Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)

by Thomas Hardy

  This brief amendment therefore I submit

  To limit Ministers' aggressiveness

  And make self-safety all their chartering:

  "We at the same time earnestly implore

  That the Prince Regent graciously induce

  Strenuous endeavours in the cause of peace,

  So long as it be done consistently

  With the due honour of the English crown." [Cheers.]

  CASTLEREAGH

  The arguments of Members opposite

  Posit conditions which experience proves

  But figments of a dream;—that honesty,

  Truth, and good faith in this same Bonaparte

  May be assumed and can be acted on:

  This of one who is loud to violate

  Bonds the most sacred, treaties the most grave!...

  It follows not that since this realm was won

  To treat with Bonaparte at Chatillon,

  It can treat now. And as for assassination,

  The sentiments outspoken here to-night

  Are much more like to urge to desperate deeds

  Against the persons of our good Allies,

  Than are, against Napoleon, statements signed

  By the Vienna plenipotentiaries!

  We are, in fine, too fully warranted

  On moral grounds to strike at Bonaparte,

  If we at any crisis reckon it

  Expedient so to do. The Government

  Will act throughout in concert with the Allies,

  And Ministers are well within their rights

  To claim that their responsibility

  Be not disturbed by hackneyed forms of speech ["Oh, oh"]

  Upon war's horrors, and the bliss of peace,—

  Which none denies! [Cheers.]

  PONSONBY

  I ask the noble lord,

  If that his meaning and pronouncement be

  Immediate war?

  CASTLEREAGH

  I have not phrased it so.

  OPPOSITION CRIES

  The question is unanswered!

  [There are excited calls, and the House divides. The result is

  announced as thirty-seven for WHITBREAD'S amendment, and against

  it two hundred and twenty. The clock strikes twelve as the House

  adjourns.]

  SCENE VI

  WESSEX. DURNOVER GREEN, CASTERBRIDGE

  [On a patch of green grass on Durnover Hill, in the purlieus of

  Casterbridge, a rough gallows has been erected, and an effigy of

  Napoleon hung upon it. Under the effigy are faggots of brushwood.

  It is the dusk of a spring evening, and a great crowd has gathered,

  comprising male and female inhabitants of the Durnover suburb

  and villagers from distances of many miles. Also are present

  some of the county yeomanry in white leather breeches and scarlet,

  volunteers in scarlet with green facings, and the REVEREND MR.

  PALMER, vicar of the parish, leaning against the post of his

  garden door, and smoking a clay pipe of preternatural length.

  Also PRIVATE CANTLE from Egdon Heath, and SOLOMON LONGWAYS of

  Casterbridge. The Durnover band, which includes a clarionet,

  {serpent,} oboe, tambourine, cymbals, and drum, is playing "Lord

  Wellington's Hornpipe."]

  RUSTIC [wiping his face]

  Says I, please God I'll lose a quarter to zee he burned! And I left

  Stourcastle at dree o'clock to a minute. And if I'd known that I

  should be too late to zee the beginning on't, I'd have lost a half

  to be a bit sooner.

  YEOMAN

  Oh, you be soon enough good-now. He's just going to be lighted.

  RUSTIC

  But shall I zee en die? I wanted to zee if he'd die hard,

  YEOMAN

  Why, you don't suppose that Boney himself is to be burned here?

  RUSTIC

  What—not Boney that's to be burned?

  A WOMAN

  Why, bless the poor man, no! This is only a mommet they've made of

  him, that's got neither chine nor chitlings. His innerds be only a

  lock of straw from Bridle's barton.

  LONGWAYS

  He's made, neighbour, of a' old cast jacket and breeches from our

  barracks here. Likeways Grammer Pawle gave us Cap'n Meggs's old

  Zunday shirt that she'd saved for tinder-box linnit; and Keeper

  Tricksey of Mellstock emptied his powder-horn into a barm-bladder,

  to make his heart wi'.

  RUSTIC [vehemently]

  Then there's no honesty left in Wessex folk nowadays at all! "Boney's

  going to be burned on Durnover Green to-night,"— that was what I

  thought, to be sure I did, that he'd been catched sailing from his

  islant and landed at Budmouth and brought to Casterbridge Jail, the

  natural retreat of malefactors!—False deceivers—making me lose a

  quarter who can ill afford it; and all for nothing!

  LONGWAYS

  'Tisn't a mo'sel o' good for thee to cry out against Wessex folk, when

  'twas all thy own stunpoll ignorance.

  [The VICAR OF DURNOVER removes his pipe and spits perpendicularly.]

  VICAR

  My dear misguided man, you don't imagine that we should be so inhuman

  in this Christian country as to burn a fellow creature alive?

  RUSTIC

  Faith, I won't say I didn't! Durnover folk have never had the

  highest of Christian character, come to that. And I didn't know

  but that even a pa'son might backslide to such things in these gory

  times—I won't say on a Zunday, but on a week-night like this—when

  we think what a blasphemious rascal he is, and that there's not a

  more charnel-minded villain towards womenfolk in the whole world.

  [The effigy has by this time been kindled, and they watch it burn,

  the flames making the faces of the crowd brass-bright, and lighting

  the grey tower of Durnover Church hard by.]

  WOMAN [singing]

  Bayonets and firelocks!

  I wouldn't my mammy should know't

  But I've been kissed in a sentry-box,

  Wrapped up in a soldier's coat!

  PRIVATE CANTLE

  Talk of backsliding to burn Boney, I can backslide to anything

  when my blood is up, or rise to anything, thank God for't! Why,

  I shouldn't mind fighting Boney single-handed, if so be I had

  the choice o' weapons, and fresh Rainbarrow flints in my flint-box,

  and could get at him downhill. Yes, I'm a dangerous hand with a

  pistol now and then!... Hark, what's that? [A horn is heard

  eastward on the London Road.] Ah, here comes the mail. Now we may

  learn something. Nothing boldens my nerves like news of slaughter!

  [Enter mail-coach and steaming horses. It halts for a minute while

  the wheel is skidded and the horses stale.]

  SEVERAL

  What was the latest news from abroad, guard, when you left

  Piccadilly White-Horse-Cellar!

  GUARD

  You have heard, I suppose, that he's given up to public vengeance,

  by Gover'ment orders? Anybody may take his life in any way, fair

  or foul, and no questions asked. But Marshal Ney, who was sent to

  fight him, flung his arms round his neck and joined him with all

  his men. Next, the telegraph from Plymouth sends news landed there

  by The Sparrow, that he has reached Paris, and King Louis has

  fled. But the air got hazy before the telegraph had finished, and

  the name of the place he had fled to couldn't be made out.

  [The VICAR OF DURNOVER blows a cloud of smoke, and agai
n spits

  perpendicularly.]

  VICAR

  Well, I'm d—- Dear me—dear me! The Lord's will be done.

  GUARD

  And there are to be four armies sent against him—English, Proosian,

  Austrian, and Roosian: the first two under Wellington and Blucher.

  And just as we left London a show was opened of Boney on horseback

  as large as life, hung up with his head downwards. Admission one

  shilling; children half-price. A truly patriot spectacle!—Not that

  yours here is bad for a simple country-place.

  [The coach drives on down the hill, and the crowd reflectively

  watches the burning.]

  WOMAN [singing]

  I

  My Love's gone a-fighting

  Where war-trumpets call,

  The wrongs o' men righting

  Wi' carbine and ball,

  And sabre for smiting,

  And charger, and all

  II

  Of whom does he think there

  Where war-trumpets call?

  To whom does he drink there,

  Wi' carbine and ball

  On battle's red brink there,

  And charger, and all?

  III

  Her, whose voice he hears humming

  Where war-trumpets call,

  "I wait, Love, thy coming

  Wi' carbine and ball,

  And bandsmen a-drumming

  Thee, charger and all!"

  [The flames reach the powder in the effigy, which is blown to

  rags. The band marches off playing "When War's Alarms," the

  crowd disperses, the vicar stands musing and smoking at his

  garden door till the fire goes out and darkness curtains the

  scene.]

  ACT SIXTH

  SCENE I

  THE BELGIAN FRONTIER

  [The village of Beaumont stands in the centre foreground of a

  birds'-eye prospect across the Belgian frontier from the French

  side, being close to the Sambre further back in the scene, which

  pursues a crinkled course between high banks from Maubeuge on the

  left to Charleroi on the right.

  In the shadows that muffle all objects, innumerable bodies of

  infantry and cavalry are discerned bivouacking in and around the

  village. This mass of men forms the central column of NAPOLEONS'S

  army.

  The right column is seen at a distance on that hand, also near

  the frontier, on the road leading towards Charleroi; and the

  left column by Solre-sur-Sambre, where the frontier and the river

  nearly coincide

  The obscurity thins and the June dawn appears.]

  DUMB SHOW

  The bivouacs of the central column become broken up, and a movement

  ensues rightwards on Charleroi. The twelve regiments of cavalry

  which are in advance move off first; in half an hour more bodies

  move, and more in the next half-hour, till by eight o'clock the

  whole central army is gliding on. It defiles in strands by narrow

  tracks through the forest. Riding impatiently on the outskirts of

  the columns is MARSHAL NEY, who has as yet received no command.

  As the day develops, sight and sounds to the left and right reveal

  that the two outside columns have also started, and are creeping

  towards the frontier abreast with the centre. That the whole forms

  one great movement, co-ordinated by one mind, now becomes apparent.

  Preceded by scouts the three columns converge.

  The advance through dense woods by narrow paths takes time. The

  head of the middles and main column forces back some outposts, and

  reaches Charleroi, driving out the Prussian general ZIETEN. It

  seizes the bridge over the Sambre and blows up the gates of the

  town.

  The point of observation now descends close to the scene.

  In the midst comes the EMPEROR with the Sappers of the Guard,

  the Marines, and the Young Guard. The clatter brings the scared

  inhabitants to their doors and windows. Cheers arise from some

  of them as NAPOLEON passes up the steep street. Just beyond the

  town, in front of the Bellevue Inn, he dismounts. A chair is

  brought out, in which he sits and surveys the whole valley of the

  Sambre. The troops march past cheering him, and drums roll and

  bugles blow. Soon the EMPEROR is found to be asleep.

  When the rattle of their passing ceases the silence wakes him. His

  listless eye falls upon a half-defaced poster on a wall opposite—

  the Declaration of the Allies.

  NAPOLEON [reading]

  "... Bonaparte destroys the only legal title on which his existence

  depended.... He has deprived himself of the protection of the law,

  and has manifested to the Universe that there can be neither peace

  nor truce with him. The Powers consequently declare that Napoleon

  Bonaparte has placed himself without the pale of civil and social

  relations, and that as an enemy and disturber of the tranquillity

  of the world he has rendered himself liable to public vengeance."

  His flesh quivers, and he turns with a start, as if fancying that

  some one may be about to stab him in the back. Then he rises,

  mounts, and rides on.

  Meanwhile the right column crosses the Sambre without difficulty

  at Chatelet, a little lower down; the left column at Marchienne a

  little higher up; and the three limbs combine into one vast army.

  As the curtain of the mist is falling, the point of vision soars

  again, and there is afforded a brief glimpse of what is doing far

  away on the other side. From all parts of Europe long and sinister

  black files are crawling hitherward in serpentine lines, like

  slowworms through grass. They are the advancing armies of the

  Allies. The Dumb Show ends.

  SCENE II

  A BALLROOM IN BRUSSELS

  [It is a June midnight at the DUKE AND DUCHESS OF RICHMOND'S. A

  band of stringed instruments shows in the background. The room

  is crowded with a brilliant assemblage of more than two hundred

  of the distinguished people sojourning in the city on account of

  the war and other reasons, and of local personages of State and

  fashion. The ball has opened with "The White Cockade."

  Among those discovered present either dancing or looking on are

  the DUKE and DUCHESS as host and hostess, their son and eldest

  daughter, the Duchess's brother, the DUKE OF WELLINGTON, the

  PRINCE OF ORANGE, the DUKE OF BRUNSWICK, BARON VAN CAPELLEN the

  Belgian Secretary of State, the DUKE OF ARENBERG, the MAYOR OF

  BRUSSELS, the DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BEAUFORT, GENERAL ALAVA, GENERAL

  OUDENARDE, LORD HILL, LORD AND LADY CONYNGHAM, SIR HENRY AND LADY

  SUSAN CLINTON, SIR H. AND LADY HAMILTON DALRYMPLE, SIR WILLIAM AND

  LADY DE LANCEY, LORD UXBRIDGE, SIR JOHN BYNG, LORD PORTARLINGTON,

  LORD EDWARD SOMERSET, LORD HAY, COLONEL ABERCROMBY, SIR HUSSEY

  VIVIAN, SIR A. GORDON, SIR W. PONSONBY, SIR DENIS PACK, SIR JAMES

  KEMPT, SIR THOMAS PICTON, GENERAL MAITLAND, COLONEL CAMERON, many

  other officers, English, Hanoverian, Dutch and Belgian ladies

  English and foreign, and Scotch reel-dancers from Highland

  regiments.

  The "Hungarian Waltz" having also been danced, the hostess calls

  up the Highland soldiers to show the foreign guests what a Scotch

  reel is like. The men
put their hands on their hips and tread it

  out briskly. While they stand aside and rest "The Hanoverian

  Dance" is called.

  Enter LIEUTENANT WEBSTER, A.D.C. to the PRINCE OF ORANGE. The

  Prince goes apart with him and receives a dispatch. After reading

  it he speaks to WELLINGTON, and the two, accompanied by the DUKE

  OF RICHMOND, retire into an alcove with serious faces. WEBSTER,

  in passing back across the ballroom, exchanges a hasty word with

  two of three of the guests known to him, a young officer among

  them, and goes out.

  YOUNG OFFICER [to partner]

  The French have passed the Sambre at Charleroi!

  PARTNER

  What—does it mean the Bonaparte indeed

  Is bearing down upon us?

  YOUNG OFFICER

  That is so.

  The one who spoke to me in passing out

  Is Aide to the Prince of Orange, bringing him

  Dispatches from Rebecque, his chief of Staff,

  Now at the front, not far from Braine le Comte;

  He says that Ney, leading the French van-guard,

  Has burst on Quatre-Bras.

  PARTNER

  O horrid time!

  Will you, then, have to go and face him there?

  YOUNG OFFICER

  I shall, of course, sweet. Promptly too, no doubt.

  [He gazes about the room.]

  See—the news spreads; the dance is paralyzed.

  They are all whispering round. [The band stops.] Here comes

  one more,

  He's the attache from the Prussian force

  At our headquarters.

  [Enter GENERAL MUFFLING. He looks prepossessed, and goes straight

  to WELLINGTON and RICHMOND in the alcove, who by this time have

  been joined by the DUKE OF BRUNSWICK.]

  SEVERAL GUESTS [at back of room]

  Yes, you see, it's true!

  The army will prepare to march at once.

  PICTON [to another general]

  I am damn glad we are to be off. Pottering about her pinned to

  petticoat tails—it does one no good, but blasted harm!

  ANOTHER GUEST

  The ball cannot go on, can it? Didn't the Duke know the French

  were so near? If he did, how could he let us run risks so coolly?

  LADY HAMILTON DALRYMPLE [to partner]

  A deep concern weights those responsible

  Who gather in the alcove. Wellington

  Affects a cheerfulness in outward port,

  But cannot rout his real anxiety!

  [The DUCHESS OF RICHMOND goes to her husband.]

  DUCHESS