Читать книгу The Saxons - Edwin Davies Schoonmaker - Страница 6

(Staring vacantly into the forest, her back to Oswald, she unconsciously picks the green burrs from the branches above her.)

Oswald—Selma. (After a pause.) Come here; will you?

Selma— I'm gathering mast.

My fawns, they like it so. It makes them sleek.

Oswald—I want to tell you something.

Selma— Tell me here.

If I had listened to the forest birds,

I'd have no berries. And my fawns must eat.

Oswald—'Tis something serious.

Selma— Ah, you've been to town.

(As she saunters toward the log she reaches up in the air.)

Gossamers, where do they come from, Oswald?

You never are gay when you've heard the bells.

We are going to the mountains, may be. Then You will not hear them. Are there berries there? Rudolph said he saw flowers in the ice. Think of that. Blue-bells.—You are like my crow.

(She takes a berry from her basket and holds it up between her fingers.)

If you will talk, you may.—I must go home.

(She pulls down a bough and begins to pick the leaves off, one by one.)

Oswald—I want you to go with me to the bridge.

Selma—I can't. I must go home. Father will think

I have been captured by the villagers.

(She removes her basket from the sun and lays the leaves upon her berries.)

He said: "You will not find them." But I did.

Oswald—Sit down.

Selma— I can't.—It makes my berries red.

Father will say: "You see? They are not ripe."

(She goes about under the boughs selecting the largest of the leaves.)

It makes them black, then makes them red again.

(After a pause.)

I heard bells ring last night. I dreamed I did. I called and they called and you would not come. I thought you could not hear me where you were.

Oswald—In a great forest once two children lived.

They used to wander about the wood. One day,

Playing among the trees, suddenly they heard

Small voices calling: "Ho, children!" At that—

Selma—Fairies. (She comes to the log.)

Oswald— The children rose wide-eyed and let

Fall the wild-flowers they had gathered and stood

Listening. Again the cry: "Ho, children!"

(Selma sits down.)

Then

They, hand in hand, slowly, and half afraid,

Moved forward, and the voices, as they moved,

Moved onward, sometimes above them in the air

Singing, and sometimes in the fernshaws: "Ho,

Here we are!" And then a wisp of sun-bright hair

Flashed in the deeper shadows of the wood.

The children, shouting, "Catch her! There she goes!"

Darted in glee from trunk to trunk. At last

The voices died away. The children saw

The great trees glooming round them—

Selma— Oh, I know!

They cried themselves to sleep, for they were lost,

And then the birds brought leaves and—Didn't they?

No.

Oswald—As night came on, the elder of them, a boy,

Remembering to have heard a holy man

Speak of a house—a holy house—where men

Live as the angels live—

Selma— Went there?

Oswald— To pray.

To pray for help.

Selma— For the other child?

Oswald— For her.

Selma—What did the fairies do?

Oswald— But ere he went,

Carved with his knife upon a tree a sign

A good man in the wood had taught him, a charm

Against the spirit of the forest. Then he

Told her strange words to say and leaving her

Kneeling upon the moss, her little hands

Folded, he went away. (A pause.) Not for himself.

Selma—And did he not come back? Tell me the rest.

Oswald—Come with me to the bridge.

Selma— Did he come back?

Oswald—I have carved a charm.

Selma— A charm?

Oswald— For you.

Selma— For me?

(A pause.)

Where are you going, Oswald?—(A pause.) See my hair. Why should it scare the fishes? You are wise; Why should it, Oswald? It is soft as hers Down in the spring, and if you'll come and look You'll see the smallest minnows twinkle there; They do not fear.

Oswald— It is a snare.

Selma— (Naively.) Is it? I would not harm them, Oswald.

Oswald— Father Paul says

It is the snare of Satan.

Selma— I know him.

'Tis not my hair he uses.

Oswald— (With horror.) Know Satan! (He turns away.)

Selma—I did not know his name was—Ah, you run!

You are just like the fishes. Come and play.

I will not let it fall. (Throwing back her hair.) I will just peep Over the edge.

(Going up the slope to where the boughs hang low, she begins to gather the green burrs. While she gathers them, she sings:)

Hark, shepherd, hark; the forest calls Away to the greenwood still. We'll leave the dewy wether-bell To tinkle on the hill.

Our ewes shall nibble gowan; We'll gipsy in the wood; Our bed shall be the wild plush moss; Our cruse shall be the flood.

The lush blue whortle-berries We'll gather eve and morn And we'll wander where the brocket Rubs the velvet from his horn. Come, shepherd, come—

I will not sing; the shepherd will not come.

I'll go and call the forest children. (She takes up her basket.)

Oswald— Selma.

Selma—Night-bird hooting at noon!

Oswald— Listen to me.

Selma—I'll listen to the jay; he's merrier.

Oswald—You are not of the witches that at night

Fly through the air to that far windy crag

That beetles o'er the foam of the wild sea

And there, with orgies lewd to the black goat,

Whirl in the revel with dark Barrabam?

Selma—There is no fairy with a name like that.

Oswald—He is the prince of fairies and of fiends.

Father Paul says that oft on stormy nights,

When stars scarce venture to the brink of heaven,

Witches go down the sky scattering fogs,

Diseases, blights, and death, and with them go

Those whom their cursed arts have wrought upon

To taste the air of Hell. Far in the West,

From every quarter of the earth and sky

And from those awful rivers, they assemble

And hold their sabbaths on a windy cliff,

A headland hanging over the edge of the world,

About whose base an ocean bellows so

That nothing dares approach save frenzied things.

There, while the moon protrudes an awful horn

Far off at sea and rocks among the waves,

They curse God's watchful planets from the sky

And lead their converts, dizzy with the brew,

To trample on the blood of Christ and swear

To serve the arch-demon who is known to them

As Barrabam. A while ago you said

You did not know his name as Satan. Selma,—

Selma—You said he used my hair, but 'tis not mine.

The other day I saw him in the stream

Snaring the silver chubs. Said he: "My lass,

I'll give two shiners for a lock of hair."

"To snare the fishes with! You horrid man.

I will not give it." And I ran away.

'Tis not my hair he uses.

Oswald—(Aside.) What a child! Walking in darkness to the Tempter's snare. Oh, I would die for you!

Selma— You run away. (He looks at her.) You cannot guess what I found in the wood.

Oswald—You do not know what danger you are in.

Selma—I know the ground-bird lays five speckled eggs;

That filberts wear green hoods.

Oswald— Oh, what of that?

What will that profit in the Judgment Day?

You have not been baptized. You do not hear

The terrible, terrible, groanings of the lost.

O God, you do not know, you do not know!

Selma—I know the wood-pink is the first to wake

Of all the flowers. I know where king-cups grow

And wink-a-peeps that sleep when days are dark.

I know when shadows lie beneath the boughs

As they do now, I know you'll never find

A squirrel or chipmunk out in all the wood,

For then the forest sleeps. And I know where—

Oswald—O Selma, listen to me just this once,

And then forever listen to the years

Give back the echo of this golden hour.

Do you remember that day in the wood

When we were gathering may-apples? You ran

Shouting: "Here is a large one," and you stooped

To pick it, when a snake coiled round the stalk,

Hissed at you and you started back in fear.

Had it not hissed you never would have known

That it was there, so green it was, so like

The stalk it coiled about. You saw that one

Because it hissed. But one that hisses not

Is coiled about the world, as like the world

As was the green one to the may-flower stalk.

Selma—I have heard father speak of it. He says

That it is full of bones.

Oswald— And souls of men.

Only in holy houses are we safe.

Selma—He said that I should not go near the village

In gathering berries.

Oswald— 'Tis the serpent Sin.

Oh, how its sting has marred the perfect world!

Ready to spring, the fiends couch for us. We

Are hunted, Father Paul says, through the world

As was the deer the good saint saved, Saint Giles.

And men are fleeing from the wrath to come.

Selma—It cannot come up on the mountain tops.

Oswald—(Fervently.) Call on the Virgin. Yield to Lord Jesus. Do not reject him. Be baptized. Be saved. Do you not see that I would die for you? O Selma, playmate, loved one, promise me—

Selma—I will not eat May-apples any more.

Oswald—Oh, not to understand and yet be lost!

(He walks away.)

Selma—I will not eat them, Oswald. I will not

Go near them if you do not wish me to.

Oswald—Some day you will know why.

(He takes up his staff.) Then you will know It was not for myself. You will know why.

(He stops near the spring.)

You will remember this—this day—these leaves—

The golden sunlight on the waters there—

(Thoughtfully, looking down into the spring.)

And never will come back forevermore.

SELMA—Oh, yes it will. They will not let her grieve.

The fairies, when they trip the wood to-night,

Will miss her, for she dances with them there.

Oh, you should see them, Oswald. When they dance

She is no bigger than the fairies are.

To see them swing—

Oh, 'tis a sight to make the wood-dove gay.

(Circling round in a dance.)

Lightly whirling round and round Through the forest, scarcely shaking Flower stalk upon the ground. In the leaves the violets waking Scatter perfume. Fairies, bow; Lift their purple hoods and kiss them. Join the dance and leave them now. (Ecstatically.)

One night up in the wood, when silver flakes

Were dancing with the fairies on the moss,

An owl whooped. The fairies scampered off

Into the ferns. The little water elf

I found up close against a gnarled oak trunk,

Hid in a moss-pink in a drop of dew.

Oh, she was tiny as a fairykin!

Her hair was scattered, she was frightened so.

You should have seen her how she looked at me,

As if to say: "You here!" I nod, and then

We laugh together, thinking of the trick

The surly owl played. (Again she circles round in a dance.)

Oswald—(With horror.) This is enchantment! This is the cursed spells of forest devils, Witchcraft and Barrabam, the broth of Hell And the wild mountain and the swirling sea!

(Advancing toward her, he reaches into his bosom and fetches forth a large silver crucifix fastened to a black string that encircles his neck.)

Selma, touch this, touch this and say with me:

"Pater noster—" come—"qui es in coelis—"

Selma— (Still dancing.) I don't know what it means.

Oswald— "Pater—". Repeat.

Selma—I say I do not know—

Oswald— It does not matter.

Selma—Then tell me what it means.

Oswald— You must not ask.

You show more faith not knowing. "Pater—" Come. "Pater noster—" (Reaching toward her.) Will you?

Selma—(Snatching up her basket.) What does it mean?

Oswald— (Bowing his head.) I do not know.

Selma— You are just teasing me.

Oswald—Selma, listen to me. If our dear Lord,

Who died upon the tree that we might live,

Had meant that we should know what this thing means,

He would have told us. Let us show our faith.

Oh, let us say it as He taught us. Come,

Repeat it with me. "Pater—" (Advancing toward her.) Will you say it?

Selma—(Skipping up the slope and disappearing through the boughs.) I will not till you tell me what it means.

(Oswald stands as one who knows not what to do. Along the path leading in from the left, Father Paul, the friar, enters. For a time he stands contemplating the scene before him.)

Father Paul—My son. Come now. Come now. The Lord Christ calls.

Delay is death. Give up this heathen world.

You cannot save her here. But there, who knows?

Prayer can do much. Go now and get the cross.

I shall wait for you in the grotto here. (They go out, right.)

SCENE THREE—In the depths of the forest. Back through the trees, to the right, is seen the home of Canzler, a small cottage built of logs, with antlers over the doorway. It sits in a space partially cleared, and the light falls golden about it. Among the trees in the foreground, where the shadows are thicker, is the stump of a large oak and a newly fallen trunk extending out left. Over to the right, at the foot of one of the trees, lies a small bundle fastened to the end of a stick. At intervals a bird is heard singing in the forest.

Near the stump several men are gathered. Canzler, facing right, stands beside the log with his hand resting upon his ax. He is bareheaded. His sleeves are rolled up above his elbows and his shirt, open in front, discloses his broad, hairy breast. Near the stump stands Hartzel, a man apparently seventy years of age. He wears a long, white beard and his hands are folded on top of a tall rustic staff. The others are Fritz and Rudolph and Wiglaf, the gleeman, in a fantastic garb faded and tattered. On the other side of the log, to the right of Canzler, is Max, another woodman, also in his shirt sleeves.

Wiglaf—Why did they burn my harp, then? I'm a man.

Fritz—

(Leaning forward and speaking in a loud voice in Hartzel's ear.)

You hear what Wiglaf says? Says he's a man;

Why did they burn his harp, then?

Canzler— No, Hartzel;

'Tis not enough with them that we are men;

We must be Christians.

Wiglaf— That's it.

Canzler— We must pray

The prayers the priests pray. We must go to church,

Chant when they chant and what they chant and be

Clay, as it were, upon their potter's-wheel.

'Tis not enough the great All-father wrought

Us in his image; not enough to live

The honest life of man. We must submit

To be remolded to whatever shape

The potter-priest may give us. So we bear

His stamp and pray his prayers and wear the name

Christian—

Fritz— Then you can steal or—

Canzler— No, Hartzel;

Mass counts with them much more than manhood does.

Wiglaf—Canzler's just right. Who ever heard of them

Injuring a man because his life was bad,

If his Faith was good?

(Hartzel puts his hand to his ear and looks at Fritz.)

Fritz— Who ever heard of them

Injuring a man because his life was bad,

If his Faith was good? (Wiglaf listens to the bird.)

Hartzel— I don't doubt that some would. (Canzler touches him.)

Wiglaf—The birds are free to sing Val-father's songs.

Wiglaf must sing the songs men bid him sing

Or have his tongue pulled out.

Canzler— Speaking of Faith,

How can a good man have a bad Faith? Isn't

His life his Faith?

Hartzel— Life his faith? Just so; but—

But circumstances, Canzler. If we knew—

Wiglaf—He thinks I've been a scoundrel.

Hartzel— I don't say.

I don't say that, for I don't know.

Wiglaf— Don't know!

(Back through the trees to the left, Selma is seen going toward the cottage.)

Fritz— (Shouting in Hartzel's ear.) He says you think he's been a scoundrel? Think That's why they tried to kill him?

Hartzel—(In amazement.) Why—why—no: I did not hear, Wiglaf; your back was turned.

Selma— (Holding up her basket.) I found them, Father. See? I said I would.

Wiglaf—That island, Canzler, where they say our race

Rebuilt its kingdom, who knows aught of it?

Canzler—No word has reached us from that far off land.

Wiglaf—It used to live in gleemen's songs, but now—

Canzler—Old men recall it as a forgotten thing.

(Selma enters the cottage.)

Wiglaf—In what sea lies it?

Canzler— Where the Frankish land

Looks toward the setting Balder, I have heard.

Wiglaf—And does this river off here empty near it?

Canzler—First flowing through wide forests and high rocks.

(Wiglaf walks to and fro thoughtfully.)

Hartzel—I don't doubt you've been wronged, Wiglaf. I don't

Doubt that they're arming. What I do say is

Who knows it is against us?

Wiglaf— Wait and see.

Hartzel—It may be they are mustering a host

To take the East again. Nigh forty years

Ago now, Frederic Red-beard—Canzler here

Remembers; he was young then—mustered

Nigh on to four score thousand, Canzler?

Canzler— About.

Hartzel—And they were not against us.

Wiglaf— (Taking up the bundle and starting right.) Farewell, all.

Canzler—Where are you going, Wiglaf?

Wiglaf— There's no place

In all this land for Wiglaf.

Canzler— Don't say that

While that roof stands.

Wiglaf— It won't stand long, Canzler.

Fritz— (Clenching his hands.) 'Twill stand till he won't need it any more.

Wiglaf—Wild deer shall listen and no foot be heard.

Canzler—Have you forgotten your inspired word?

(Fritz and Rudolph exchange glances.)

Wiglaf—But centuries may pass ere that child comes.

(Selma comes from the cottage and begins to gather dry leaves and chips about the doorway. She is singing to herself and her voice comes faintly through the trees.)

Canzler—Or in these hard days have you, too, lost faith

In Woden?

Wiglaf—Wiglaf lose faith in Woden!

O chief!

(Looking down.)

What shall Wiglaf say? Shall the skald,

Whose eye sees through the darkness, see no light?

Beyond the winter see no spring, beyond

The storm, no calm? (He starts away.)

Canzler— Stay here with us, Wiglaf. (Selma enters the cottage.)

Wiglaf—Lose faith in Woden when the north wind blows?

Think the trunk dead because the boughs are bare?

Shall the bloom live forever, and the seed

Not swell and break its pod and find the earth?

Val-father sows and reaps and sows again.

Our race has come to harvest, and the hands

Of southern reapers have laid low the tribes,

Bound them in sheaves and stacked them far away

And threshed them out on many a bloody field.

Canzler—And the war-maidens have gleaned heroes there.

Wiglaf—Gleaned them and sown them in the earth again.

The years fall white upon the silent tribes.

Val-father's winter locks them in the ground.

(Looking up at the trees.)

But O, O chief, these, too, were once down there.

Canzler—The seed of Wittikind shall put forth a sprout.

(Fritz bows his head and walks back among the trees.)

Rudolph— (From a pent-up heart.) Shall it, Wiglaf?

Canzler— The bare North shall be green.

Wiglaf—Be red.

Canzler— Wiglaf!

Wiglaf— The young leaves come out red.

As one who puts his ear against a door

(He gets down and puts his ear to the earth.)

And hears within a noise of armed men,

I hear the washing of Val-father's waves

Rushing from Naastrand where their bodies lie

Piled on the dark shore where the ships come not.

Canzler—Bringing them back.

Wiglaf—(Rising.) With shock of arms, O chief, The breaking of the bark.

Canzler— Then comes the leaf.

Wiglaf—Red from the breaking of—

Canzler— It shall be green.

Wiglaf—Bragi is singing the white years away. (He goes out right.)

Canzler—We may be few, Wiglaf, but—

Max— Stay with us.

Wiglaf—He beckons from that island in the sea.

Wiglaf must go where Bragi calls.

Canzler— Oh, say

"Hail," to that kindred land!

(He drops his ax against the log.)

From us say "Hail!"

(Stepping past the stump.)

Oh, if you find them holding up the North,

Oh, tell them, Wiglaf, to keep iron hearts!

Say that the ancient trunk of Wittikind

Shows a green sprout! Say all the North is green!

Rudolph—Go with us to the mountains!

Fritz— Stay and die!

Canzler—Or say—say, Wiglaf, say—it shall be green!

(Smoke is seen curling above the roof of the cottage.)

Hartzel—I did not say he was a scoundrel. Eh? (To Rudolph.) Did I? Did I, Max? (Calling to Canzler.) Where is he going? I don't doubt he's been wronged; I don't doubt that. Where's he—

(Fritz comes forward.)

Rudolph (To Max.)—We must leave here.

Fritz— We must stay here.

(In Hartzel's ear.)

He says we, too, must leave here.

Hartzel— Leave? What for?

What have we done?

Fritz— But I say stay and die.

Let them thresh us out, too. (To Max.) What do you say?

Rudolph—What do you say, Max?

Max— I say stay and live.

They cannot kill us.

Rudolph— How so?

Max— If they do,

They must kill Oswald, too. Then where's the child?

(Fritz and Rudolph exchange glances.)

Where then's Val-father's promised child?

Fritz— Max—

Rudolph— No.

Canzler— (Returning to the stump.) The question, Hartzel, is not what they've done; It's what they think they have a right to do. They own, they think, our bodies and our brains. There is no thing or thought or word or deed Can take its way, but must report to them And square itself and do a bondman's work. They have a right, they think, to chop the North, Lop off her great green boughs and graft instead The South's pale branches.

Fritz— To bear bastard fruit.

Canzler—The oak's red blood must nourish olive leaves.

They would remake the world Val-father made

And take the seasons from his great right hand.

We must be like them or be not at all.

Like them in manhood, Hartzel?

Fritz— No; in Faith.

And even their gods know not the Saxon tongue.

Rudolph—If a man speak Val-father's name, he dies.

Max—And we must die if we be not baptized.

Fritz—Must even ask of them what we may eat!

Canzler—Why is it not enough to be a man?

To do a man's work and to live a life

Free like the wild deer, and to grow like these?