Scene
The Same
EUSTACE, THURSTON, and followers of HUGO. HAROLD.
Enter, by the hall door, HUGO, ERIC, and THORA.
Eustace (and others standing up):Welcome, Lord Hugo!
Hugo: Welcome or not,Thanks for your greeting all.Ha, Eustace! what complaints hast thou got?What grievances to recall?
Eustace:Count William came with a numerous band,Ere the snows began to fall,And slew a buck on your lordship’s land,Within a league of the wall.
Hugo:Count William has done to us no moreThan we to him. In his vineyardLast summer, or later, maybe, a boarWas slaughter’d by Thurston’s whinyard.
Thurston:Aye, Hugo! But William kept the buck,I will wager marks a score,Though the tale is new to me; and, worse luck,You made me give back the boar.
Harold (advancing):Lord Hugo!
Hugo: What! Art thou living yet?I scarcely knew thee, Sir Dane!And ’tis not so very long since we met.
Harold:‘Twill be long ere we meet again. (gives a letter)This letter was traced by one now deadIn the Holy Land; and IMust wait till his dying request is read,And in his name ask the reply.
Thora (aside):Who is that stranger, Hugo?
Hugo: By birthHe is a countryman of thine,Thora. What writing is this on earth?I can scarce decipher a line.
Harold:The pen in the clutch of death works ill.
Hugo:Nay, I read now; the letters runMore clearly.
Harold: Wilt grant the request?
Hugo: I will.
Harold:Enough! Then my task is done. (He holds out his hand.)Hugo, I go to a far-off land,Wilt thou say, “God speed thee!” now?
Hugo:Sir Harold, I cannot take thy hand,Because of my ancient vow.
Harold:Farewell, then.
Thora: Friend, till the morning wait.On so wild a night as thisThou shalt not go from my husband’s gate;The path thou wilt surely miss.
Harold:I go. Kind lady, some future dayThy care will requited be.
Thora:Speak, Hugo, speak.
Hugo: He may go or stay,It matters little to me.[Harold goes out.]
Thora:Husband, that man is ill and weak;On foot he goes and aloneThrough a barren moor in a night-storm bleak.
Eric:Now I wonder where he has gone!
Hugo:Indeed, I have not the least idea;The man is certainly mad.He wedded my sister, Dorothea,And used her cruelly bad.He was once my firmest and surest friend,And once my deadliest foe;But hate and friendship both find their end—Now I heed not where he may go.