Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1078 page)

Let it be quickly waged; and quickly, too,

Reach its effective end: though 'tis my hope,

My ardent hope, that peace may be preserved.

WHITBREAD

Were it that I could think, as does my friend,

That ambiguity of sentiment

Informed the utterance of the noble lord

[As oft does ambiguity of word]
,

I might with satisfied and sure resolve

Vote straight for the Address.  But eyeing well

The flimsy web there woven to entrap

The credence of my honourable friends,

I must with all my energy contest

The wisdom of a new and hot crusade

For fixing who shall fill the throne of France.

Already are the seeds of mischief sown:

The Declaration at Vienna, signed

Against Napoleon, is, in my regard,

Abhorrent, and our country's character

Defaced by our subscription to its terms!

If words have any meaning it incites

To sheer assassination; it proclaims

That any meeting Bonaparte may slay him;

And, whatso language the Allies now hold,

In that outburst, at least, was war declared.

The noble lord to-night would second it,

Would seem to urge that we full arm, then wait

For just as long, no longer, than would serve

The preparations of the other Powers,

And then—pounce down on France!

CASTLEREAGH

No, no!  Not so.

WHITBREAD

Good God, then, what are we to understand?—

However, this denial is a gain,

And my misapprehension owes its birth

Entirely to that mystery of phrase

Which taints all rhetoric of the noble lord,

Well, what is urged for new aggression now,

To vamp up and replace the Bourbon line?

The wittiest man who ever sat here said

That half our nation's debt had been incurred

In efforts to suppress the Bourbon power,

The other half in efforts to restore it,
[laughter]

And I must deprecate a further plunge

For ends so futile!  Why, since Ministers

Craved peace with Bonaparte at Chatillon,

Should they refuse him peace and quiet now?

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 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

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.