The Piper - LightNovelsOnl.com
You're reading novel online at LightNovelsOnl.com. Please use the follow button to get notifications about your favorite novels and its latest chapters so you can come back anytime and won't miss anything.
PIPER No, never, never!--No, it shall not be!
Hist!--
[Steps heard scrambling down the entrance-way.
[Enter MICHAEL in mad haste. They rush upon him with exultation and relief. He shakes them off, doggedly.
PIPER So!--You had like to have hanged us.
MICHAEL --What of that?
PIPER All for a lily maiden.
MICHAEL Ah,--thy pipe!
How will it save her?--_Save her_! Tune thy pipe To compa.s.s that!--You do not know--
PIPER I know.
Tell me no more.--I say it shall not be!
To heel, lad! No, I follow,--none but I!
Go,--go! [MICHAEL rushes out again.
[To CHEAT-THE-DEVIL, pointing to the Children]
Do you bide here and shepherd these.
CHILDREN Where are you going?--Take us too!--us too!-- Oh, take us with you?--Take us!
PIPER [distracted]
No, no, no!
You shall be kittens all. And chase your tails, Till I come back!--So here!
[Catches HANSEL and affixes to his little jacket a long strip of leather for a tail; then whirls him about.
CHILDREN Me too!--Me too!
CHEAT-THE-DEVIL Let me make tails,--let me!
[Seizing shears and leather.]
PIPER [wildly]
Faith, and you shall.
A master tailor!--Come, here's food for thought.
Think all,-- [To the Strollers]
And hold your tongues, there!-- If a Cat-- If a Cat have--as all men say--Nine Lives, And if Nine Tailors go to make a Man, How long, then, shall it take one Man turned Tailor To keep a Cat in Tails, until she die?
[CHEAT-THE-DEVIL looks subdued; the children whirl about.
But here's no game for Jan.--Stay! Something else.-- [He runs to a wooden coffer, rear, and takes out a long crystal on the end of a string, with a glance at the shaft of sunlight from the roof.
The Children watch.
Be quiet, now.--Chase not your tails too far, Till I come home again.
CHILDREN Come home--come home!
PIPER And you shall see my--
CHILDREN Something Beautiful!
Oh, oh, what is it?--Oh, and will it play?
Will it play music?
PIPER Yes.
[He hangs the crystal in the sun. A Rainbow strikes the wall.
--The best of all!
CHEAT-THE-DEVIL, JAN, CHILDREN Oh, oh, how beautiful,--how beautiful!
PIPER And hear it pipe and call, and dance, and sing.
Heja!--And hark you all. You have to mind-- The Rainbow!
[He climbs out, pipe in hand. The Children whirl about after their tails.--CHEAT-THE-DEVIL, and JAN on his tree-stump, open-mouthed with happiness, watch the Rainbow.
Curtain
SCENE II: The Cross-ways: on the Long Road to Rudersheim.
A wooded country: high hills at back. The place is wild and overgrown, like the haunted spot it is reputed to be. In the foreground, right, a ruined stone well appears, in a ma.s.s of weeds and vines. Opposite, left, tall trees and dense thickets. Where the roads cross (to left of centre), stands a large, neglected shrine, with a weather-worn figure of Christ,--again the 'Lonely Man'--facing towards Hamelin.--The stage is empty, at rise of the curtain; but the sound of chanting from burghers just gone by fades slowly, on the road to Rudersheim.
From the hillside at the rear comes the PIPER, wrapped in a long green cloak, his pipe in his hand. He looks after the procession, and back to Hamelin.--Enter, springing from the bushes to the right, MICHAEL, who seizes him.
Their speech goes breathlessly.
MICHAEL
QUICK!--tell me--
PIPER Patience.
MICHAEL Patience?--Death and h.e.l.l!
Oh, save her--save her! Give the children back.
PIPER Never. Have you betrayed us?
MICHAEL I!--betrayed?
PIPER So, so, lad.
MICHAEL But to save her--
PIPER There's a way,-- Trust me! I save her, or we swing together Merrily, in a row.--How did you see her?
MICHAEL By stealth: two days ago, at evening, Hard by the vine-hid wall of her own garden, I made a warbling like a nightingale; And she came out to hear.
