The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

Leslie. There shall be as many as you please, and not one more.

Mary. How I should like to have heard you! What did uncle say? Did he speak of the Town Council again? Did he tell Will what a wonderful Bailie he would make? O why did you come away?

Leslie. I could not pretend to listen any longer. The election is months off yet; and if it were not – if it were tramping upstairs this moment – drums, flags, cockades, guineas, candidates, and all! – how should I care for it? What are Whig and Tory to me?

Mary. O fie on you! It is for every man to concern himself in the common weal. Mr. Leslie – Leslie of the Craig! – should know that much at least.

Leslie. And be a politician like the Deacon? All in good time, but not now. I hearkened while I could, and when I could no more I slipped out and followed my heart. I hoped I should be welcome.

Mary. I suppose you mean to be unkind.

Leslie. Tit for tat. Did you not ask me why I came away? And is it usual for a young lady to say ‘Mr.’ to the man she means to marry?

Mary. That is for the young lady to decide, sir.

Leslie. And against that judgment there shall be no appeal?

Mary. O, if you mean to argue! —

Leslie. I do not mean to argue. I am content to love and be loved. I think I am the happiest man in the world.

Mary. That is as it should be; for I am the happiest girl.

Leslie. Why not say the happiest wife? I have your word, and you have mine. Is not that enough?

Mary. Have you so soon forgotten? Did I not tell you how it must be as my brother wills? I can do only as he bids me.

Leslie. Then you have not spoken as you promised?

Mary. I have been too happy to speak.

Leslie. I am his friend. Precious as you are, he will trust you to me. He has but to know how I love you, Mary, and how your life is all in your love of me, to give us his blessing with a full heart.

Mary. I am sure of him. It is that which makes my happiness complete. Even to our marriage I should find it hard to say ‘Yes’ when he said ‘No.’

Leslie. Your father is trying to speak. I’ll wager he echoes you.

Mary (to Old Brodie). My poor dearie! Do you want to say anything to me? No? Is it to Mr. Leslie, then?

Leslie. I am listening, Mr. Brodie.

Mary. What is it, daddie?

Old Brodie. My son – the Deacon – Deacon Brodie – the first at school.

Leslie. I know it, Mr. Brodie. Was I not the last in the same class? (To Mary.) But he seems to have forgotten us.

Mary. O yes! his mind is wellnigh gone. He will sit for hours as you see him, and never speak nor stir but at the touch of Will’s hand or the sound of Will’s name.

Leslie. It is so good to sit beside you. By and by it will be always like this. You will not let me speak to the Deacon? You are fast set upon speaking yourself? I could be so eloquent, Mary – I would touch him. I cannot tell you how I fear to trust my happiness to any one else – even to you!

Mary. He must hear of my good fortune from none but me. And besides, you do not understand. We are not like families, we Brodies. We are so clannish, we hold so close together.

Leslie. You Brodies, and your Deacon!

Old Brodie. Deacon of his craft, sir – Deacon of the Wrights – my son! If his mother – his mother – had but lived to see!

Mary. You hear how he runs on. A word about my brother and he catches it. ’Tis as if he were awake in his poor blind way to all the Deacon’s care for him and all the Deacon’s kindness to me. I believe he only lives in the thought of the Deacon. There, it is not so long since I was one with him. But indeed I think we are all Deacon-mad, we Brodies. Are we not, daddie dear?

Brodie (without, and entering). You are a mighty magistrate, Procurator, but you seem to have met your match.

SCENE II

To these, Brodie and Lawson

Mary (curtseying). So, uncle! you have honoured us at last.

Lawson. Quam primum, my dear, quam primum.

Brodie. Well, father, do you know me? (He sits beside his father and takes his hand.)

[Old Brodie. William – ay – Deacon. Greater man – than – his father.

Brodie. You see, Procurator, the news is as fresh to him as it was five years ago. He was struck down before he got the Deaconship, and lives his lost life in mine.

Lawson. Ay, I mind. He was aye ettling after a bit handle to his name. He was kind of hurt when first they made me Procurator.]

Mary. And what have you been talking of?

Lawson. Just o’ thae robberies, Mary. Baith as a burgher and a Crown offeecial, I tak’ the maist absorbing interest in thae robberies.

Leslie. Egad, Procurator, and so do I.

Brodie (with a quick look at Leslie). A dilettante interest, doubtless! See what it is to be idle.

Leslie. Faith, Brodie, I hardly know how to style it.

Brodie. At any rate, ’tis not the interest of a victim, or we should certainly have known of it before; nor a practical tool-mongering interest, like my own; nor an interest professional and official, like the Procurator’s. You can answer for that, I suppose?

Leslie. I think I can; if for no more. It’s an interest of my own, you see, and is best described as indescribable, and of no manner of moment to anybody. [It will take no hurt if we put off its discussion till a month of Sundays.]

Brodie. You are more fortunate than you deserve. What do you say, Procurator?

Lawson. Ay is he! There is no a house in Edinburgh safe. The law is clean helpless, clean helpless! A week syne it was auld Andra Simpson’s in the Lawnmarket. Then, naething would set the catamarans but to forgather privily wi’ the Provost’s ain butler, and tak’ unto themselves the Provost’s ain plate. And the day, information was laid before me offeecially that the limmers had made infraction, vi et clam, into Leddy Mar’get Dalziel’s, and left her leddyship wi’ no sae muckle’s a spune to sup her parritch wi’. It’s unbelievable, it’s awful, it’s anti-christian!

Mary. If you only knew them, uncle, what an example you would make! But tell me, is it not strange that men should dare such things, in the midst of a city, and nothing, nothing be known of them – nothing at all?

Leslie. Little, indeed! But we do know that there are several in the gang, and that one at least is an unrivalled workman.