The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon Part 166

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 s.h.i.+rt 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 Wess.e.x 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 Wess.e.x 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 bra.s.s-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 G.o.d 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 again 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 s.h.i.+lling; 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 m.u.f.fle all objects, innumerable bodies of infantry and cavalry are discerned bivouacking in and around the village. This ma.s.s 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