THE SCARECROW

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
SAN FRANCISCO

Macmillan & CO., Limited

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MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO

THE SCARECROW

OR

THE GLASS OF TRUTH

A Tragedy of the Ludicrous

BY

PERCY MACKAYE

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1911

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1908, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1908. Reprinted February, 1911.

This play has been copyrighted and published simultaneously in the United States and Great Britain. All acting rights, both professional and amateur, are reserved in the United States, Great Britain, and countries of the Copyright Union, by Percy MacKaye. Performances forbidden and right of representation reserved. Application for the right of performing this piece must be made to The McMillan Company. Any piracy or infringement will be prosecuted in accordance with the penalties provided by the United States Statutes:—

“Sec. 4966.—Any person publicly performing or representing any dramatic or musical composition, for which copyright has been obtained, without the consent of the proprietor of the said dramatic or musical composition, or his heirs or assigns, shall be liable for damages therefor, such damages in all cases to be assessed at such sum, not less than one hundred dollars for the first and fifty dollars for every subsequent performance, as to the Court shall appear to be just. If the unlawful performance and representation be wilful and for profit, such person or persons shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction be imprisoned for a period not exceeding one year.” U. S. Revised Statutes, Title 60, Chap. 3.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

To
MY MOTHER
IN MEMORY OF AUSPICIOUS
“COUNTINGS OF THE CROWS”
BY OLD NEW ENGLAND CORN-FIELDS

PREFACE

But for a fantasy of Nathaniel Hawthorne, this play, of course, would never have been written. In “Mosses from an Old Manse,” the Moralized Legend “Feathertop” relates, in some twenty pages of its author’s inimitable style, how Mother Rigby, a reputed witch of old New England days, converted a corn-patch scarecrow into the semblance of a fine gentleman of the period; how she despatched this semblance to “play its part in the great world, where not one man in a hundred, she affirmed, was gifted with more real substance than itself”; how there the scarecrow, while paying court to pretty Polly Gookin, the rosy, simpering daughter of Justice Gookin, discovered its own image in a looking-glass, returned to Mother Rigby’s cottage, and dissolved into its original elements.

My indebtedness, therefore, to this source, in undertaking the present play, goes without saying. Yet it would not be true, either to Hawthorne’s work or my own, to classify “The Scarecrow” as a dramatization of “Feathertop.” Were it intended to be such, the many radical departures from the conception and the treatment of Hawthorne which are evident in the present work would have to be regarded as so many unwarrantable liberties taken with its original material; the function of the play itself would, in such case, become purely formal,—translative of a narrative to its appropriate dramatic form,—and as such, however interesting and commendable an effort, would have lost all raison d’être for the writer.

But such, I may say, has not been my intention. My aim has been quite otherwise. Starting with the same basic theme, I have sought to elaborate it, by my own treatment, to a different and more inclusive issue.

Without particularizing here the full substance of Hawthorne’s consummate sketch, which is available to every reader, the divergence I refer to may be summed up briefly.

The scarecrow Feathertop of Hawthorne is the imaginative epitome or symbol of human charlatanism, with special emphasis upon the coxcombry of fashionable society. In his essential superficiality he is characterized as a fop, “strangely self-satisfied,” with “nobby little nose thrust into the air.” “And many a fine gentleman,” says Mother Rigby, “has a pumpkin-head as well as my scarecrow.” His hollow semblance is the shallowness of a “well-digested conventionalism, which had incorporated itself thoroughly with his substance and transformed him into a work of art.” “But the clothes in this case were to be the making of the man,” and so Mother Rigby, after fitting him out in a suit of embroidered finery, endows him as a finishing touch “with a great deal of brass, which she applied to his forehead, thus making it yellower than before. ‘With that brass alone,’ quoth she, ‘thou canst pay thy way all over the earth.’”

Similarly, the other characters are sketched by Hawthorne in accord with this general conception. Pretty Polly Gookin, “tossing her head and managing her fan” before the mirror, views therein “an unsubstantial little maid that reflected every gesture and did all the foolish things that Polly did, but without making her ashamed of them. In short, it was the fault of pretty Polly’s ability, rather than her will, if she failed to be as complete an artifice as the illustrious Feathertop himself.”

Thus the Moralized Legend reveals itself as a satire upon a restricted artificial phase of society. As such, it runs its brief course, with all the poetic charm and fanciful suggestiveness of our great New Englander’s prose style, to its appropriate dénouement,—the disintegration of its hero.

“‘My poor, dear, pretty Feathertop,’ quoth Mother Rigby, with a rueful glance at the relics of her ill-fated contrivance, ‘there are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world made up of just such a jumble of worn-out, forgotten, and good-for-nothing trash as he was, yet they live in fair repute and never see themselves for what they are. And why should my poor puppet be the only one to know himself and perish for it?’”

Coxcombry and charlatanism, then, are the butt of Hawthorne’s satire in his Legend. The nature of his theme, however, is susceptible of an application far less restricted, a development far more universal, than such satire. This wider issue once or twice in his sketch he seems to have touched upon, only immediately to ignore again. Thus, in the very last paragraph, Mother Rigby exclaims: “Poor Feathertop! I could easily give him another chance and send him forth again to-morrow. But no! His feelings are too tender—his sensibilities too deep.”

In these words, spoken in irony, Hawthorne ends his narrative with an undeveloped aspect of his theme, which constitutes the starting-point of the conception of my play: the aspect, namely, of the essential tragedy of the ludicrous; an aspect which, in its development, inevitably predicates for my play a divergent treatment and a different conclusion. The element of human sympathy is here substituted for that of irony, as criterion of the common absurdity of mankind.

The scarecrow Feathertop is ridiculous, as the emblem of a superficial fop; the scarecrow Ravensbane is pitiful, as the emblem of human bathos.

Compared with our own ideas of human perfection, what human rubbish we are! Of what incongruous elements are we constructed by time and inheritance wherewith to realize the reasonableness, the power, the altruism, of our dreams! What absurdity is our highest consummation! Yet the sense of our common deficiency is, after all, our salvation. There is one reality which is a basic hope for the realization of those dreams. This sense is human sympathy, which is, it would seem, a more searching critic of human frailty than satire. It is the growth of this sense which dowers with dignity and reality the hollowest and most ludicrous of mankind, and becomes in such a fundamental grace of character. In a recent critical interpretation of Cervantes’ great work, Professor G. E. Woodberry writes: “A madman has no character; but it is the character of Don Quixote that at last draws the knight out of all his degradations and makes him triumph in the heart of the reader.” And he continues: “Modern dismay begins in the thought that here is not the abnormality of an individual, but the madness of the soul in its own nature.”

If for “madness” in this quotation I may be permitted to substitute ludicrousness (or incongruity), a more felicitous expression of my meaning, as applied to Ravensbane in this play, would be difficult to devise.

From what has been said, it will, I trust, be the more clearly apparent why “The Scarecrow” cannot with any appropriateness be deemed a dramatization of “Feathertop,” and why its manifold divergencies from the latter in treatment and motive cannot with any just significance be considered as liberties taken with an original source. Dickon, for example, whose name in the Legend is but a momentary invocation in the mouth of Mother Rigby, becomes in my play not merely the characterized visible associate of Goody Rickby (“Blacksmith Bess”), but the necessary foil of sceptical irony to the human growth of the scarecrow. So, too, for reasons of the play’s different intent, Goody Rickby herself is differentiated from Mother Rigby; and Rachel Merton has no motive, of character or artistic design, in common with pretty, affected Polly Gookin.

My indebtedness to the New England master in literature is, needless to say, gratefully acknowledged; but it is fitting, I think, to distinguish clearly between the aim and the scope of “Feathertop” and that of the play in hand, as much in deference to the work of Hawthorne as in comprehension of the spirit of my own.

P. M-K.

Cornish, New Hampshire,
December, 1907.

Program of the play as first performed in
New York, Jan. 17, 1911, at the Garrick Theatre

Charles Frohman, Manager

HENRY B. HARRIS Presents

EDMUND BREESE

—AS—

THE DEVIL

—IN—

THE SCARECROW

A FANTASTIC ROMANCE By PERCY MACKAYE

CHARACTERS

(Note—The following characters are named is the order in which they first appear)

Time—About 1690  Place—A town in Massachusetts

Act I.—The Blacksmith Shop of “Blacksmith Bess.” Dawn.

Acts II., III., and IV.—Justice Merton’s Parlor.

Morning, afternoon, and evening.

Produced under the direction of Edgar Selwyn

Incidental and entre’act music by Robert Hood Bowers

The portrait of Justice Merton, as a young man,

by John W. Alexander

Scenery designed and painted by H. Robert Law
Costumes by Darian, from designs by Byron Nestor

All of the music composed especially for this production,
by ROBERT HOOD BOWERS

Overture—Devil’s Motif; Hymn; Love Motif; Ravensbane’s Minuet, etc.

First Entre’act—Ravensbane goes a-wooing. He is instructed in the art by the Devil. He aspires to Rachel’s hand.

Second Entre’act—The challenge to the duel. The squire sends his second, the town dandy, to wait upon Ravensbane.

Third Entre’act—Ravensbane’s crow song with its tragic ending. His despair.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

• JUSTICE GILEAD MERTON.
• GOODY RICKBY (“Blacksmith Bess”).
• LORD RAVENSBANE (“Marquis of Oxford, Baron of Wittenberg,
• Elector of Worms, and Count of Cordova”),
• their hypothetical son.
• DICKON, a Yankee improvisation of the Prince of Darkness.
• RACHEL MERTON, niece of the Justice.
• MISTRESS CYNTHIA MERTON, sister of the Justice.
• RICHARD TALBOT, Esquire, betrothed to Rachel.
• SIR CHARLES REDDINGTON, Lieutenant Governor.
• MISTRESS REDDINGTON } his
• AMELIA REDDINGTON } daughters.
• CAPTAIN BUGBY, the Governor’s Secretary.
• MINISTER DODGE.
• MISTRESS DODGE, his wife.
• REV. MASTER RAND, of Harvard College.
• REV. MASTER TODD, of Harvard College.
• MICAH, a servant of the Justice.
• Time.—Late Seventeenth Century.
• Place.—A town in Massachusetts.

ACT I

The interior of a blacksmith shop. Right centre, a forge. Left, a loft, from which are hanging dried cornstalks, hay, and the yellow ears of cattle-corn. Back centre, a wide double door, closed when the curtain rises. Through this door—when later it is opened—is visible a New England landscape in the late springtime: a distant wood; stone walls, high elms, a well-sweep; and, in the near foreground, a ploughed field, from which the green shoots of early corn are just appearing. The blackened walls of the shop are covered with a miscellaneous collection of old iron, horseshoes, cart wheels, etc., the usual appurtenances of a smithy. In the right-hand corner, however, is an array of things quite out of keeping with the shop proper: musical instruments, puppets, tall clocks, and fantastical junk. Conspicuous amongst these articles is a large standing mirror, framed grotesquely in old gold and curtained by a dull stuff, embroidered with peaked caps and crescent moons.

Just before the scene opens, a hammer is heard ringing briskly upon steel. As the curtain rises there is discovered, standing at the anvil in the flickering light of a bright flame from the forge, a woman—powerful, ruddy, proud with a certain masterful beauty, white-haired (as though prematurely), bare-armed to the elbows, clad in a dark skirt (above her ankles), a loose blouse, open at the throat; a leathern apron and a workman’s cap. The woman is Goody Rickby. On the anvil she is shaping a piece of iron. Beside her stands a framework of iron formed like the ribs and backbone of a man. For a few moments she continues to ply her hammer, amid a shower of sparks, till suddenly the flame on the forge dies down.

GOODY RICKBY Dickon! More flame.

A VOICE [Above her.] Yea, Goody. [The flame in the forge spurts up high and suddenly.]

GOODY RICKBY Nay, not so fierce.

THE VOICE [At her side.] Votre pardon, madame. [The flame subsides.] Is that better?

GOODY RICKBY That will do. [With her tongs, she thrusts the iron into the flame; it turns white-hot.] Quick work; nothing like brimstone for the smithy trade.

[At the anvil, she begins to weld the iron rib on to the framework.]

There, my beauty! We’ll make a stout set of ribs for you. I’ll see to it this year that I have a scarecrow can outstand all the nor’easters that blow. I’ve no notion to lose my corn-crop this summer.

[Outside, the faint cawings of crows are heard. Putting down her tongs and hammer, Goody Rickby strides to the double door, and flinging it wide open, lets in the gray light of dawn. She looks out over the fields and shakes her fist.]

So ye’re up before me and the sun, are ye? [Squinting against the light.] There’s one! Nay, two. Aha! One for sorrow, Two for mirth— Good! This time we’ll have the laugh on our side. [She returns to the forge, where again the fire has died out.] Dickon! Fire! Come, come, where be thy wits?

THE VOICE [Sleepily from the forge.] ’Tis early, dame.

GOODY RICKBY The more need— [Takes up her tongs.]

THE VOICE [Screams.] Ow!

GOODY RICKBY Ha! Have I got thee?

[From the blackness of the forge she pulls out with her tongs, by the right ear, the figure of a devil, horned and tailed. In general aspect, though he resembles a mediæval familiar demon, yet the suggestions of a goatish beard, a shrewdly humorous smile, and (when he speaks) the slightest of nasal drawls, remotely simulate a species of Yankee rustic. Goody Rickby substitutes her fingers for the tongs.]

Now, Dickon!

DICKON Deus! I haven’t been nabbed like that since St. Dunstan tweaked my nose. Well, sweet Goody?

GOODY RICKBY The bellows!

DICKON [Going slowly to the forge.] Why, ’tis hardly dawn yet. Honest folks are still abed. It makes a long day.

GOODY RICKBY [Working, while Dickon plies the bellows.] Aye, for your black pets, the crows, to work in. That’s why I’m at it early. You heard ’em. We must have this scarecrow of ours out in the field at his post before sunrise. [Finishing.] So, there! Now, Dickon boy, I want that you should—

DICKON [Whipping out a note-book and writing.] Wait! Another one! “I want that you should—”

GOODY RICKBY What’s that you’re writing?

DICKON The phrase, Goody dear; the construction. Your New England dialect is hard for a poor cosmopolitan devil. What with ut clauses in English and Latinized subjunctives—You want that I should—Well?

GOODY RICKBY Make a masterpiece. I’ve made the frame strong, so as to stand the weather; you must make the body lifelike so as to fool the crows. Last year I stuck up a poor sham and after a day they saw through it. This time, we must make ’em think it’s a real human crittur.

DICKON To fool the philosophers is my specialty, but the crows—hm!

GOODY RICKBY Pooh! That staggers thee!

DICKON Madame Rickby, prod not the quick of my genius. I am Phidias, I am Raphael, I am the Lord God!— You shall see— [Demands with a gesture.] Yonder broomstick.

GOODY RICKBY [Fetching him a broom from the corner.] Good boy!

DICKON [Straddling the handle.] Haha! gee up! my Salem mare. [Then, pseudo-philosophically.] A broomstick—that’s for imagination!

[He begins to construct the scarecrow, while Goody Rickby, assisting, brings the constructive parts from various nooks and corners.]

We are all pretty artists, to be sure, Bessie. Phidias, he sculptures the gods; Raphael, he paints the angels; the Lord God, he creates Adam; and Dickon—fetch me the poker—aha! Dickon! What doth Dickon? He nullifies ’em all; he endows the Scarecrow!—A poker: here’s his conscience. There’s two fine legs to walk on,—imagination and conscience. Yonder flails now! The ideal—the beau idéal, dame—that’s what we artists seek. The apotheosis of scarecrows! And pray, what’s a scarecrow? Why, the antithesis of Adam.—“Let there be candles!” quoth the Lord God, sitting in the dark. “Let there be candle-extinguishers,” saith Dickon. “I am made in the image of my maker,” quoth Adam. “Look at yourself in the glass,” saith Goodman Scarecrow. [Taking two implements from Goody Rickby.] Fine! fine! here are flails—one for wit, t’other for satire. Sapristi! I with two such arms, my lad, how thou wilt work thy way in the world!

GOODY RICKBY You talk as if you were making a real mortal, Dickon.

DICKON To fool a crow, Goody, I must fashion a crittur that will first deceive a man.

GOODY RICKBY He’ll scarce do that without a head. [Pointing to the loft.] What think ye of yonder Jack-o’-lantern? ’Twas made last Hallowe’en.

DICKON Rare, my Psyche! We shall collaborate. Here!

[Running up the ladder, he tosses down a yellow hollowed pumpkin to Goody Rickby, who catches it. Then rummaging forth an armful of cornstalks, ears, tassels, dried squashes, gourds, beets, etc., he descends and throws them in a heap on the floor.]

Whist! the anatomy.

GOODY RICKBY [Placing the pumpkin on the shoulders.] Look!

DICKON O Johannes Baptista! What wouldst thou have given for such a head! I helped Salome to cut his off, dame, and it looked not half so appetizing on her charger. Tut! Copernicus wore once such a pumpkin, but it is rotten. Look at his golden smile! Hail, Phœbus Apollo!

GOODY RICKBY ’Tis the finest scarecrow in town.

DICKON Nay, poor soul, ’tis but a skeleton yet. He must have a man’s heart in him. [Picking a big red beet from among the cornstalks, he places it under the left side of the ribs.] Hush! Dost thou hear it beat?

GOODY RICKBY Thou merry rogue!

DICKON Now for the lungs of him. [Snatching a small pair of bellows from a peg on the wall.] That’s for eloquence! He’ll preach the black knaves a sermon on theft. And now—

[Here, with Goody Rickby’s help, he stuffs the framework with the gourds, corn, etc., from the loft, weaving the husks about the legs and arms.]

here goes for digestion and inherited instincts! More corn, Goody. Now he’ll fight for his own flesh and blood!

GOODY RICKBY [Laughing.] Dickon, I am proud of thee.

DICKON Wait till you see his peruke. [Seizing a feather duster made of crow’s feathers.] Voici! Scalps of the enemy!

[Pulling them apart, he arranges the feathers on the pumpkin, like a gentleman’s wig.]

A rare conqueror!

GOODY RICKBY Oh, you beauty!

DICKON And now a bit of comfort for dark days and stormy nights.

[Taking a piece of corn-cob with the kernels on it, Dickon makes a pipe, which he puts into the scarecrow’s mouth.]

So! There, Goody! I tell thee, with yonder brand-new coat and breeches of mine—those there in my cupboard!—we’ll make him a lad to be proud of.

[Taking the clothes, which Goody Rickby brings—a pair of fine scarlet breeches and a gold-embroidered coat with ruffles of lace—he puts them upon the scarecrow. Then, eying it like a connoisseur, makes a few finishing touches.]

Why, dame, he’ll be a son to thee.

GOODY RICKBY A son? Ay, if I had but a son!

DICKON Why, here you have him. [To the scarecrow.] Thou wilt scare the crows off thy mother’s corn-field— won’t my pretty? And send ’em all over t’other side the wall—to her dear neighbour’s, the Justice Gilead Merton’s.

GOODY RICKBY Justice Merton! Nay, if they’d only peck his eyes out, instead of his corn.

DICKON [Grinning.] Yet the Justice was a dear friend of “Blacksmith Bess.”

GOODY RICKBY Ay, “Blacksmith Bess!” If I hadn’t had a good stout arm when he cast me off with the babe, I might have starved for all his worship cared.

DICKON True, Bessie; ’twas a scurvy trick he played on thee—and on me, that took such pains to bring you together—to steal a young maid’s heart—

GOODY RICKBY And then toss it away like a bad penny to the gutter! And the child—to die! [Lifting her hammer in rage.] Ha! if I could get the worshipful Justice Gilead into my power again— [Drops the hammer sullenly on the anvil.] But no! I shall beat my life away on this anvil, whilst my justice clinks his gold, and drinks his port to a fat old age. Justice! Ha—justice of God!

DICKON Whist, dame! Talk of angels and hear the rustle of their relatives.

GOODY RICKBY [Turning, watches outside a girl’s figure approaching.] His niece—Rachel Merton! What can she want so early? Nay, I mind me; ’tis the mirror. She’s a maid after our own hearts, boy,—no Sabbath-go-to-meeting airs about her! She hath read the books of the magi from cover to cover, and paid me good guineas for ’em, though her uncle knows naught on’t. Besides, she’s in love, Dickon.

DICKON [Indicating the scarecrow.] Ah? With him? Is it a rendezvous?

GOODY RICKBY [With a laugh.] Pff! Begone!

DICKON [Shakes his finger at the scarecrow.] Thou naughty rogue!

[Then, still smiling slyly, with his head placed confidentially next to the scarecrow’s ear, as if whispering, and with his hand pointing to the maiden outside, Dickon fades away into air. Rachel enters, nervous and hesitant. Goody Rickby makes her a courtesy, which she acknowledges by a nod, half absent-minded.]

GOODY RICKBY Mistress Rachel Merton—so early! I hope your uncle, our worshipful Justice, is not ill?

RACHEL No, my uncle is quite well. The early morning suits me best for a walk. You are—quite alone?

GOODY RICKBY Quite alone, mistress. [Bitterly.] Oh, folks don’t call on Goody Rickby—except on business.

RACHEL [Absently, looking round in the dim shop.] Yes—you must be busy. Is it—is it here?

GOODY RICKBY You mean the—

RACHEL [Starting back, with a cry.] Ah! who’s that?

GOODY RICKBY [Chuckling.] Fear not, mistress; ’tis nothing but a scarecrow. I’m going to put him in my corn-field yonder. The crows are so pesky this year.

RACHEL [Draws her skirts away with a shiver.] How loathsome!

GOODY RICKBY [Vastly pleased.] He’ll do!

RACHEL Ah, here!—This is the mirror?

GOODY RICKBY Yea, mistress, and a wonderful glass it is, as I told you. I wouldn’t sell it to most comers, but seeing how you and Master Talbot—

RACHEL Yes; that will do.

GOODY RICKBY You see, if the town folks guessed what it was, well—You’ve heard tell of the gibbets on Salem hill? There’s not many in New England like you, Mistress Rachel. You know enough to approve some miracles—outside the Scriptures.

RACHEL You are quite sure the glass will do all you say? It—never fails?

GOODY RICKBY Ay, now, mistress, how could it? ’Tis the glass of truth—[insinuatingly] the glass of true lovers. It shows folks just as they are; no shams, no varnish. If your sweetheart be false, the glass will reveal it. If a wolf should dress himself in a white sheep’s wool, this glass would reflect the black beast inside it.

RACHEL But what of the sins of the soul, Goody? Vanity, hypocrisy, and—and inconstancy? Will it surely reveal them?

GOODY RICKBY I have told you, my young lady. If it doth not as I say, bring it back and get your money again. Trust me, sweeting, ’tis your only mouse-trap for a man. Why, an old dame hath eyes in her heart yet. If your lover be false, this glass shall pluck his fine feathers!

RACHEL [With aloofness.] ’Tis no question of that. I wish the glass to—to amuse me.

GOODY RICKBY [Laughing.] Why, then, it shall amuse you. Try it on some of your neighbours.

RACHEL You ask a large price for it.

GOODY RICKBY [Shrugs.] I run risks. Besides, where will you get another?

RACHEL That is true. Here, I will buy it. That is the sum you mentioned, I believe?

[She hands a purse to Goody Rickby who opens it and counts over some coins.]

GOODY RICKBY Let see; let see.

RACHEL Well?

GOODY RICKBY Good: ’tis good. Folks call me a witch, mistress. Well—harkee—a witch’s word is as good as a justice’s gold. The glass is yours—with my blessing.

RACHEL Spare yourself that, dame. But the glass: how am I to get it? How will you send it to me—quietly?

GOODY RICKBY Trust me for that. I’ve a willing lad that helps me with such errands; a neighbour o’ mine. [Calls.] Ebenezer!

RACHEL [Startled.] What! is he here?

GOODY RICKBY In the hay-loft. The boy’s an orphan; he sleeps there o’ times. Ebenezer!

[A raw, dishevelled country boy appears in the loft, slides down the ladder, and shuffles up sleepily.]

THE BOY Evenin’.

RACHEL [Drawing Goody Rickby aside.] You understand; I desire no comment about this purchase.

GOODY RICKBY Nor I, mistress, be sure.

RACHEL Is he—?

GOODY RICKBY [Tapping her forehead significantly.] Trust his wits who hath no wit; he’s mum.

RACHEL Oh!

THE BOY [Gaping.] Job?

GOODY RICKBY Yea, rumple-head! His job this morning is to bear yonder glass to the house of Justice Merton—the big one on the hill; to the side door. Mind, no gabbing. Doth he catch?

THE BOY [Nodding and grinning.] ’E swallows.

RACHEL But is the boy strong enough?

GOODY RICKBY Him? [Pointing to the anvil.] Ebenezer!

[The boy spits on his palms, takes hold of the anvil, lifts it, drops it again, sits on it, and grins at the door, just as Richard Talbot appears there, from outside.]

RACHEL Gracious!

GOODY RICKBY Trust him. He’ll carry the glass for you.

RACHEL I will return home at once, then. Let him go quietly to the side door, and wait for me. Good morning. [Turning, she confronts Richard.]

RICHARD Good morning.

RACHEL Richard!—Squire Talbot, you—you are abroad early.

RICHARD As early as Mistress Rachel. Is it pardonable? I caught sight of you walking in this direction, so I thought it wise to follow, lest— [Looks hard at Goody Rickby.]

RACHEL Very kind. Thanks. I’ve done my errand. Well; we can return together. [To Goody Rickby.] You will make sure that I receive the—the article.

GOODY RICKBY Trust me, mistress. [Courtesying.] Squire Talbot! the honour, sir!

RICHARD [Bluntly, looking from one to the other.] What article?

[Rachel ignores the question and starts to pass out. Richard frowns at Goody Rickby, who stammers.]

GOODY RICKBY Begging your pardon, sir?

RICHARD What article? I said. [After a short, embarrassed pause: more sternly.] Well?

GOODY RICKBY Oh, the article! Yonder old glass, to be sure, sir. A quaint piece, your honour.

RICHARD Rachel, you haven’t come here at sunrise to buy—that thing?

RACHEL Verily, “that thing” and at sunrise. A pretty time for a pretty purchase. Are you coming?

RICHARD [In a low voice.] More witchcraft nonsense? Do you realize this is serious?

RACHEL Oh, of course. You know I am desperately mystical, so pray let us not discuss it. Good-by.

RICHARD Rachel, just a moment. If you want a mirror, you shall have the prettiest one in New England. Or I will import you one from London. Only—I beg of you—don’t buy stolen goods.

GOODY RICKBY Stolen goods?

RACHEL [Aside to Richard.] Don’t! don’t!

RICHARD At least, articles under suspicion. [To Goody Rickby.] Can you account for this mirror—how you came by it?

GOODY RICKBY I’ll show ye! I’ll show ye! Stolen—ha!

RICHARD Come, old swindler, keep your mirror, and give this lady back her money.

GOODY RICKBY I’ll damn ye both, I will!—Stolen!

RACHEL [Imploringly.] Will you come?

RICHARD Look you, old Rickby; this is not the first time. Charm all the broomsticks in town, if you like; bewitch all the tables and saucepans and mirrors you please; but gull no more money out of young girls. Mind you! We’re not so enterprising in this town as at Salem; but—it may come to it! So look sharp! I’m not blind to what’s going on here.

GOODY RICKBY Not blind, Master Puritan? Oho! You can see through all my counterfeits, can ye? So! you would scrape all the wonder out’n the world, as I’ve scraped all the meat out’n my punkin-head yonder! Aha! wait and see! Afore sundown, I’ll send ye a nut to crack, shall make your orthodox jaws ache. Your servant, Master Deuteronomy!

RICHARD [To Rachel, who has seized his arm.] We’ll go. [Exeunt Richard and Rachel.]

GOODY RICKBY [Calls shrilly after them.] Trot away, pretty team; toss your heads. I’ll unhitch ye and take off your blinders.

THE SLOUCHING BOY [Capering and grimacing in front of the mirror, shrieks with laughter.] Ohoho!

GOODY RICKBY [Returning, savagely.] Yes, yes, my fine lover! I’ll pay thee for “stolen goods”—I’ll pay thee. [Screams.] Dickon! Stop laughing.

THE BOY O Lord! O Lord!

GOODY RICKBY What tickles thy mirth now?

THE BOY For to think as the soul of an orphan innocent, what lives in a hay-loft, should wear horns.

[On looking into the mirror, the spectator perceives therein that the reflection of the slouching boy is the horned demon figure of Dickon, who performs the same antics in pantomime within the glass as the boy does without.]

GOODY RICKBY Yea; ’tis a wise devil that knows his own face in the glass. But hark now! Thou must find me a rival for this cock-squire,—dost hear? A rival, that shall steal away the heart of his Mistress Rachel.

DICKON And take her to church?

GOODY RICKBY To church or to Hell. All’s one.

DICKON A rival! [Pointing at the glass.] How would he serve—in there? Dear Ebenezer! Fancy the deacons in the vestry, Goody, and her uncle, the Justice, when they saw him escorting the bride to the altar, with his tail round her waist!

GOODY RICKBY Tut, tut! Think it over in earnest, and meantime take her the glass. Wait, we’d best fold it up small, so as not to attract notice on the road.

[Dickon, who has already drawn the curtains over the glass, grasps one side of the large frame, Goody Rickby the other.]

Now!

[Pushing their shoulders against the two sides, the frame disappears and Dickon holds in his hand a mirror about a foot square, of the same design.]

So! Be off! And mind, a rival for Richard!

DICKON For Richard a rival, Dear Goody Rickby Wants Dickon’s connival: Lord! What can the trick be? [To the scarecrow.] By-by, Sonny; take care of thy mother.

[Dickon slouches out with the glass, whistling.]

GOODY RICKBY Mother! Yea, if only I had a son—the Justice Merton’s and mine! If the brat had but lived now to remind him of those merry days, which he has forgotten. Zooks, wouldn’t I put a spoke in his wheel! But no such luck for me! No such luck!

[As she goes to the forge, the stout figure of a man appears in the doorway behind her. Under one arm he carries a large book, in the other hand a gold-headed cane. He hesitates, embarrassed.]

THE MAN Permit me, Madam.

GOODY RICKBY [Turning.] Ah, him!—Justice Merton!

JUSTICE MERTON [Removing his hat, steps over the sill, and lays his great book on the table; then with a supercilious look, he puts his hat firmly on again.] Permit me, dame.

GOODY RICKBY You!

[With confused, affected hauteur, the Justice shifts from foot to foot, flourishing his cane. As he speaks, Goody Rickby, with a shrewd, painful expression, draws slowly backward toward the door left, which opens into an inner room. Reaching it, she opens it part way, stands facing him, and listens.]

JUSTICE MERTON I have had the honour—permit me—to entertain suspicions; to rise early, to follow my niece, to meet just now Squire Talbot, an excellent young gentleman of wealth, if not of fashion; to hear his remarks concerning—hem!—you, dame! to call here—permit me—to express myself and inquire—

GOODY RICKBY Concerning your waistcoat?

[Turning quickly, she snatches an article of apparel which hangs on the inner side of the door, and holds it up.]

JUSTICE MERTON [Starting, crimson.] Woman!

GOODY RICKBY You left it behind—the last time.

JUSTICE MERTON I have not the honour to remember—

GOODY RICKBY The one I embroidered?

JUSTICE MERTON ’Tis a matter—

GOODY RICKBY Of some two and twenty years. [Stretching out the narrow width of the waistcoat.] Will you try it on now, dearie?

JUSTICE MERTON Unconscionable! Un-un-unconscionable witch!

GOODY RICKBY Witchling—thou used to say.

JUSTICE MERTON

Pah! pah! I forget myself. Pride, permit me, goeth before a fall. As a magistrate, Rickby, I have already borne with you long! The last straw, however, breaks the camel’s back.

GOODY RICKBY Poor camel!

JUSTICE MERTON You have soiled, you have smirched, the virgin reputation of my niece. You have inveigled her into notions of witchcraft; already the neighbours are beginning to talk. ’Tis a long lane which hath no turning, saith the Lord. Permit me—as a witch, thou art judged. Thou shalt hang.

A VOICE [Behind him.] And me too?

JUSTICE MERTON [Turns about and stares.] I beg pardon.

THE VOICE [In front of him.] Not at all.

JUSTICE MERTON Did—did somebody speak?

THE VOICE Don’t you recognize my voice? Still and small, you know. If you will kindly let me out, we can chat.

JUSTICE MERTON [Turning fiercely on Goody Rickby.] These are thy sorceries. But I fear them not. The righteous man walketh with God. [Going to the book which lies on the table.] Satan, I ban thee! I will read from the Holy Scriptures!

[Unclasping the Bible, he flings open the ponderous covers.—Dickon steps forth in smoke.]

DICKON Thanks; it was stuffy in there.

JUSTICE MERTON [Clasping his hands.] Dickon!

DICKON [Moving a step nearer on the table.] Hillo, Gilly! Hillo, Bess!

JUSTICE MERTON Dickon! No! No!

DICKON Do ye mind Auld Lang Syne—the chorus that night, Gilly? [Sings.] Gil-ead, Gil-ead, Gil-ead Merton, He was a silly head, silly head, Certain, When he forgot to steal a bed-Curtain! Encore, now!

JUSTICE MERTON No, no, be merciful! I will not harm her; she shall not hang: I swear, I swear it! [Dickon disappears.] I swear—ah! Is he gone? Witchcraft! Witchcraft! I have witnessed it. ’Tis proved on thee, slut. I swear it: thou shalt hang. [Exit wildly.]

GOODY RICKBY Ay, Gilead! I shall hang on! Ahaha! Dickon, thou angel! Ah, Satan! Satan! For a son now!

DICKON [Reappearing.] Videlicet, in law—a bastard. N’est ce pas?

GOODY RICKBY Yea, in law and in justice, I should-a had one now. Worse luck that he died.

DICKON One and twenty years ago? [Goody Rickby nods.] Good; he should be of age now. One and twenty—a pretty age, too, for a rival. Haha!—For arrival?—Marry, he shall arrive, then; arrive and marry and inherit his patrimony—all on his birthday! Come, to work!

GOODY RICKBY What rant is this?

DICKON Yet, Dickon, it pains me to perform such an anachronism. All this Mediævalism in Massachusetts!—These old-fashioned flames and alchemic accompaniments, when I’ve tried so hard to be a native American product; it jars. But che vuole! I’m naturally middle-aged. I haven’t been really myself, let me think,—since 1492!

GOODY RICKBY What art thou mooning about?

DICKON [Still impenetrable.] There was my old friend in Germany, Dr. Johann Faustus; he was nigh such a bag of old rubbish when I made him over. Ain’t it trite! No, you can’t teach an old dog like me new tricks. Still, a scarecrow! that’s decidedly local color. Come then; a Yankee masterpiece!

[Seizing Goody Rickby by the arm, and placing her before the scarecrow, he makes a bow and wave of introduction.]

Behold, madam, your son—illegitimate; the future affianced of Mistress Rachel Merton, the heir-elect, through matrimony, of Merton House,—Gilead Merton second; Lord Ravensbane! Your lordship—your mother.

GOODY RICKBY Dickon! Can you do it?

DICKON I can—try.

GOODY RICKBY You will create him for me?— [Wickedly.] and for Gilead!

DICKON I will—for a kiss.

GOODY RICKBY [About to embrace him.] Dickon!

DICKON [Dodging her.] Later. Now, the waistcoat.