Chapter X: Act III (1)

SCENE I.--_The end of the Yew-tree Avenue under MILDRED'S window. A light seen through a central red pane._

_Enter TRESHAM through the trees._

Again here! But I cannot lose myself.
The heath--the orchard--I have traversed glades
And dells and bosky paths which used to lead
Into green wild-wood depths, bewildering
My boy's adventurous step. And now they tend
Hither or soon or late; the blackest shade
Breaks up, the thronged trunks of the trees ope wide,
And the dim turret I have fled from, fronts
Again my step: the very river put
Its arm about me and conducted me
To this detested spot. Why then, I'll shun
Their will no longer: do your will with me!
Oh, bitter! To have reared a towering scheme
Of happiness, and to behold it razed,
Were nothing: all men hope, and see their hopes
Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew.
But I ... to hope that from a line like ours
No horrid prodigy like this would spring,
Were just as though I hoped that from these old
Confederates against the sovereign day,
Children of older and yet older sires,
Whose living coral berries dropped, as now
On me, on many a baron's surcoat once,
On many a beauty's wimple--would proceed
No poison-tree, to thrust, from hell its root,
Hither and thither its strange snaky arms.
Why came I here? What must I do? [_A bell strikes._] A bell?
Midnight! and 'tis at midnight.... Ah, I catch
--Woods, river, plains, I catch your meaning now,
And I obey you! Hist! This tree will serve.

[_He retires behind one of the trees. After a pause, enter MERTOUN cloaked as before._

_Mertoun._ Not time! Beat out thy last voluptuous beat
Of hope and fear, my heart! I thought the clock
I' the chapel struck as I was pushing through
The ferns. And so I shall no more see rise
My love-star! Oh, no matter for the past!
So much the more delicious task to watch
Mildred revive: to pluck out, thorn by thorn,
All traces of the rough forbidden path
My rash love lured her to! Each day must see
Some fear of hers effaced, some hope renewed:
Then there will be surprises, unforeseen
Delights in store. I'll not regret the past.

[_The light is placed above in the purple pane._

And see, my signal rises, Mildred's star!
I never saw it lovelier than now
It rises for the last time. If it sets,
'Tis that the re-assuring sun may dawn.

[_As he prepares to ascend the last tree of the avenue, TRESHAM arrests his arm._

Unhand me--peasant, by your grasp! Here's gold.
'Twas a mad freak of mine. I said I'd pluck
A branch from the white-blossomed shrub beneath
The casement there. Take this, and hold your peace.

_Tresham._ Into the moonlight yonder, come with me!
Out of the shadow!

_Mertoun._ I am armed, fool!

_Tresham._ Yes,
Or no? You'll come into the light, or no?
My hand is on your throat--refuse!--

_Mertoun._ That voice!
Where have I heard ... no--that was mild and slow.
I'll come with you.

[_They advance._

_Tresham._ You're armed: that's well. Declare
Your name: who are you?

_Mertoun._ (Tresham!--she is lost!)

_Tresham._ Oh, silent? Do you know, you bear yourself
Exactly as, in curious dreams I've had
How felons, this wild earth is full of, look
When they're detected, still your kind has looked!
The bravo holds an assured countenance,
The thief is voluble and plausible,
But silently the slave of lust has crouched
When I have fancied it before a man.
Your name!

_Mertoun._ I do conjure Lord Tresham--ay,
Kissing his foot, if so I might prevail--
That he for his own sake forbear to ask
My name! As heaven's above, his future weal
Or woe depends upon my silence! Vain!
I read your white inexorable face.
Know me, Lord Tresham!

[_He throws off his disguises._

_Tresham._ Mertoun!
[_After a pause._] Draw now!

_Mertoun._ Hear me
But speak first!

_Tresham._ Not one least word on your life!
Be sure that I will strangle in your throat
The least word that informs me how you live
And yet seem what you seem! No doubt 'twas you
Taught Mildred still to keep that face and sin.
We should join hands in frantic sympathy
If you once taught me the unteachable,
Explained how you can live so, and so lie.
With God's help I retain, despite my sense,
The old belief--a life like yours is still
Impossible. Now draw!

_Mertoun._ Not for my sake,
Do I entreat a hearing--for your sake,
And most, for her sake!

_Tresham._ Ha ha, what should I
Know of your ways? A miscreant like yourself,
How must one rouse his ire? A blow?--that's pride
No doubt, to him! One spurns him, does one not?
Or sets the foot upon his mouth, or spits
Into his face! Come! Which, or all of these?

_Mertoun._ 'Twixt him and me and Mildred, Heaven be judge!
Can I avoid this? Have your will, my lord!

[_He draws and, after a few passes, falls._

_Tresham._ You are not hurt?

_Mertoun._ You'll hear me now!

_Tresham._ But rise!

_Mertoun._ Ah, Tresham, say I not "you'll hear me now!"
And what procures a man the right to speak
In his defense before his fellow man,
But--I suppose--the thought that presently
He may have leave to speak before his God
His whole defense?

_Tresham._ Not hurt? It cannot be!
You made no effort to resist me. Where
Did my sword reach you? Why not have returned
My thrusts? Hurt where?

_Mertoun._ My lord--

_Tresham._ How young he is!

_Mertoun._ Lord Tresham, I am very young, and yet
I have entangled other lives with mine.
Do let me speak, and do believe my speech!
That when I die before you presently,--

_Tresham._ Can you stay here till I return with help?

_Mertoun._ Oh, stay by me! When I was less than boy
I did you grievous wrong and knew it not--
Upon my honor, knew it not! Once known,
I could not find what seemed a better way
To right you than I took: my life--you feel
How less than nothing were the giving you
The life you've taken! But I thought my way
The better--only for your sake and hers:
And as you have decided otherwise,
Would I had an infinity of lives
To offer you! Now say--instruct me--think!
Can you, from the brief minutes I have left,
Eke out my reparation? Oh think--think!
For I must wring a partial--dare I say,
Forgiveness from you, ere I die?

_Tresham._ I do
Forgive you.

_Mertoun._ Wait and ponder that great word!
Because, if you forgive me, I shall hope
To speak to you of--Mildred!

_Tresham._ Mertoun, haste
And anger have undone us. 'Tis not you
Should tell me for a novelty you're young,
Thoughtless, unable to recall the past.
Be but your pardon ample as my own!

_Mertoun._ Ah, Tresham, that a sword-stroke and a drop
Of blood or two, should bring all this about!
Why, 'twas my very fear of you, my love
Of you--(what passion like a boy's for one
Like you?)--that ruined me! I dreamed of you--
You, all accomplished, courted everywhere,
The scholar and the gentleman. I burned
To knit myself to you: but I was young,
And your surpassing reputation kept me
So far aloof! Oh, wherefore all that love?
With less of love, my glorious yesterday
Of praise and gentlest words and kindest looks,
Had taken place perchance six months ago.
Even now, how happy we had been! And yet
I know the thought of this escaped you, Tresham!
Let me look up into your face; I feel
'Tis changed above me: yet my eyes are glazed.
Where? where?

[_As he endeavors to raise himself, his eye catches the lamp._

Ah, Mildred! What will Mildred do?
Tresham, her life is bound up in the life
That's bleeding fast away! I'll live--must live,
There, if you'll only turn me I shall live
And save her! Tresham--oh, had you but heard!
Had you but heard! What right was yours to set
The thoughtless foot upon her life and mine,
And then say, as we perish, "Had I thought,
All had gone otherwise?" We've sinned and die:
Never you sin, Lord Tresham! for you'll die,
And God will judge you.

_Tresham._ Yes, be satisfied!
That process is begun.

_Mertoun._ And she sits there
Waiting for me! Now, say you this to her--
You, not another--say, I saw him die
As he breathed this, "I love her"--you don't know
What those three small words mean! Say, loving her
Lowers me down the bloody slope to death
With memories ... I speak to her, not you,
Who had no pity, will have no remorse,
Perchance intend her.... Die along with me,
Dear Mildred! 'tis so easy, and you'll 'scape
So much unkindness! Can I lie at rest,
With rude speech spoken to you, ruder deeds
Done to you?--heartless men shall have my heart,
And I tied down with grave-clothes and the worm,
Aware, perhaps, of every blow--oh God!--
Upon those lips--yet of no power to tear
The felon stripe by stripe! Die, Mildred! Leave
Their honorable world to them! For God
We're good enough, though the world casts us out.

[_A whistle is heard._

_Tresham._ Ho, Gerard!

_Enter GERARD, AUSTIN and GUENDOLEN, with lights._

No one speak! You see what's done.
I cannot bear another voice.

_Mertoun._ There's light--
Light all about me, and I move to it.
Tresham, did I not tell you--did you not
Just promise to deliver words of mine
To Mildred?

_Tresham._ I will bear these words to her.

_Mertoun._ Now?

_Tresham._ Now. Lift you the body, and leave me
The head.

[_As they half raise MERTOUN, he turns suddenly._

_Mertoun._ I knew they turned me: turn me not from her!
There! stay you! there!

[_Dies._

_Guendolen_ [_after a pause_]. Austin, remain you here
With Thorold until Gerard comes with help:
Then lead him to his chamber. I must go
To Mildred.

_Tresham._ Guendolen, I hear each word
You utter. Did you hear him bid me give
His message? Did you hear my promise? I,
And only I, see Mildred.

_Guendolen._ She will die.

_Tresham._ Oh no, she will not die! I dare not hope
She'll die. What ground have you to think she'll die?
Why, Austin's with you!

_Austin._ Had we but arrived
Before you fought!

_Tresham._ There was no fight at all.
He let me slaughter him--the boy! I'll trust
The body there to you and Gerard--thus!
Now bear him on before me.

_Austin._ Whither bear him?

_Tresham._ Oh, to my chamber! When we meet there next,
We shall be friends.

[_They bear out the body of MERTOUN._

Will she die, Guendolen?

_Guendolen._ Where are you taking me?

_Tresham._ He fell just here.
Now answer me. Shall you in your whole life
--You who have nought to do with Mertoun's fate,
Now you have seen his breast upon the turf,
Shall you e'er walk this way if you can help?
When you and Austin wander arm-in-arm
Through our ancestral grounds, will not a shade
Be ever on the meadow and the waste--
Another kind of shade than when the night
Shuts the woodside with all its whispers up?
But will you ever so forget his breast
As carelessly to cross this bloody turf
Under the black yew avenue? That's well!
You turn your head: and I then?--

_Guendolen._ What is done
Is done. My care is for the living. Thorold,
Bear up against this burden: more remains
To set the neck to!

_Tresham._ Dear and ancient trees
My fathers planted, and I loved so well!
What have I done that, like some fabled crime
Of yore, lets loose a Fury leading thus
Her miserable dance amidst you all?
Oh, never more for me shall winds intone
With all your tops a vast antiphony,
Demanding and responding in God's praise!
Hers ye are now, not mine! Farewell--farewell!

SCENE II.--_MILDRED'S chamber._

_MILDRED alone._

He comes not! I have heard of those who seemed
Resourceless in prosperity,--you thought
Sorrow might slay them when she listed; yet
Did they so gather up their diffused strength
At her first menace, that they bade her strike,
And stood and laughed her subtlest skill to scorn.
Oh, 'tis not so with me! The first woe fell,
And the rest fall upon it, not on me:
Else should I bear that Henry comes not?--fails
Just this first night out of so many nights?
Loving is done with. Were he sitting now,
As so few hours since, on that seat, we'd love
No more--contrive no thousand happy ways
To hide love from the loveless, any more.
I think I might have urged some little point
In my defense, to Thorold; he was breathless
For the least hint of a defense: but no,
The first shame over, all that would might fall.
No Henry! Yet I merely sit and think
The morn's deed o'er and o'er. I must have crept
Out of myself. A Mildred that has lost
Her lover--oh, I dare not look upon
Such woe! I crouch away from it! 'Tis she,
Mildred, will break her heart, not I! The world
Forsakes me: only Henry's left me--left?
When I have lost him, for he does not come,
And I sit stupidly.... Oh Heaven, break up
This worse than anguish, this mad apathy,
By any means or any messenger!

_Tresham_ [_without_]. Mildred!

_Mildred._ Come in! Heaven hears me!
[_Enter TRESHAM._] You? alone?
Oh, no more cursing!

_Tresham._ Mildred, I must sit.
There--you sit!

_Mildred._ Say it, Thorold--do not look
The curse! deliver all you come to say!
What must become of me? Oh, speak that thought
Which makes your brow and cheeks so pale!

_Tresham._ My thought?

_Mildred._ All of it!

_Tresham._ How we waded--years ago--
After those water-lilies, till the plash,
I know not how, surprised us; and you dared
Neither advance nor turn back: so, we stood
Laughing and crying until Gerard came--
Once safe upon the turf, the loudest too,
For once more reaching the relinquished prize!
How idle thoughts are, some men's, dying men's!
Mildred,--

_Mildred._ You call me kindlier by my name
Than even yesterday: what is in that?

_Tresham._ It weighs so much upon my mind that I
This morning took an office not my own!
I might ... of course, I must be glad or grieved,
Content or not, at every little thing
That touches you. I may with a wrung heart
Even reprove you, Mildred; I did more:
Will you forgive me?

_Mildred._ Thorold? do you mock?
Or no ... and yet you bid me ... say that word!

_Tresham._ Forgive me, Mildred!--are you silent, Sweet?

_Mildred_ [_starting up_]. Why does not Henry Mertoun come to-night?
Are you, too, silent?

[_Dashing his mantle aside, and pointing to his scabbard, which is empty._

Ah, this speaks for you!
You've murdered Henry Mertoun! Now proceed!
What is it I must pardon? This and all?
Well, I do pardon you--I think I do.
Thorold, how very wretched you must be!

_Tresham._ He bade me tell you....

_Mildred._ What I do forbid
Your utterance of! So much that you may tell
And will not--how you murdered him ... but, no!
You'll tell me that he loved me, never more
Than bleeding out his life there: must I say
"Indeed," to that? Enough! I pardon you.

_Tresham._ You cannot, Mildred! for the harsh words, yes:
Of this last deed Another's judge: whose doom
I wait in doubt, despondency and fear.

_Mildred._ Oh, true! There's nought for me to pardon! True!
You loose my soul of all its cares at once.
Death makes me sure of him for ever! You
Tell me his last words? He shall tell me them,
And take my answer--not in words, but reading
Himself the heart I had to read him late,
Which death....

_Tresham._ Death? You are dying too? Well said
Of Guendolen! I dared not hope you'd die:
But she was sure of it.

_Mildred._ Tell Guendolen
I loved her, and tell Austin....

_Tresham._ Him you loved:
And me?

_Mildred._ Ah, Thorold! Was't not rashly done
To quench that blood, on fire with youth and hope
And love of me--whom you loved too, and yet
Suffered to sit here waiting his approach
While you were slaying him? Oh, doubtlessly
You let him speak his poor boy's speech
--Do his poor utmost to disarm your wrath
And respite me!--you let him try to give
The story of our love and ignorance,
And the brief madness and the long despair--
You let him plead all this, because your code
Of honor bids you hear before you strike:
But at the end, as he looked up for life
Into your eyes--you struck him down!

_Tresham._ No! No!
Had I but heard him--had I let him speak
Half the truth--less--had I looked long on him
I had desisted! Why, as he lay there,
The moon on his flushed cheek, I gathered all
The story ere he told it: I saw through
The troubled surface of his crime and yours
A depth of purity immovable,
Had I but glanced, where all seemed turbidest
Had gleamed some inlet to the calm beneath;
I would not glance: my punishment's at hand.
There, Mildred, is the truth! and you--say on--
You curse me?

_Mildred._ As I dare approach that Heaven
Which has not bade a living thing despair,
Which needs no code to keep its grace from stain,
But bids the vilest worm that turns on it
Desist and be forgiven,--I--forgive not,
But bless you, Thorold, from my soul of souls!

[_Falls on his neck._

There! Do not think too much upon the past!
The cloud that's broke was all the same a cloud
While it stood up between my friend and you;
You hurt him 'neath its shadow: but is that
So past retrieve? I have his heart, you know;
I may dispose of it: I give it you!
It loves you as mine loves! Confirm me, Henry!

[_Dies._

_Tresham._ I wish thee joy, Beloved! I am glad
In thy full gladness!

_Guendolen_ [_without_]. Mildred! Tresham!
[_Entering with AUSTIN._] Thorold,
I could desist no longer. Ah, she swoons!
That's well.

_Tresham._ Oh, better far than that!

_Guendolen._ She's dead!
Let me unlock her arms!

_Tresham._ She threw them thus
About my neck, and blessed me, and then died:
You'll let them stay now, Guendolen!

_Austin._ Leave her
And look to him! What ails you, Thorold?

_Guendolen._ White
As she, and whiter! Austin! quick--this side!

_Austin._ A froth is oozing through his clenched teeth;
Both lips, where they're not bitten through, are black:
Speak, dearest Thorold!

_Tresham._ Something does weigh down
My neck beside her weight: thanks: I should fall
But for you, Austin, I believe!--there, there,
'Twill pass away soon!--ah,--I had forgotten:
I am dying.

_Guendolen._ Thorold--Thorold--why was this?

_Tresham._ I said, just as I drank the poison off,
The earth would be no longer earth to me,
The life out of all life was gone from me.
There are blind ways provided, the foredone
Heart-weary player in this pageant-world
Drops out by, letting the main masque defile
By the conspicuous portal: I am through--
Just through!

_Guendolen._ Don't leave him, Austin! Death is close.

_Tresham._ Already Mildred's face is peacefuller.
I see you, Austin--feel you: here's my hand,
Put yours in it--you, Guendolen, yours too!
You're lord and lady now--you're Treshams; name
And fame are yours: you hold our 'scutcheon up.
Austin, no blot on it! You see how blood
Must wash one blot away: the first blot came
And the first blood came. To the vain world's eye
All's gules again: no care to the vain world,
From whence the red was drawn!

_Austin._ No blot shall come!

_Tresham._ I said that: yet it did come. Should it come,
Vengeance is God's, not man's. Remember me!

[_Dies._

_Guendolen_ [_letting fall the pulseless arm_].
Ah, Thorold, we can but--remember you!

In "Ned Bratts," Browning has given a striking picture of the influence exerted by Bunyan upon some of his wicked contemporaries. The poet took his hints for the story from Bunyan himself, who tells it as follows in the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman."

"At a summer assizes holden at Hertford, while the judge was sitting upon the bench, comes this old Tod into the Court, clothed in a green suit, with his leathern girdle in his hand, his bosom open, and all on a dung sweat, as if he had run for his life; and being come in, he spake aloud, as follows: 'My lord,' said he, 'here is the veriest rogue that breathes upon the face of the earth. I have been a thief from a child: when I was but a little one, I gave myself to rob orchards and to do other such like wicked things, and I have continued a thief ever since. My lord, there has not been a robbery committed these many years, within so many miles of this place, but I have either been at it, or privy to it.' The judge thought the fellow was mad, but after some conference with some of the justices, they agreed to indict him; and so they did of several felonious actions; to all of which he heartily confessed guilty, and so was hanged, with his wife at the same time."

Browning had the happy thought of placing this episode in Bedford amid the scenes of Bunyan's labors and imprisonment. Bunyan, himself, was tried at the Bedford Assizes upon the charge of preaching things he should not, or according to some accounts for preaching without having been ordained, and was sentenced to twelve years' imprisonment in the Bedford Jail. At one time it was thought that he wrote "Pilgrim's Progress" during this imprisonment, but Dr. Brown, in his biography of Bunyan conjectured that this book was not begun until a later and shorter imprisonment of 1675-76, in the town prison and toll-house on Bedford Bridge. Dr. Brown supposes that the portion of the book written in prison closes where Christian and Hopeful part from the shepherds on the Delectable Mountains. "At that point a break in the narrative is indicated--'So I awoke from my dream;' it is resumed with the words--'And I slept and dreamed again, and saw the same two pilgrims going down the mountains along the highway towards the city.' Already from the top of an high hill called 'Clear,' the Celestial City was in view; dangers there were still to be encountered; but to have reached that high hill and to have seen something like a gate, and some of the glory of the place, was an attainment and an incentive." There Bunyan could pause. Several years later the pilgrimage of Christiana was written.

Browning, however, adopts the tradition that the book was written during the twelve years' imprisonment, and makes use of the story of Bunyan's having supported himself during this time by making tagged shoe-laces. He brings in, also, the little blind daughter to whom Bunyan was said to be devoted. The Poet was evidently under the impression also that the assizes were held in a courthouse, but there is good authority for thinking that at that time they were held in the chapel of Herne. Nothing remains of this building now, but it was situated at the southwest corner of the churchyard of St. Paul, and was spoken of sometimes as the School-house chapel.

Ned Bratts and his wife did not know, of course, that they actually lived in the land of the "Pilgrim's Progress." This has been pointed out only recently in a fascinating little book by A. J. Foster of Wootton Vicarage, Bedfordshire. He has been a pilgrim from Elstow, the village where Bunyan was born near Bedford, through all the surrounding country, and has fixed upon many spots beautiful and otherwise which he believes were transmuted in Bunyan's imagination into the House Beautiful, The Delectable Mountains, Vanity Fair and so on through nearly all the scenes of Christian's journey.

The House Beautiful he identifies with Houghton House in the manor of Dame Ellen's Bury. This is one of the most interesting of the country houses of England, because of its connection with Sir Philip Sidney's sister, Mary Sidney. After the death of her husband, Lord Pembroke, James I. presented her with the royal manor of Dame Ellen's Bury, and under the guidance of Inigo Jones, it is generally supposed, Houghton House was built. It is in ruins now and covered with ivy. Trees have grown within the ruins themselves. Still it is one of the most beautiful spots in Bedfordshire. "In Bunyan's time," Mr. Foster writes, "we may suppose the northern slope of Houghton Park was a series of terraces rising one above another, and laid out in the stiff garden fashion of the time. A flight of steps, or maybe a steep path, would lead from one terrace to the next, and gradually the view over the plain of Bedford would reveal itself to the traveler as he mounted higher and higher."

From Houghton House there is a view of the Chiltern Hills. Mr. Foster is of the opinion that Bunyan had this view in mind when he described Christian as looking from the roof of the House Beautiful southwards towards the Delectable Mountains. He writes, "One of the main roads to London from Bedford, and the one, moreover, which passes through Elstow, crosses the hills only a little more than a mile east of Houghton House, and Bunyan, in his frequent journeys to London, no doubt often passed along this road. All in this direction was, therefore, to him familiar ground. Many a pleasant walk or ride came back to him through memory, as he took pen in hand to describe Hill Difficulty with its steep path and its arbor, and the House Beautiful with its guest-chamber, its large upper room looking eastward, its study and its armory.

"Many a time did Bunyan, as he journeyed, look southwards to the blue Chilterns, and when the time came he placed together all that he had seen, as the frame in which he should set his way-faring pilgrim."

Pleasant as it would be to follow with Mr. Foster his journey through the real scenes of the "Pilgrim's Progress," our main interest at present is to observe how Browning's facile imagination has presented the conversion, through the impression made upon them by Bunyan's book, of Ned and his wife.

NED BRATTS

'T was Bedford Special Assize, one daft Midsummer's Day:
A broiling blasting June,--was never its like, men say.
Corn stood sheaf-ripe already, and trees looked yellow as that;
Ponds drained dust-dry, the cattle lay foaming around each flat.
Inside town, dogs went mad, and folk kept bibbing beer
While the parsons prayed for rain. 'T was horrible, yes--but queer:
Queer--for the sun laughed gay, yet nobody moved a hand
To work one stroke at his trade: as given to understand
That all was come to a stop, work and such worldly ways,
And the world's old self about to end in a merry blaze.
Midsummer's Day moreover was the first of Bedford Fair,
With Bedford Town's tag-rag and bobtail a-bowsing there.

But the Court House, Quality crammed: through doors ope, windows wide,
High on the Bench you saw sit Lordships side by side.
There frowned Chief Justice Jukes, fumed learned Brother Small,
And fretted their fellow Judge: like threshers, one and all,
Of a reek with laying down the law in a furnace. Why?
Because their lungs breathed flame--the regular crowd forbye--
From gentry pouring in--quite a nosegay, to be sure!
How else could they pass the time, six mortal hours endure
Till night should extinguish day, when matters might haply mend?
Meanwhile no bad resource was--watching begin and end
Some trial for life and death, in a brisk five minutes' space,
And betting which knave would 'scape, which hang, from his sort
of face.

So, their Lordships toiled and moiled, and a deal of work was done
(I warrant) to justify the mirth of the crazy sun
As this and t'other lout, struck dumb at the sudden show
Of red robes and white wigs, boggled nor answered "Boh!"
When asked why he, Tom Styles, should not--because Jack Nokes
Had stolen the horse--be hanged: for Judges must have their jokes,
And louts must make allowance--let's say, for some blue fly
Which punctured a dewy scalp where the frizzles stuck awry--
Else Tom had fleered scot-free, so nearly over and done
Was the main of the job. Full-measure, the gentles enjoyed their fun,
As a twenty-five were tried, rank puritans caught at prayer
In a cow-house and laid by the heels,--have at 'em, devil may care!--
And ten were prescribed the whip, and ten a brand on the cheek,
And five a slit of the nose--just leaving enough to tweak.

Well, things at jolly high-tide, amusement steeped in fire,
While noon smote fierce the roof's red tiles to heart's desire,
The Court a-simmer with smoke, one ferment of oozy flesh,
One spirituous humming musk mount-mounting until its mesh
Entoiled all heads in a fluster, and Serjeant Postlethwayte
--Dashing the wig oblique as he mopped his oily pate--
Cried "Silence, or I grow grease! No loophole lets in air?
Jurymen,--Guilty, Death! Gainsay me if you dare!"
--Things at this pitch, I say,--what hubbub without the doors?
What laughs, shrieks, hoots and yells, what rudest of uproars?

Bounce through the barrier throng a bulk comes rolling vast!
Thumps, kicks,--no manner of use!--spite of them rolls at last
Into the midst a ball which, bursting, brings to view
Publican Black Ned Bratts and Tabby his big wife too:
Both in a muck-sweat, both ... were never such eyes uplift
At the sight of yawning hell, such nostrils--snouts that sniffed
Sulphur, such mouths a-gape ready to swallow flame!
Horrified, hideous, frank fiend-faces! yet, all the same,
Mixed with a certain ... eh? how shall I dare style--mirth
The desperate grin of the guest that, could they break from earth,
Heaven was above, and hell might rage in impotence
Below the saved, the saved!

"Confound you! (no offence!)
Out of our way,--push, wife! Yonder their Worships be!"
Ned Bratts has reached the bar, and "Hey, my Lords," roars he,
"A Jury of life and death, Judges the prime of the land,
Constables, javelineers,--all met, if I understand,
To decide so knotty a point as whether 't was Jack or Joan
Robbed the henroost, pinched the pig, hit the King's Arms with
a stone,
Dropped the baby down the well, left the tithesman in the lurch,
Or, three whole Sundays running, not once attended church!
What a pother--do these deserve the parish-stocks or whip,
More or less brow to brand, much or little nose to snip,--
When, in our Public, plain stand we--that's we stand here,
I and my Tab, brass-bold, brick-built of beef and beer,
--Do not we, slut? Step forth and show your beauty, jade!
Wife of my bosom--that's the word now! What a trade
We drove! None said us nay: nobody loved his life
So little as wag a tongue against us,--did they, wife?
Yet they knew us all the while, in their hearts, for what we are
--Worst couple, rogue and quean, unhanged--search near and far!
Eh, Tab? The pedler, now--o'er his noggin--who warned a mate
To cut and run, nor risk his pack where its loss of weight
Was the least to dread,--aha, how we two laughed a-good
As, stealing round the midden, he came on where I stood
With billet poised and raised,--you, ready with the rope,--
Ah, but that's past, that's sin repented of, we hope!
Men knew us for that same, yet safe and sound stood we!
The lily-livered knaves knew too (I've balked a d----)
Our keeping the 'Pied Bull' was just a mere pretence:
Too slow the pounds make food, drink, lodging, from out the pence!
There's not a stoppage to travel has chanced, this ten long year,
No break into hall or grange, no lifting of nag or steer,
Not a single roguery, from the clipping of a purse
To the cutting of a throat, but paid us toll. Od's curse!
When Gipsy Smouch made bold to cheat us of our due,
--Eh, Tab? the Squire's strong-box we helped the rascal to--
I think he pulled a face, next Sessions' swinging-time!
He danced the jig that needs no floor,--and, here's the prime,
'T was Scroggs that houghed the mare! Ay, those were busy days!

"Well, there we flourished brave, like scripture-trees called bays,
Faring high, drinking hard, in money up to head
--Not to say, boots and shoes, when ... Zounds, I nearly said--
Lord, to unlearn one's language! How shall we labor, wife?
Have you, fast hold, the Book? Grasp, grip it, for your life!
See, sirs, here's life, salvation! Here's--hold but out my breath--
When did I speak so long without once swearing? 'Sdeath,
No, nor unhelped by ale since man and boy! And yet
All yesterday I had to keep my whistle wet
While reading Tab this Book: book? don't say 'book'--they're plays,
Songs, ballads and the like: here's no such strawy blaze,
But sky wide ope, sun, moon, and seven stars out full-flare!
Tab, help and tell! I'm hoarse. A mug! or--no, a prayer!
Dip for one out of the Book! Who wrote it in the Jail
--He plied his pen unhelped by beer, sirs, I'll be bail!

"I've got my second wind. In trundles she--that's Tab.
'Why, Gammer, what's come now, that--bobbing like a crab
On Yule-tide bowl--your head's a-work and both your eyes
Break loose? Afeard, you fool? As if the dead can rise!
Say--Bagman Dick was found last May with fuddling-cap
Stuffed in his mouth: to choke's a natural mishap!'
'Gaffer, be--blessed,' cries she, 'and Bagman Dick as well!
I, you, and he are damned: this Public is our hell:
We live in fire: live coals don't feel!--once quenched, they learn--
Cinders do, to what dust they moulder while they burn!'

"'If you don't speak straight out,' says I--belike I swore--
'A knobstick, well you know the taste of, shall, once more,
Teach you to talk, my maid!' She ups with such a face,
Heart sunk inside me. 'Well, pad on, my prate-apace!'

"'I've been about those laces we need for ... never mind!
If henceforth they tie hands, 't is mine they'll have to bind.
You know who makes them best--the Tinker in our cage,
Pulled-up for gospelling, twelve years ago: no age
To try another trade,--yet, so he scorned to take
Money he did not earn, he taught himself the make
Of laces, tagged and tough--Dick Bagman found them so!
Good customers were we! Well, last week, you must know
His girl,--the blind young chit, who hawks about his wares,--
She takes it in her head to come no more--such airs
These hussies have! Yet, since we need a stoutish lace,--
"I'll to the jail-bird father, abuse her to his face!"
So, first I filled a jug to give me heart, and then,
Primed to the proper pitch, I posted to their den--
_Patmore_--they style their prison! I tip the turnkey, catch
My heart up, fix my face, and fearless lift the latch--
Both arms a-kimbo, in bounce with a good round oath
Ready for rapping out: no "Lawks" nor "By my troth!"

"'There sat my man, the father. He looked up: what one feels
When heart that leapt to mouth drops down again to heels!
He raised his hand.... Hast seen, when drinking out the night,
And in the day, earth grow another something quite
Under the sun's first stare? I stood a very stone.

"'"Woman!" (a fiery tear he put in every tone),
"How should my child frequent your house where lust is sport,
Violence--trade? Too true! I trust no vague report.
Her angel's hand, which stops the sight of sin, leaves clear
The other gate of sense, lets outrage through the ear.
What has she heard!--which, heard shall never be again.
Better lack food than feast, a Dives in the--wain
Or reign or train--of Charles!" (His language was not ours:
'T is my belief, God spoke: no tinker has such powers.)
"Bread, only bread they bring--my laces: if we broke
Your lump of leavened sin, the loaf's first crumb would choke!"

"'Down on my marrow-bones! Then all at once rose he:
His brown hair burst a-spread, his eyes were suns to see:
Up went his hands: "Through flesh, I reach, I read thy soul!
So may some stricken tree look blasted, bough and bole,
Champed by the fire-tooth, charred without, and yet, thrice-bound
With dreriment about, within may life be found,
A prisoned power to branch and blossom as before,
Could but the gardener cleave the cloister, reach the core,
Loosen the vital sap: yet where shall help be found?
Who says 'How save it?'--nor 'Why cumbers it the ground?'
Woman, that tree art thou! All sloughed about with scurf,
Thy stag-horns fright the sky, thy snake-roots sting the turf!
Drunkenness, wantonness, theft, murder gnash and gnarl
Thine outward, case thy soul with coating like the marle
Satan stamps flat upon each head beneath his hoof!
And how deliver such? The strong men keep aloof,
Lover and friend stand far, the mocking ones pass by,
Tophet gapes wide for prey: lost soul, despair and die!
What then? 'Look unto me and be ye saved!' saith God:
'I strike the rock, outstreats the life-stream at my rod!
Be your sins scarlet, wool shall they seem like,--although
As crimson red, yet turn white as the driven snow!'"

"'There, there, there! All I seem to somehow understand
Is--that, if I reached home, 't was through the guiding hand
Of his blind girl which led and led me through the streets
And out of town and up to door again. What greets
First thing my eye, as limbs recover from their swoon?
A book--this Book she gave at parting. "Father's boon--
The Book he wrote: it reads as if he spoke himself:
He cannot preach in bonds, so,--take it down from shelf
When you want counsel,--think you hear his very voice!"

"'Wicked dear Husband, first despair and then rejoice!
Dear wicked Husband, waste no tick of moment more,
Be saved like me, bald trunk! There's greenness yet at core,
Sap under slough! Read, read!'

"Let me take breath, my lords!
I'd like to know, are these--hers, mine, or Bunyan's words?
I'm 'wildered--scarce with drink,--nowise with drink alone!
You'll say, with heat: but heat's no stuff to split a stone
Like this black boulder--this flint heart of mine: the Book--
That dealt the crashing blow! Sirs, here's the fist that shook
His beard till Wrestler Jem howled like a just-lugged bear!
You had brained me with a feather: at once I grew aware
Christmas was meant for me. A burden at your back,
Good Master Christmas? Nay,--yours was that Joseph's sack,
--Or whose it was,--which held the cup,--compared with mine!
Robbery loads my loins, perjury cracks my chine,
Adultery ... nay, Tab, you pitched me as I flung!
One word, I'll up with fist.... No, sweet spouse, hold your tongue!

"I'm hasting to the end. The Book, sirs--take and read!
You have my history in a nutshell,--ay, indeed!
It must off, my burden! See,--slack straps and into pit,
Roll, reach, the bottom, rest, rot there--a plague on it!
For a mountain's sure to fall and bury Bedford Town,
'Destruction'--that's the name, and fire shall burn it down!
O 'scape the wrath in time! Time's now, if not too late.
How can I pilgrimage up to the wicket-gate?
Next comes Despond the slough: not that I fear to pull
Through mud, and dry my clothes at brave House Beautiful--
But it's late in the day, I reckon: had I left years ago
Town, wife, and children dear.... Well, Christmas did, you know!--
Soon I had met in the valley and tried my cudgel's strength
On the enemy horned and winged, a-straddle across its length!
Have at his horns, thwick--thwack: they snap, see! Hoof and hoof--
Bang, break the fetlock-bones! For love's sake, keep aloof
Angels! I'm man and match,--this cudgel for my flail,--
To thresh him, hoofs and horns, bat's wing and serpent's tail!
A chance gone by! But then, what else does Hopeful ding
Into the deafest ear except--hope, hope's the thing?
Too late i' the day for me to thrid the windings: but
There's still a way to win the race by death's short cut!
Did Master Faithful need climb the Delightful Mounts?
No, straight to Vanity Fair,--a fair, by all accounts,
Such as is held outside,--lords, ladies, grand and gay,--
Says he in the face of them, just what you hear me say.
And the Judges brought him in guilty, and brought him out
To die in the market-place--St. Peter's Green's about
The same thing: there they flogged, flayed, buffeted, lanced with
knives,
Pricked him with swords,--I'll swear, he'd full a cat's nine lives,--
So to his end at last came Faithful,--ha, ha, he!
Who holds the highest card? for there stands hid, you see,
Behind the rabble-rout, a chariot, pair and all:
He's in, he's off, he's up, through clouds, at trumpet-call,
Carried the nearest way to Heaven-gate! Odds my life--
Has nobody a sword to spare? not even a knife?
Then hang me, draw and quarter! Tab--do the same by her!
O Master Worldly-Wiseman ... that's Master Interpreter,
Take the will, not the deed! Our gibbet's handy close:
Forestall Last Judgment-Day! Be kindly, not morose!
There wants no earthly judge-and-jurying: here we stand--
Sentence our guilty selves: so, hang us out of hand!
Make haste for pity's sake! A single moment's loss
Means--Satan's lord once more: his whisper shoots across
All singing in my heart, all praying in my brain,
'It comes of heat and beer!'--hark how he guffaws plain!
'To-morrow you'll wake bright, and, in a safe skin, hug
Your sound selves, Tab and you, over a foaming jug!
You've had such qualms before, time out of mind!' He's right!
Did not we kick and cuff and curse away, that night,
When home we blindly reeled, and left poor humpback Joe
I' the lurch to pay for what ... somebody did, you know!
Both of us maundered then 'Lame humpback,--never more
Will he come limping, drain his tankard at our door!
He'll swing, while--somebody....' Says Tab, 'No, for I'll peach!'
'I'm for you, Tab,' cries I, 'there's rope enough for each!'
So blubbered we, and bussed, and went to bed upon
The grace of Tab's good thought: by morning, all was gone!
We laughed--'What's life to him, a cripple of no account?'
Oh, waves increase around--I feel them mount and mount!
Hang us! To-morrow brings Tom Bearward with his bears:
One new black-muzzled brute beats Sackerson, he swears:
(Sackerson, for my money!) And, baiting o'er, the Brawl
They lead on Turner's Patch,--lads, lasses, up tails all,--
I'm i' the thick o' the throng! That means the Iron Cage,
--Means the Lost Man inside! Where's hope for such as wage
War against light? Light's left, light's here, I hold light still,
So does Tab--make but haste to hang us both! You will?"

I promise, when he stopped you might have heard a mouse
Squeak, such a death-like hush sealed up the old Mote House.
But when the mass of man sank meek upon his knees,
While Tab, alongside, wheezed a hoarse "Do hang us, please!"
Why, then the waters rose, no eye but ran with tears,
Hearts heaved, heads thumped, until, paying all past arrears
Of pity and sorrow, at last a regular scream outbroke
Of triumph, joy and praise.

My Lord Chief Justice spoke,
First mopping brow and cheek, where still, for one that budged,
Another bead broke fresh: "What Judge, that ever judged
Since first the world began, judged such a case as this?
Why, Master Bratts, long since, folk smelt you out, I wis!
I had my doubts, i' faith, each time you played the fox
Convicting geese of crime in yonder witness-box--
Yea, much did I misdoubt, the thief that stole her eggs
Was hardly goosey's self at Reynard's game, i' feggs!
Yet thus much was to praise--you spoke to point, direct--
Swore you heard, saw the theft: no jury could suspect--
Dared to suspect,--I'll say,--a spot in white so clear:
Goosey was throttled, true: but thereof godly fear
Came of example set, much as our laws intend;
And, though a fox confessed, you proved the Judge's friend.
What if I had my doubts? Suppose I gave them breath,
Brought you to bar: what work to do, ere 'Guilty, Death,'--
Had paid our pains! What heaps of witnesses to drag
From holes and corners, paid from out the County's bag!
Trial three dog-days long! _Amicus CuriÊ_--that's
Your title, no dispute--truth-telling Master Bratts!
Thank you, too, Mistress Tab! Why doubt one word you say?
Hanging you both deserve, hanged both shall be this day!
The tinker needs must be a proper man. I've heard
He lies in Jail long since: if Quality's good word
Warrants me letting loose,--some householder, I mean--
Freeholder, better still,--I don't say but--between
Now and next Sessions.... Well! Consider of his case,
I promise to, at least: we owe him so much grace.
Not that--no, God forbid!--I lean to think, as you,
The grace that such repent is any jail-bird's due:
I rather see the fruit of twelve years' pious reign--
AstrÊa Redux, Charles restored his rights again!
--Of which, another time! I somehow feel a peace
Stealing across the world. May deeds like this increase!
So, Master Sheriff, stay that sentence I pronounced
On those two dozen odd: deserving to be trounced
Soundly, and yet ... well, well, at all events despatch
This pair of--shall I say, sinner-saints?--ere we catch
Their jail-distemper too. Stop tears, or I'll indite
All weeping Bedfordshire for turning Bunyanite!"

So, forms were galloped through. If Justice, on the spur,
Proved somewhat expeditious, would Quality demur?
And happily hanged were they,--why lengthen out my tale?--
Where Bunyan's Statue stands facing where stood his Jail.

The effect which "Pilgrim's Progress" had on these two miserable beings, may be taken as typical of the enormous influence wielded by Bunyan in his own time. The most innocent among us had overwhelming qualms in regard to our sins, as children when we listened to our mothers read the book. I remember having confessed some childish peccadillo that was weighing on my small mind as the first result of my thoroughly aroused sense of guilt. In these early years of the Twentieth Century, such a feeling seems almost as far removed as the days of Bunyan. A sense of guilt is not a distinguishing characteristic of the child of the present day, and it may also be doubted whether such reprobates as Ned and his wife would to-day be affected much if at all by the "Pilgrim's Progress." There was probably great personal magnetism in Bunyan himself. We are told that after his discharge from prison, his popularity as a preacher widened rapidly. Such vast crowds of people flocked to hear him that his place of worship had to be enlarged. He went frequently to London on week days to deliver addresses in the large chapel in Southwark which was invariably thronged with eager worshipers.

Browning's picture of Bunyan shows the instant effect of his personality upon Tab.

"There sat the man, the father. He looked up: what one feels
When heart that leapt to mouth drops down again to heels!
He raised his hand.... Hast seen, when drinking out the night,
And in the day, earth grow another something quite
Under the sun's first stare? I stood a very stone."

And again

"Then all at once rose he:
His brown hair burst a-spread, his eyes were suns to see:
Up went his hands."

It is like a clever bit of stage business to make Ned and Tab use the shoe laces to tie up the hands of their victims, and to bring on by this means the meeting between Tab and Bunyan. Of course, the blind daughter's part is imaginary, but yet it seems to bring very vividly before us this well loved child. Another touch, quite in keeping with the time, is the decision of the Judge that the remarkable change of heart in Ned and Tab was due to the piety of King Charles. Like every one else, however, he was impressed by what he heard of the Tinker, and inclined to see what he could do to give him his freedom. It seems that Bunyan's life in jail was a good deal lightened by the favor he always inspired. The story goes that from the first he was in favor with the jailor, who nearly lost his place for permitting him on one occasion to go as far as London. After this he was more strictly confined, but at last he was often allowed to visit his family, and remain with them all night. One night, however, when he was allowed this liberty Bunyan felt resistlessly impressed with the propriety of returning to the prison. He arrived after the keeper had shut up for the night, much to the official's surprise. But his impatience at being untimely disturbed was changed to thankfulness, when a little after a messenger came from a neighboring clerical magistrate to see that the prisoner was safe. "You may go now when you will" said the jailer; "for you know better than I can tell you when to come in again."

Statue by J. E. Boehm]

Though Bunyan is not primarily the subject of this poem, it is an appreciative tribute to his genius and to his force of character, only to be paralleled by Dowden's sympathetic critique in his "Puritan and Anglican Studies." What Browning makes Ned and Tab see through suddenly aroused feeling--namely that it is no book but

"plays,
Songs, ballads and the like: here's no such strawy blaze,
But sky wide ope, sun, moon, and seven stars out full-flare,"

Dowden puts in the colder language of criticism.

"The 'Pilgrim's Progress' is a gallery of portraits, admirably discriminated, and as convincing in their self-verification as those of Holbein. His personages live for us as few figures outside the drama of Shakespeare live.... All his powers cooperated harmoniously in creating this book--his religious ardor, his human tenderness, his sense of beauty, nourished by the Scriptures, his strong common sense, even his gift of humor. Through his deep seriousness play the lighter faculties. The whole man presses into this small volume."

"Halbert and Hob" belongs here merely for its wild North of England setting. We may imagine, if we choose, that this wild father and son dwelt in the beautiful country of Northumberland, in the North of England, but descriptions of the scenery could add nothing to the atmosphere of the poem, for Northumberland is surpassingly lovely. Doubtless, human beings of this type have existed in all parts of the globe. At any rate, these particular human beings were transported by Browning from Aristotle's "Ethics" to the North of England. The incident is told by Aristotle in illustration of the contention that anger and asperity are more natural than excessive and unnecessary desires. "Thus one who was accused of striking his father said, as an apology for it, that his own father, and even his grandfather, had struck his; 'and he also (pointing to his child) will strike me, when he becomes a man; for it runs in our family.' A certain person, also, being dragged by his son, bid him stop at the door, for he himself had dragged his father as far as that." The dryness of "Aristotle's cheeks" is as usual so enlivened by Browning that the fate of Halbert and Hob grows pathetic and comes close to our sympathies.

HALBERT AND HOB

Here is a thing that happened. Like wild beasts whelped, for den,
In a wild part of North England, there lived once two wild men
Inhabiting one homestead, neither a hovel nor hut,
Time out of mind their birthright: father and son, these--but--
Such a son, such a father! Most wildness by degrees
Softens away: yet, last of their line, the wildest and worst were
these.

Criminals, then? Why, no: they did not murder and rob;
But, give them a word, they returned a blow--old Halbert as young Hob:
Harsh and fierce of word, rough and savage of deed,
Hated or feared the more--who knows?--the genuine wild-beast breed.

Thus were they found by the few sparse folk of the countryside;
But how fared each with other? E'en beasts couch, hide by hide,
In a growling, grudged agreement: so, father and son aye curled
The closelier up in their den because the last of their kind in the
world.

Still, beast irks beast on occasion. One Christmas night of snow,
Came father and son to words--such words! more cruel because the blow
To crown each word was wanting, while taunt matched gibe, and curse
Completed with oath in wager, like pastime in hell,--nay, worse:
For pastime turned to earnest, as up there sprang at last
The son at the throat of the father, seized him and held him fast.

"Out of this house you go!"--(there followed a hideous oath)--
"This oven where now we bake, too hot to hold us both!
If there's snow outside, there's coolness: out with you, bide a spell
In the drift and save the sexton the charge of a parish shell!"