Page:Representative American plays.pdf/138

Rh For years, as many as thou telFst of life,

i 've wielded it. Charles. I 've had some practice, too.

Unk. Do you provoke your fate! — But hold; no, no —

Though 't were my sole security, no blood.

He spoke of his mother too; I '11 not de- prive

The mother of her child — Hear me, bold youth.

'Tis meet that I should know so much of thee,

As to be well assur'd thou com'st not hither.

At this dark hour, for evil purpose — tell me —

I do not now command, but I request thee —

AVherefore this visit? Charles. Now, sir, that your question

Is one a gentleman may give reply to,

I '11 frankly tell you. I 've a mother lives,

I trust, in the next town. A short time since

I left her, for the second time, for col- lege.

To make a second trial for the honours,

I think, with due humility, I 'd merited.

Their worships as before play'd with my patience,

Till I grew tired of it, and told them so.

In good round terms. Glad of the fit excuse.

They just discover'd then, I was too wild

For their strait limits, and so they ex- pell'd me. Unk. You speak but lightly of a circum- stance

That an ingenuous and aspiring youth,

And, such you seem, might wtII think serious. Charles. I cannot be a hypocrite, and deem

The acts of solemn folly serious.

When I shall cease to scorn malevolence

And learn to reverence cant and super- stition,

Then, not till then, I'll weep at my ex- pulsion. Unk. But to your tale. Charles. 'T is told: I turn'd my back

On my grave censors; seized my hunter's arms.

And struck in to the wilderness for home ;

Which by the forest route I hoped to reach

Ere the light closed to-day. I was de- ceived.

Night came upon me; yet, I travell'd

on. For by a civil horseman that pass'd by I had sent letters bidding them exj^ect me. Briefly, when I had fairly lost myself I met a hunter, whose bark cabin stands A few miles hence. He put me in the

track. And pointed out a certain star to steer

by;

But passing clouds, and intervening

boughs. And perhaps thoughts of home, and

those at home, Marr'd my astronomy. I lost my star, And then I lost my path, and then my- self. And so, through swamp and thicket,

brake and bramble, I 've scrambled on thus far — and, there 's my story. Unk. Your way was perilous — Did you

meet nothing*? Charles. Not much. Sometimes a snake I trod on coil'd Around my leg, but I soon shook him

off; A howl at times approach'd — and as I

pass'd, The brake stirr'd near me with some

living thing Beside myself — but this was all. Unk. 'T was wrong,

Rashly to tempt these dangers. If your

air Deceive me not, you are of foreign birth. Charles. Not four years since, we left

our native England. Unk. England !

Charles. But why 's a mysteiy. We 're not known Nor understood here; we're of another world. Unk. Your name ? Charles. 'T is Charles Fitzroy.

Unk. Fitzroy! Your mother's?

Charles. You 're somewhat curious ; Isa- bella. Unk. Ha!

Charles. What is it moves you?

Unk. Isabella, say you?

Charles. This strong emotion — Unk. It is nothing, nothing. —

Or — is it strange that I should feel emo- tion At the sad tale you tell ? Charles. Sad tale!

Unk. I wander. —

I 've been a solitary man so long"