son's rash hand on his neck lay all the same.

"Hob, on just such a night of a Christmas long ago, For such a cause, with such a gesture, did I drag—so— My father down thus far: but, softening here, I heard A voice in my heart, and stopped: you wait for an outer word.

"For your own sake, not mine, soften you too! Untrod Leave this last step we reach, nor brave the finger of God! I dared not pass its lifting: I did well. I nor blame Nor praise you. I stopped here: and, Hob, do you the same!"

Straightway the son relaxed his hold of the father's throat. They mounted, side by side, to the room again: no note Took either of each, no sign made each to either: last As first, in absolute silence, their Christmas-night they passed.

At dawn, the father sate on, dead, in the self-same place, With an outburst blackening still the old bad fighting-face: But the son crouched all a-tremble like any lamb new-yeaned.

When he went to the burial, someone's staff he borrowed—tottered and leaned. But his lips were loose, not locked,—kept muttering, mumbling. "There! At his cursing and swearing!" the youngsters cried: but the elders thought "In prayer." A boy threw stones: he picked them up and stored them in his vest.

So tottered, muttered, mumbled he, till he died, perhaps found rest. "Is there a reason in nature for these hard hearts?" O Lear, That a reason out of nature must turn them soft, seems clear!

In the "Inn Album," a degenerate type of Nineteenth-Century Englishman is dissected with the keen knife of a surgeon, which Browning knows so well how to wield. The villain of this poem was a real personage, a Lord de Ros, a friend of the Duke of Wellington. The story belongs to the annals of crime and is necessarily unpleasant, but in order to see how Browning has worked up the episode it is interesting to know the bare facts as Furnivall gives them in "Notes and Queries" March 25, 1876. He says "that the gambling lord showed the portrait of the lady he had seduced and abandoned and offered his dupe an introduction to her, as a bribe to induce him to wait for payment of the money he had won; that the young gambler eagerly accepted the offer; and that the lady committed suicide on hearing of the bargain between them." Dr. Furnivall heard the story from some one who well remembered the sensation it had made in London years ago. In his management of the story, Browning has intensified the villainy of the Lord at the same time that he has shown a possible streak of goodness in him. The young man, on the other hand, he has made to be of very good stuff, indeed, notwithstanding his year of tutelage from the older man. He makes one radical change in the story as well as several minor ones. In the poem the younger man had been in love with the girl whom the older man had dishonorably treated, and had never ceased to love her. Of course, the two men do not know this. By the advice of the elder man, the younger one has decided to settle down and marry his cousin, a charming young girl, who is also brought upon the scene. The other girl is represented as having married an old country parson, who sought a wife simply as a helpmeet in his work. By thus complicating the situations, room has been given for subtle psychic development. The action is all concentrated into one morning in the parlor of the old inn, reminding one much of the method of Ibsen in his plays of grouping his action about a final catastrophe. At the inn one is introduced first to the two gamblers in talk, the young man having won his ten thousand pounds from the older man, who had intended to fleece him. The inn album plays an important part in the action, innocent as its first appearance upon the scene seems to be. The description of this and the inn parlor opens the poem.

THE INN ALBUM

I

"That oblong book's the Album; hand it here! Exactly! page on page of gratitude For breakfast, dinner, supper, and the view! I praise these poets: they leave margin-space; Each stanza seems to gather skirts around, And primly, trimly, keep the foot's confine, Modest and maidlike; lubber prose o'er-sprawls And straddling stops the path from left to right. Since I want space to do my cipher-work, Which poem spares a corner? What comes first? 'Hail, calm acclivity, salubrious spot!' (Open the window, we burn daylight, boy!) Or see—succincter beauty, brief and bold— 'If a fellow can dine On rumpsteaks and port wine, He needs not despair Of dining well here—' 'Here!' I myself could find a better rhyme! That bard's a Browning; he neglects the form: But ah, the sense, ye gods, the weighty sense! Still, I prefer this classic. Ay, throw wide! I'll quench the bits of candle yet unburnt. A minute's fresh air, then to cipher-work! Three little columns hold the whole account: Ecarte, after which Blind Hookey, then Cutting-the-Pack, five hundred pounds the cut. 'Tis easy reckoning: I have lost, I think."

Two personages occupy this room Shabby-genteel, that's parlor to the inn Perched on a view-commanding eminence; —Inn which may be a veritable house Where somebody once lived and pleased good taste Till tourists found his coign of vantage out, And fingered blunt the individual mark And vulgarized things comfortably smooth. On a sprig-pattern-papered wall there brays Complaint to sky Sir Edwin's dripping stag; His couchant coast-guard creature corresponds; They face the Huguenot and Light o' the World. Grim o'er the mirror on the mantlepiece, Varnished and coffined, Salmo ferox glares —Possibly at the List of Wines which, framed And glazed, hangs somewhat prominent on peg.

So much describes the stuffy little room— Vulgar flat smooth respectability: Not so the burst of landscape surging in, Sunrise and all, as he who of the pair Is, plain enough, the younger personage Draws sharp the shrieking curtain, sends aloft The sash, spreads wide and fastens back to wall Shutter and shutter, shows you England's best. He leans into a living glory-bath Of air and light where seems to float and move The wooded watered country, hill and dale And steel-bright thread of stream, a-smoke with mist, A-sparkle with May morning, diamond drift O' the sun-touched dew. Except the red-roofed patch Of half a dozen dwellings that, crept close For hill-side shelter, make the village-clump This inn is perched above to dominate— Except such sign of human neighborhood, (And this surmised rather than sensible) There's nothing to disturb absolute peace, The reign of English nature—which mean art And civilized existence. Wildness' self Is just the cultured triumph. Presently Deep solitude, be sure, reveals a Place That knows the right way to defend itself: Silence hems round a burning spot of life. Now, where a Place burns, must a village brood, And where a village broods, an inn should boast— Close and convenient: here you have them both. This inn, the Something-arms—the family's— (Don't trouble Guillim; heralds leave our half!) Is dear to lovers of the picturesque, And epics have been planned here; but who plan Take holy orders and find work to do. Painters are more productive, stop a week, Declare the prospect quite a Corot,—ay, For tender sentiment,—themselves incline Rather to handsweep large and liberal; Then go, but not without success achieved —Haply some pencil-drawing, oak or beech, Ferns at the base and ivies up the bole, On this a slug, on that a butterfly. Nay, he who hooked the salmo pendent here, Also exhibited, this same May-month, 'Foxgloves: a study'—so inspires the scene, The air, which now the younger personage Inflates him with till lungs o'erfraught are fain Sigh forth a satisfaction might bestir Even those tufts of tree-tops to the South I' the distance where the green dies off to grey, Which, easy of conjecture, front the Place; He eyes them, elbows wide, each hand to cheek. His fellow, the much older—either say A youngish-old man or man oldish-young— Sits at the table: wicks are noisome-deep In wax, to detriment of plated ware; Above—piled, strewn—is store of playing-cards, Counters and all that's proper for a game.

Circumstantial as the description of this parlor and the situation of the inn is, it is impossible to say which out of the many English inns Browning had in mind. Inns date back to the days of the Romans, who had ale-houses along the roads, the most interesting feature of which was the ivy garland or wreath of vine-leaves in honor of Bacchus, wreathed around a hoop at the end of a long pole to point out the way where good drink could be had. A curious survival of this in early English times was the "ale-stake," a tavern so called because it had a long pole projecting from the house front wreathed like the old Roman poles with furze, a garland of flowers or an ivy wreath. This decoration was called the "bush," and in time the London taverners so vied with each other in their attempt to attract attention by very long poles and very prominent bushes that in 1375 a law was passed according to which all taverners in the city of London owning ale-stakes projecting or extending over the King's highway more than seven feet in length, at the utmost, should be fined forty pence, and compelled to remove the sign. Here is the origin, too, of the proverb, "good wine needs no bush." In the later development of the inn the signs lost their Bacchic character and became most elaborate, often being painted by artists.

The poet says this inn was the "Something-arms," and had perhaps once been a house. Many inns were the "Something (?) arms" and certainly many inns had been houses. One such is the Pounds Bridge Inn on a secluded road between Speldhurst and Penshurst in Kent. It was built by the rector of Penshurst, William Darkenoll, who lived in it only three years, when it became an inn. The inn of the poem might have been a combination in Browning's memory of this and the "White Horse" at Woolstone, which is described as a queerly pretty little inn with a front distantly resembling a Chippendale bureau-bookcase. "It is tucked away under the mighty sides of White Horse Hill, Berkshire, and additionally overhung with trees and encircled with shrubberies and under-woods, and is finally situated on a narrow road that presently leads, as it would seem, to the end of the known world." So writes the enthusiastic lover of inns, Charles Harper. Or, perhaps, since there is a river to be seen from the inn of the poem the "Swan" at Sandleford Water, where a foot bridge and a water splash on the river Enborne mark the boundaries of Hampshire and Berkshire. Here "You have the place wholly to yourself, or share it only with the squirrels and the birds of the overarching trees." The illustration given of the Black Bear Inn, Tewksbury, is a quite typical example of inn architecture, and may have helped the picture in Browning's mind, though its situation is not so rural as that described in the poem.

Inns have, from time immemorial, been the scenes of romances and tragedies and crimes. There have been inns like the "Castle" where the "quality" loved to congregate. The "inn album" of this establishment had inscribed in it almost every eighteenth-century name of any distinction. There have been inns which were noted as the resort of the wits of the day. Ben Jonson loved to take "mine ease in mine inn," and Dr. Johnson declared that a seat in a tavern chair was the height of human felicity. "He was thinking," as it has been pertinently put, "not only of a comfortable sanded parlor, a roaring fire, and plenty of good cheer and good company, but also of the circle of humbly appreciative auditors who gathered round an accepted wit, hung upon his words, offered themselves as butts for his ironic or satiric humor, and—stood treat." Or there was the inn of sinister aspect where highwaymen might congregate, or inns with hosts who let their guests down through trap-doors in the middle of the night to rob and murder them—or is this only a vague remembrance of a fanciful inn of Dickens? Then there was the pilgrim's inn in the days when Chaucerian folks loved to go on pilgrimages, and in the last century the cyclists inn, and to-day the inn of the automobilist. The particular inn in the poem belongs to the class, rural inn, and in spite of its pictures by noted masters was "stuffy" as to the atmosphere.



The "inn album" or visitors' book is a feature of inns. In this country we simply sign our names in the visitors' book, but the "album" feature of the visitors' book of an English inn is its glory and too often its shame, for as Mr. Harper says, "Bathos, ineptitude, and lines that refuse to scan are the stigmata of visitors' book verse. There is no worse poetry on earth than that which lurks between those covers, or in the pages of young ladies' albums." He declares that "The interesting pages of visitors' books are generally those that are not there, as an Irishman might say; for the world is populated very densely with those appreciative people who, whether from a love of literature, or with an instinct for collecting autographs that may have a realizable value, remove the signatures of distinguished men, and with them anything original they may have written."

Browning pokes fun at the poetry of his inn album, but at the same time uses it as an important part of the machinery in the action. His English "Iago" writes in it the final damnation of his own character—the threat by means of which he hopes to ruin his victims, but which, instead, causes the lady to take poison and the young man to murder "Iago."

The presence of the two men at this particular inn is explained in the following bit of conversation between them.

"You wrong your poor disciple. Oh, no airs! Because you happen to be twice my age And twenty times my master, must perforce No blink of daylight struggle through the web There's no unwinding? You entoil my legs, And welcome, for I like it: blind me,—no! A very pretty piece of shuttle-work Was that—your mere chance question at the club— 'Do you go anywhere this Whitsuntide? I'm off for Paris, there's the Opera—there's The Salon, there's a china-sale,—beside Chantilly; and, for good companionship, There's Such-and-such and So-and-so. Suppose We start together?' 'No such holiday!' I told you: 'Paris and the rest be hanged! Why plague me who am pledged to home-delights? I'm the engaged now; through whose fault but yours? On duty. As you well know. Don't I drowse The week away down with the Aunt and Niece? No help: it's leisure, loneliness and love. Wish I could take you; but fame travels fast,— A man of much newspaper-paragraph, You scare domestic circles; and beside Would not you like your lot, that second taste Of nature and approval of the grounds! You might walk early or lie late, so shirk Week-day devotions: but stay Sunday o'er, And morning church is obligatory: No mundane garb permissible, or dread The butler's privileged monition! No! Pack off to Paris, nor wipe tear away!' Whereon how artlessly the happy flash Followed, by inspiration! 'Tell you what— Let's turn their flank, try things on t'other side! Inns for my money! Liberty's the life! We'll lie in hiding: there's the crow-nest nook, The tourist's joy, the Inn they rave about, Inn that's out—out of sight and out of mind And out of mischief to all four of us— Aunt and niece, you and me. At night arrive; At morn, find time for just a Pisgah-view Of my friend's Land of Promise; then depart. And while I'm whizzing onward by first train, Bound for our own place (since my Brother sulks And says I shun him like the plague) yourself— Why, you have stepped thence, start from platform, gay Despite the sleepless journey,—love lends wings,— Hug aunt and niece who, none the wiser, wait The faithful advent! Eh?' 'With all my heart,' Said I to you; said I to mine own self: 'Does he believe I fail to comprehend He wants just one more final friendly snack At friend's exchequer ere friend runs to earth, Marries, renounces yielding friends such sport?' And did I spoil sport, pull face grim,—nay, grave? Your pupil does you better credit! No! I parleyed with my pass-book,—rubbed my pair At the big balance in my banker's hands,— Folded a cheque cigar-case-shape,—just wants Filling and signing,—and took train, resolved To execute myself with decency And let you win—if not Ten thousand quite, Something by way of wind-up-farewell burst Of firework-nosegay! Where's your fortune fled? Or is not fortune constant after all? You lose ten thousand pounds: had I lost half Or half that, I should bite my lips, I think. You man of marble! Strut and stretch my best On tiptoe, I shall never reach your height. How does the loss feel! Just one lesson more!"

The more refined man smiles a frown away.

On the way to the station where the older man is to take the train they have another talk, in which each tells the other of his experience, but they do not find out yet that they have both loved the same woman.

"Stop, my boy! Don't think I'm stingy of experience! Life —It's like this wood we leave. Should you and I Go wandering about there, though the gaps We went in and came out by were opposed As the two poles, still, somehow, all the same, By nightfall we should probably have chanced On much the same main points of interest— Both of us measured girth of mossy trunk, Stript ivy from its strangled prey, clapped hands At squirrel, sent a fir-cone after crow, And so forth,—never mind what time betwixt. So in our lives; allow I entered mine Another way than you: 't is possible I ended just by knocking head against That plaguy low-hung branch yourself began By getting bump from; as at last you too May stumble o'er that stump which first of all Bade me walk circumspectly. Head and feet Are vulnerable both, and I, foot-sure, Forgot that ducking down saves brow from bruise. I, early old, played young man four years since And failed confoundedly: so, hate alike Failure and who caused failure,—curse her cant!"

"Oh, I see! You, though somewhat past the prime, Were taken with a rosebud beauty! Ah— But how should chits distinguish? She admired Your marvel of a mind, I'll undertake! But as to body ... nay, I mean ... that is, When years have told on face and figure...."

"Thanks, Mister Sufficiently-Instructed! Such No doubt was bound to be the consequence To suit your self-complacency: she liked My head enough, but loved some heart beneath Some head with plenty of brown hair a-top After my young friend's fashion! What becomes Of that fine speech you made a minute since About the man of middle age you found A formidable peer at twenty-one? So much for your mock-modesty! and yet I back your first against this second sprout Of observation, insight, what you please. My middle age, Sir, had too much success! It's odd: my case occurred four years ago— I finished just while you commenced that turn I' the wood of life that takes us to the wealth Of honeysuckle, heaped for who can reach. Now, I don't boast: it's bad style, and beside, The feat proves easier than it looks: I plucked Full many a flower unnamed in that bouquet (Mostly of peonies and poppies, though!) Good nature sticks into my button-hole. Therefore it was with nose in want of snuff Rather than Ess or Psidium, that I chanced On what—so far from 'rosebud beauty'.... Well— She's dead: at least you never heard her name; She was no courtly creature, had nor birth Nor breeding—mere fine-lady-breeding; but Oh, such a wonder of a woman! Grand As a Greek statue! Stick fine clothes on that, Style that a Duchess or a Queen,—you know, Artists would make an outcry: all the more, That she had just a statue's sleepy grace Which broods o'er its own beauty. Nay, her fault (Don't laugh!) was just perfection: for suppose Only the little flaw, and I had peeped Inside it, learned what soul inside was like. At Rome some tourist raised the grit beneath A Venus' forehead with his whittling-knife— I wish,—now,—I had played that brute, brought blood To surface from the depths I fancied chalk! As it was, her mere face surprised so much That I stopped short there, struck on heap, as stares The cockney stranger at a certain bust With drooped eyes,—she's the thing I have in mind,— Down at my Brother's. All sufficient prize— Such outside! Now,—confound me for a prig!— Who cares? I'll make a clean breast once for all! Beside, you've heard the gossip. My life long I've been a woman-liker,—liking means Loving and so on. There's a lengthy list By this time I shall have to answer for— So say the good folk: and they don't guess half— For the worst is, let once collecting-itch Possess you, and, with perspicacity, Keeps growing such a greediness that theft Follows at no long distance,—there's the fact! I knew that on my Leporello-list Might figure this, that, and the other name Of feminine desirability, But if I happened to desire inscribe, Along with these, the only Beautiful— Here was the unique specimen to snatch Or now or never. 'Beautiful' I said— 'Beautiful' say in cold blood,—boiling then To tune of 'Haste, secure whate'er the cost This rarity, die in the act, be damned, So you complete collection, crown your list!' It seemed as though the whole world, once aroused By the first notice of such wonder's birth, Would break bounds to contest my prize with me The first discoverer, should she but emerge From that safe den of darkness where she dozed Till I stole in, that country-parsonage Where, country-parson's daughter, motherless, Brotherless, sisterless, for eighteen years She had been vegetating lily-like. Her father was my brother's tutor, got The living that way: him I chanced to see— Her I saw—her the world would grow one eye To see, I felt no sort of doubt at all! 'Secure her!' cried the devil: 'afterward Arrange for the disposal of the prize!' The devil's doing! yet I seem to think— Now, when all's done,—think with 'a head reposed' In French phrase—hope I think I meant to do All requisite for such a rarity When I should be at leisure, have due time To learn requirement. But in evil day— Bless me, at week's end, long as any year, The father must begin 'Young Somebody, Much recommended—for I break a rule— Comes here to read, next Long Vacation.' 'Young!' That did it. Had the epithet been 'rich,' 'Noble,' 'a genius,' even 'handsome,'—but —'Young!'"

"I say—just a word! I want to know— You are not married?" "I?"

"Nor ever were?" "Never! Why?" "Oh, then—never mind! Go on! I had a reason for the question."

"Come,— You could not be the young man?" "No, indeed! Certainly—if you never married her!"

"That I did not: and there's the curse, you'll see! Nay, all of it's one curse, my life's mistake Which, nourished with manure that's warranted To make the plant bear wisdom, blew out full In folly beyond field-flower-foolishness! The lies I used to tell my womankind, Knowing they disbelieved me all the time Though they required my lies, their decent due, This woman—not so much believed, I'll say, As just anticipated from my mouth: Since being true, devoted, constant—she Found constancy, devotion, truth, the plain And easy commonplace of character. No mock-heroics but seemed natural To her who underneath the face, I knew Was fairness' self, possessed a heart, I judged Must correspond in folly just as far Beyond the common,—and a mind to match,— Not made to puzzle conjurers like me Who, therein, proved the fool who fronts you, Sir, And begs leave to cut short the ugly rest! 'Trust me!' I said: she trusted. 'Marry me!' Or rather, 'We are married: when, the rite?' That brought on the collector's next-day qualm At counting acquisition's cost. There lay My marvel, there my purse more light by much Because of its late lie-expenditure: Ill-judged such moment to make fresh demand— To cage as well as catch my rarity! So, I began explaining. At first word Outbroke the horror. 'Then, my truths were lies!' I tell you, such an outbreak, such new strange All-unsuspected revelation—soul As supernaturally grand as face Was fair beyond example—that at once Either I lost—or, if it please you, found My senses,—stammered somehow—'Jest! and now, Earnest! Forget all else but—heart has loved, Does love, shall love you ever! take the hand!' Not she! no marriage for superb disdain, Contempt incarnate!"

"Yes, it's different,— It's only like in being four years since. I see now!"

"Well, what did disdain do next, Think you?"

"That's past me: did not marry you!— That's the main thing I care for, I suppose. Turned nun, or what?"

"Why, married in a month Some parson, some smug crop-haired smooth-chinned sort Of curate-creature, I suspect,—dived down, Down, deeper still, and came up somewhere else— I don't know where—I've not tried much to know,— In short, she's happy: what the clodpoles call 'Countrified' with a vengeance! leads the life Respectable and all that drives you mad: Still—where, I don't know, and that's best for both."

"Well, that she did not like you, I conceive. But why should you hate her, I want to know?"

"My good young friend,—because or her or else Malicious Providence I have to hate. For, what I tell you proved the turning-point Of my whole life and fortune toward success Or failure. If I drown, I lay the fault Much on myself who caught at reed not rope, But more on reed which, with a packthread's pith, Had buoyed me till the minute's cramp could thaw And I strike out afresh and so be saved. It's easy saying—I had sunk before, Disqualified myself by idle days And busy nights, long since, from holding hard On cable, even, had fate cast me such! You boys don't know how many times men fail Perforce o' the little to succeed i' the large, Husband their strength, let slip the petty prey, Collect the whole power for the final pounce. My fault was the mistaking man's main prize For intermediate boy's diversion; clap Of boyish hands here frightened game away Which, once gone, goes forever. Oh, at first I took the anger easily, nor much Minded the anguish—having learned that storms Subside, and teapot-tempests are akin. Time would arrange things, mend whate'er might be Somewhat amiss; precipitation, eh? Reason and rhyme prompt—reparation! Tiffs End properly in marriage and a dance! I said 'We'll marry, make the past a blank'— And never was such damnable mistake! That interview, that laying bare my soul, As it was first, so was it last chance—one And only. Did I write? Back letter came Unopened as it went. Inexorable She fled, I don't know where, consoled herself With the smug curate-creature: chop and change! Sure am I, when she told her shaveling all His Magdalen's adventure, tears were shed, Forgiveness evangelically shown, 'Loose hair and lifted eye,'—as some one says. And now, he's worshipped for his pains, the sneak!"

"Well, but your turning-point of life,—what's here To hinder you contesting Finsbury With Orton, next election? I don't see...."

"Not you! But I see. Slowly, surely, creeps Day by day o'er me the conviction—here Was life's prize grasped at, gained, and then let go! —That with her—may be, for her—I had felt Ice in me melt, grow steam, drive to effect Any or all the fancies sluggish here I' the head that needs the hand she would not take And I shall never lift now. Lo, your wood— Its turnings which I likened life to! Well,— There she stands, ending every avenue, Her visionary presence on each goal I might have gained had we kept side by side! Still string nerve and strike foot? Her frown forbids: The steam congeals once more: I'm old again! Therefore I hate myself—but how much worse Do not I hate who would not understand, Let me repair things—no, but sent a-slide My folly falteringly, stumblingly Down, down and deeper down until I drop Upon—the need of your ten thousand pounds And consequently loss of mine! I lose Character, cash, nay, common-sense itself Recounting such a lengthy cock-and-bull Adventure—lose my temper in the act...."

"And lose beside,—if I may supplement The list of losses,—train and ten-o'clock! Hark, pant and puff, there travels the swart sign! So much the better! You're my captive now! I'm glad you trust a fellow: friends grow thick This way—that's twice said; we were thickish, though, Even last night, and, ere night comes again, I prophesy good luck to both of us! For see now!—back to 'balmy eminence' Or 'calm acclivity,' or what's the word! Bestow you there an hour, concoct at ease A sonnet for the Album, while I put Bold face on, best foot forward, make for house, March in to aunt and niece, and tell the truth— (Even white-lying goes against my taste After your little story). Oh, the niece Is rationality itself! The aunt— If she's amenable to reason too— Why, you stooped short to pay her due respect, And let the Duke wait (I'll work well the Duke). If she grows gracious, I return for you; If thunder's in the air, why—bear your doom, Dine on rump-steaks and port, and shake the dust Of aunty from your shoes as off you go By evening-train, nor give the thing a thought How you shall pay me—that's as sure as fate, Old fellow! Off with you, face left about! Yonder's the path I have to pad. You see, I'm in good spirits, God knows why! Perhaps Because the woman did not marry you —Who look so hard at me,—and have the right, One must be fair and own."

The two stand still Under an oak.

"Look here!" resumes the youth. "I never quite knew how I came to like You—so much—whom I ought not court at all; Nor how you had a leaning just to me Who am assuredly not worth your pains. For there must needs be plenty such as you Somewhere about,—although I can't say where,— Able and willing to teach all you know; While—how can you have missed a score like me With money and no wit, precisely each A pupil for your purpose, were it—ease Fool's poke of tutor's honorarium-fee? And yet, howe'er it came about, I felt At once my master: you as prompt descried Your man, I warrant, so was bargain struck. Now, these same lines of liking, loving, run Sometimes so close together they converge— Life's great adventures—you know what I mean— In people. Do you know, as you advanced, It got to be uncommonly like fact We two had fallen in with—liked and loved Just the same woman in our different ways? I began life—poor groundling as I prove— Winged and ambitious to fly high: why not? There's something in 'Don Quixote' to the point, My shrewd old father used to quote and praise— 'Am I born man?' asks Sancho: 'being man, By possibility I may be Pope!' So, Pope I meant to make myself, by step And step, whereof the first should be to find A perfect woman; and I tell you this— If what I fixed on, in the order due Of undertakings, as next step, had first Of all disposed itself to suit my tread, And I had been, the day I came of age, Returned at head of poll for Westminster —Nay, and moreover summoned by the Queen At week's end, when my maiden-speech bore fruit, To form and head a Tory ministry— It would not have seemed stranger, no, nor been More strange to me, as now I estimate, Than what did happen—sober truth, no dream. I saw my wonder of a woman,—laugh, I'm past that!—in Commemoration-week. A plenty have I seen since, fair and foul,— With eyes, too, helped by your sagacious wink; But one to match that marvel—no least trace, Least touch of kinship and community! The end was—I did somehow state the fact, Did, with no matter what imperfect words, One way or other give to understand That woman, soul and body were her slave Would she but take, but try them—any test Of will, and some poor test of power beside: So did the strings within my brain grow tense And capable of ... hang similitudes! She answered kindly but beyond appeal. 'No sort of hope for me, who came too late. She was another's. Love went—mine to her, Hers just as loyally to some one else.' Of course! I might expect it! Nature's law— Given the peerless woman, certainly Somewhere shall be the peerless man to match! I acquiesced at once, submitted me In something of a stupor, went my way. I fancy there had been some talk before Of somebody—her father or the like— To coach me in the holidays,—that's how I came to get the sight and speech of her,— But I had sense enough to break off sharp, Save both of us the pain."

"Quite right there!" "Eh? Quite wrong, it happens! Now comes worst of all! Yes, I did sulk aloof and let alone The lovers—I disturb the angel-mates?"

"Seraph paired off with cherub!"

"Thank you! While I never plucked up courage to inquire Who he was, even,—certain-sure of this, That nobody I knew of had blue wings And wore a star-crown as he needs must do,— Some little lady,—plainish, pock-marked girl,— Finds out my secret in my woful face, Comes up to me at the Apollo Ball, And pityingly pours her wine and oil This way into the wound: 'Dear f-f-friend, Why waste affection thus on—must I say, A somewhat worthless object? Who's her choice— Irrevocable as deliberate— Out of the wide world? I shall name no names— But there's a person in society, Who, blessed with rank and talent, has grown gray In idleness and sin of every sort Except hypocrisy: he's thrice her age, A by-word for "successes with the sex" As the French say—and, as we ought to say, Consummately a liar and a rogue, Since—show me where's the woman won without The help of this one lie which she believes— That—never mind how things have come to pass, And let who loves have loved a thousand times— All the same he now loves her only, loves Her ever! if by "won" you just mean "sold," That's quite another compact. Well, this scamp, Continuing descent from bad to worse, Must leave his fine and fashionable prey (Who—fathered, brothered, husbanded,—are hedged About with thorny danger) and apply His arts to this poor country ignorance Who sees forthwith in the first rag of man Her model hero! Why continue waste On such a woman treasures of a heart Would yet find solace,—yes, my f-f-friend— In some congenial—fiddle-diddle-dee?'"

"Pray, is the pleasant gentleman described Exact the portrait which my 'f-f-friends' Recognize as so like? 'T is evident You half surmised the sweet original Could be no other than myself, just now! Your stop and start were flattering!"

"Of course Caricature's allowed for in a sketch! The longish nose becomes a foot in length, The swarthy cheek gets copper-colored,—still, Prominent beak and dark-hued skin are facts: And 'parson's daughter'—'young man coachable'— 'Elderly party'—'four years since'—were facts To fasten on, a moment! Marriage, though— That made the difference, I hope."

"All right! I never married; wish I had—and then Unwish it: people kill their wives, sometimes! I hate my mistress, but I'm murder-free. In your case, where's the grievance? You came last, The earlier bird picked up the worm. Suppose You, in the glory of your twenty-one, Had happened to precede myself! 't is odds But this gigantic juvenility, This offering of a big arm's bony hand— I'd rather shake than feel shake me, I know— Had moved my dainty mistress to admire An altogether new Ideal—deem Idolatry less due to life's decline Productive of experience, powers mature By dint of usage, the made man—no boy That's all to make! I was the earlier bird— And what I found, I let fall: what you missed Who is the fool that blames you for?"

They become so deeply interested in this talk that the train is missed, and, in the meantime, the lady who now lives in the neighborhood as the wife of the hard-working country parson meets the young girl at the inn. They are great friends and have come there, at the girl's invitation, to talk over her prospective husband. She desires her friend to come to her home and meet her fiance, but the lady, who is in constant fear of meeting "Iago," never goes anywhere, and proposes a meeting with him at the inn. While she waits, "Iago" comes in upon her. There is a terrible scene of recrimination between these two, the man again daring to prefer his love. The lady scorns him. Horror is added to horror when the young man appears at the door, and recognizes the woman he really loves. His faith in her and his love are shaken for a moment, but return immediately and he stands her true friend and lover. The complete despicableness of "Iago's" nature finally reveals itself in the lines he writes in the album and gives to the lady to read. The poem is too long to quote in full. The closing scene, however, will give the reader a good idea of the poet's handling of this nineteenth-century tragedy.

The true nobility of soul of the younger man links him with Mertoun among Browning's heroes and represents the Englishman or the man of any country for that matter at his highest. Whether redemption for the older man would have been possible had the lady believed him in the inn parlor is doubtful. Such natures are like Ibsen's "Peer Gynt." They need to be put into a button mould and moulded over again.

"Here's the lady back! So, Madam, you have conned the Album-page And come to thank its last contributor? How kind and condescending! I retire A moment, lest I spoil the interview, And mar my own endeavor to make friends— You with him, him with you, and both with me! If I succeed—permit me to inquire Five minutes hence! Friends bid good-by, you know." And out he goes.

VII

She, face, form, bearing, one Superb composure—

"He has told you all? Yes, he has told you all, your silence says— What gives him, as he thinks the mastery Over my body and my soul!—has told That instance, even, of their servitude He now exacts of me? A silent blush! That's well, though better would white ignorance Beseem your brow, undesecrate before— Ay, when I left you! I too learn at last —Hideously learned as I seemed so late— What sin may swell to. Yes,—I needed learn That, when my prophet's rod became the snake I fled from, it would, one day, swallow up —Incorporate whatever serpentine Falsehood and treason and unmanliness Beslime earth's pavement: such the power of Hell, And so beginning, ends no otherwise The Adversary! I was ignorant, Blameworthy—if you will; but blame I take Nowise upon me as I ask myself —You—how can you, whose soul I seemed to read The limpid eyes through, have declined so deep Even with him for consort? I revolve Much memory, pry into the looks and words Of that day's walk beneath the College wall, And nowhere can distinguish, in what gleams Only pure marble through my dusky past, A dubious cranny where such poison-seed Might harbor, nourish what should yield to-day This dread ingredient for the cup I drink. Do not I recognize and honor truth In seeming?—take your truth and for return, Give you my truth, a no less precious gift? You loved me: I believed you. I replied —How could I other? 'I was not my own,' —No longer had the eyes to see, the ears To hear, the mind to judge, since heart and soul Now were another's. My own right in me, For well or ill, consigned away—my face Fronted the honest path, deflection whence Had shamed me in the furtive backward look At the late bargain—fit such chapman's phrase!— As though—less hasty and more provident— Waiting had brought advantage. Not for me The chapman's chance! Yet while thus much was true, I spared you—as I knew you then—one more Concluding word which, truth no less, seemed best Buried away forever. Take it now Its power to pain is past! Four years—that day— Those lines that make the College avenue! I would that—friend and foe—by miracle, I had, that moment, seen into the heart Of either, as I now am taught to see! I do believe I should have straight assumed My proper function, and sustained a soul, Nor aimed at being just sustained myself By some man's soul—the weaker woman's-want! So had I missed the momentary thrill Of finding me in presence of a god, But gained the god's own feeling when he gives Such thrill to what turns life from death before. 'Gods many and Lords many,' says the Book: You would have yielded up your soul to me —Not to the false god who has burned its clay In his own image. I had shed my love Like Spring dew on the clod all flowery thence, Not sent up a wild vapor to the sun that drinks and then disperses. Both of us Blameworthy,—I first meet my punishment— And not so hard to bear. I breathe again! Forth from those arms' enwinding leprosy At last I struggle—uncontaminate: Why must I leave you pressing to the breast That's all one plague-spot? Did you love me once? Then take love's last and best return! I think, Womanliness means only motherhood; All love begins and ends there,—roams enough, But, having run the circle, rests at home. Why is your expiation yet to make? Pull shame with your own hands from your own head Now,—never wait the slow envelopment Submitted to by unelastic age! One fierce throe frees the sapling: flake on flake Lull till they leave the oak snow-stupefied. Your heart retains its vital warmth—or why That blushing reassurance? Blush, young blood! Break from beneath this icy premature Captivity of wickedness—I warn Back, in God's name! No fresh encroachment here! This May breaks all to bud—No Winter now! Friend, we are both forgiven! Sin no more! I am past sin now, so shall you become! Meanwhile I testify that, lying once, My foe lied ever, most lied last of all. He, waking, whispered to your sense asleep The wicked counsel,—and assent might seem; But, roused, your healthy indignation breaks The idle dream-pact. You would die—not dare Confirm your dream-resolve,—nay, find the word That fits the deed to bear the light of day! Say I have justly judged you! then farewell To blushing—nay, it ends in smiles, not tears! Why tears now? I have justly judged, thank God!"