The End of the World, Act I

PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer

SOLLERS, the Wainwright.

MERRICK, the Smith.

VINE, the Publician.

SHALE, the Labourer.

A DOWSER.

MRS HUFF.

WARP, the Molecatcher

Men and Women of the Village

ACT I

Scene:

A public-house kitchen. HUFF the Farmer and SOLLERS the Wainwright talking; another man, a stranger, sitting silent.

Huff

Ay, you may think we're well off -

Sollers

Now for croaks

Old toad! who's trodden on you now? - Go on;

But if you can, croak us a new tune.

Huff

Ay

You think you're well off - and don't grab my words

Before they're spoken - but some folks, I've heard,

Pity us, living quiet in the valley.

Sollers

Well, I suppose 'tis their affair.

Huff

Is it?

But what I mean to say, - if they think small

Of us that live in the valley, mayn't it show

That we aren't all so happy as we think?

[MERRICK the smith comes in.]

Merrick

Quick, cider! I believe I've swallowd a coal.

Sollers

Good evening. True, the heat's a wonder tonight.        [Smith draws himself cider.]

Huff

Haven't you brought your flute? We've all got room

For music in our minds to-night, I'll swear.

Working all day in the sun do seem to push

The thought out of your brain.

Sollers

O, 'tis the sun

Had trodden on you? That's what makes you croak?

Ay, whistle him somewhat: put a tune in his brain;

He'll else croak us out of pleasure with drinking.

Merrick

'Tis quenching, I believe. - A tune? Too hot?

You want a fiddler.

Huff

Nay, I want your flute.

I like a piping sound, not scraping o' guts.

Merrick

This is no weather for a man to play

Flutes or music at all that asks him spend

His breath and spittle: you want both yourself

These oven days. Wait till a fiddler comes.

Huff

Who ever comes down here?

Sellers

There's someone come.

[Pointing with his pipe to the stranger.]

Merrick

Good evening, mister. Are you a man for tunes?

Stranger

And if I was I'ld give you none to-night.

Merrick

Well, no offence: there's no offence, I hope,

In taking a dummy for a tuneful man.

Is it for can't or won't you are?

Stranger

You wouldn't if you carried in your mind

What I've been carrying all day.

Sollers

What's that?

Stranger

You wait; you'll know about it soon; O yes,

Soon enough it will find you and and rouse you.

Huff

Now ain't that just the way we go down here?

Here in the valley we're like dogs in a yard,

Chained to our kennels and wall'd in all round,

And not a sound of the world jumps over our hills.

And when there comes a passenger among us,

One who has heard what's stirring out beyond,

'Tis a grutchy mumchance fellow in the dismals!

Stranger

News, it it, you want? I could give you news! -

I wonder, did you ever hate to feel

The earth so fine and splendid?

Huff

Oh, you're one

Has stood in the brunt of the world's wickedness,

Like me? But listen, and I'll give you a tale

Of wicked things done in this little valley,

Done against me, will surely make you think

The Devil here fetcht up his masterpiece.

Sollers

Ah, but it's hot enough without you talking

Your old hell fire about that pair of sinners.

Leave them alone and drink.

Huff

I'll smell them grilling

One of these days.

Merrick

But there'll be nought to drink

When that begins! Best keep your skin full now.

Stranger

What do I care for wickedness? Let those

Who've played with dirt, and thought the game was bold,

Make much of it while they can: there's a big thing

Coming down to us, ay, well on its road,

Will make their ploys seem mighty piddling sport.

Huff

This is a fool; or else it's what I think, -

The world now breeds such crowd that they've no crombie room

For well-grown sins: they hatch 'em small as flies.

But you stay here, out of the world awhile,

Here where a man's mind, and a woman's mind,

Can fling out large in wickedness: you'll see

Something monstrous here, something dreadful.

Strainger

I've seen enough of that. Though it was only

Fancying made me see it, it was enough;

I've seen the folk of the world yelling aghast,

Scurrying to hide themselves. I want nought else

Monstrous and dreadful. -

Merrick

What had roused 'em so?

Some house fire?

Huff

A huzzy flogged to death

For her hard-faced adultery?

Stranger [too intent to hear them]

Oh to think of it!

Talk, do, chatter some nonsense, else I'll think:

And then I'm feeling like a grub that crawls

All abroad in a dusty road; and high

Above me, and shaking the ground beneath me, come

Wheels of a thundering wain, right where I'm plodding.

Sollers

Queer thinking, that.

Stranger

And here's a queerer thing.

I have a sort of lust in me, pushing me still

Into that terrible way of thinking, like

Black men in India lie them down and long

To feel their holy wagon crack their spines.

Merrick

Do you mean beetles? I've driven over scores,

They sprawling on their backs, or standing mazed.

I never knew they liked it.

Sollers

He means frogs.

I know what's in his mind. When I was young

My mother would catch us frogs and set them down,

Lapt in a screw of paper, in the ruts,

And carts going by would quash 'em; and I'ld laugh,

And yet be thinking, ' Suppose it was myself

Twisted stiff in huge paper, and wheels

Bit as the wall of a barn treading me flat! '

Huff

I know what's in his mind: just madness it is.

He's lookt too hard at his fellows in the world;

Sight of their monstrous hearts, like devils in cages,

Has jolted all the gearing of his wits.

It needs a tough brain, ay, a brain like mine,

To pore on ugly sin and not go mad.

Stranger

Madness! You're not far out. - I came up here

To be alone and quiet in my thoughts

Alone in my own dreadful mind. The path,

Of red sand trodden hard, went up between

High hedges overgrown of hawthorn blowing

White as clouds; ay, it seemed burrowed through

A white sweet-smelling cloud, - I walking there

Small as a hare that runs its tunnelled drove

Thro' the close heather. And beside my feet

Blue greygles drifted gleaming over the grass;

And up I climbed to sunlight green in birches,

And the path turned to daisies among grass

With bonfires of the broom beside, like flame

Of burning straw; and I lookt into your valley.

I could scarce look.

Anger was smarting in my eyes like grit.

O the fine earth and fine all for nothing!

Mazed I walkt, seeing and smelling and hearing:

The meadow lands all shining fearfully gold, -

Cruel as fire the sight of them toucht my mind;

Breathing was all a honey taste of clover

And bean flowers: I would have rather had it

Carrion, or the stink of smouldering brimstone.

And larks aloft, the happy piping fools,

And squealing swifts that slid on hissing wings,

And yellowhammers playing spry in hedges:

I never noted them before; but now -

Yes, I was mad, and crying mad, to see

The earth so fine, fine all for nothing!

Sollers [spits]

Pst! yellowhammers! He talks gentry talk.

That's worse than being mad.

Stranger

I tell you, you'll be feeling them to-morn

And hating them to be so wonderful.

Merrick

Let's have some sense. Where do you live?

Stranger

Nowhere.

I'm always travelling.

Huff

Why, what's your trade?

Stranger

A dowser.

Huff

You're the man for me!

Stranger

Not I.

Huff

Ho, this is better than a fiddler now!

One of those fellows who have nerves so clever

That they can feel the waters of underground

Tingling in their fingers?

You find me a spring in my high grazing-field,

I'll give you what I save in trundling water.

Stranger

I find you water now! - No, but I'll find you

Fire and fear and unbelievable death.

[VINE the Publician comes in]

Vine

Are ye all served? Ay, seems so; what's your score?

Merrick

Two ciders.

Huff

Three.

Sollers

And two for me.

Vine [to Dowser]

And you?

Dowser

Naught. I was waiting on you.

Vine

Will you drink?

Dowser

Ay! Drink! what else is left for a man to do

Who knows what I know?

Vine

Good. What is't you know?

You tell it out and set my trade a-buzzing.

Sollers

He's queer. Give him his mug and ease his tongue.

Vine

I had to swill the pigs: else I'd been here;

But we've the old fashion in this house; you draw,

I keep the score. Well, what's the worry on you?

Sollers

Oh he's in love.

Dowser

You fleering grinning louts,

I'll give it you now; now have it in your faces!

Sollers

Crimini, he's going to fight!

Dowser

You try and fight with the thing that's on my side!

Merrick

A ranter!

Huff

A boozy one then.

Dowser

Open yon door;

'Tis dark enough by now. Open it, you.

Vine

Hold on. Have you got something fierce outside?

Merrick

A Russian bear?

Sollers

Dowsers can play strange games.

Huff

No tricks!

Dowser

This is a trick to rouse the world.

[He opens the door.]

Look out! Between the elms! There's my fierce thing.

Merrick

He means the star with the tail like a feather of fire.

Sollers.

Comet, it's called.

Huff

Do you mean the comet, mister?

Dowser

What do you think of it?

Huff

Pretty enough.

But I saw a man loose off a rocket once;

It made more stir and flare of itself; though yon

Does better at steady burning.

Dowser

Stir and flare!

You'll soon forget your rocket.

Merrick

Tell you what

I thought last night, now, going home. Says I,

'Tis just like the look of a tadpole: if I saw

A tadpole silver as a dace that swam

Upside-down towards me through black water,

I'ld see the plain spit of that star and his tail.

Sollers

And how does your thought go?

Dowser

It's what I know! -

A tadpole and a rocket! - My dear God,

And I can still laugh out! - What do you think

Your tadpole's made of? What lets your rocket fling

Those streaming sparks across the half of night,

Splashing the burning spray of its haste among

The quiet business of the other stars?

Ay, that's a fiery jet it leaves behind

In such enormous drift! What sort of fire

Is spouted so, spouted and never quenching? -

There is no name for that star's fire: it is

The fire that was before the world was made,

The fire that all the things we live among

Remember being; and whitest fire we know

Is its poor copy in their dreaming trance!

Huff

That would be hell fire.

Dowser

Ay, if you like, hell fire,

Hell fire flying through the night! 'Twould be

A thing to blink about, a blast of it

Swept in your face, eh? and a thing to set

The whole stuff of the earth smoking rarely?

Which of you said ' the heat's a wonder to-night' ?

You have not done with marvelling. There'll come

A night when all your clothes are a pickle of sweat,

And, for all that, the sweat on your salty skin

Shall dry and crack, in the breathing of wind

That's like a draught come through an open'd furnace.

The leafage of the trees shall brown and faint,

All sappy growth turning to brittle rubbish

As the near heat of the star strokes the green earth;

And time shall brush the fields as visibly

As a rough hand brushes against the nap

Of gleaming cloth - killing the season's colour,

Each hour charged with the wasting of a year;

And sailors panting on their warping ecks

Will watch the sea steam like broth about them.

You'll know what I know then! - That towering star

Hangs like a fiery buzzard in the night

Intent over our earth - Ay, now his journey

Points straight as a plummet's drop, down to us!

Huff

Why, that's the end of the world!

Dowser

You've said it now.

Sollers

What, soon? In a day or two?

Merrick

You can't mean that!

Vine

End of the World! Well now, I never thought

To hear the news of that. If you've the truth

In what you say, likely this is an evening

That we'll be talking over often and often.

'How was it, Sollers?' I'll say; ' or you, Merrick,

Do you mind clearly how he lookt? ' - And then -

' " End of the world " he said, and drank - like that,

Solemn! ' - And right he was: he had it all

As sure as I have when my sow's to farrow.

Dowser

Are you making a joke of me? Keep your mind

For tippling while you can.

Vine

Was that a joke?

I'm always bad at seeing 'em, even my own.

Dowser

A fool's! 'Twill cheer you when the earth blows up

Like as it were all gunpowder.

Vine

You mean

The star will butt his burning head against us?

'Twill knock the world to flinders, I suppose?

Dowser

Ay, or with that wild, monstrous tail of his

Smash down upon the air, and make it bounce

Like water under the flukes of a harpooned whale,

And thrash it to a poisonous fire; and we

And all the life of the world drowned in blazing!

Vine

'Twill be a handsone sight. If my old wife

Were with me now! This would have suited her.

'I do like things to happen!' she would say;

Never shindy enough for her; and now

She's gone, and can't be seeing this!

Dowser

You poor fool.

How will it be a sight to you, when your eyes

Are scorcht to little cinders in your head?

Vine

Whether or no, there must be folks outside

Willing to know of this. I'll scatter your news.

[He goes. A short pause: then SOLLERS breaks out.]

Sollers

No, no; it woudn't do for me at all;

Nor for you neither, Merrick? End of the World?

Bogy! A parson's tale or a bairn's!

Merrick

That's it.

Your trade's a gift, easy as playing tunes.

But Sollers here and I, we've had to drill

Sinew and muscle into their hard lesson,

Until they work in timber and flowing iron

As kindly as I pick up my pint: your work

Grows in your nature, like plain speech in a child,

But we have learnt to think in a foreign tongue;

And something must come out of all our skill!

We shan't go sliding down as glib as you

Into notions of the End of the World.

Sollers

Give me a tree, you may say, and give me steel,

And I'll put forth my shapely mind; I'll make,

Out of my head like telling a well-known tale,

A wain that goes as comely on the roads

As a ship sailing, the lines of it true as gospel.

Have I learnt that all for nothing? - O no!

End of the World? It wouldn't do at all.

No more making of wains, after I've spent

My time in getting the right skill in my hands?

Dowser

Ay, you begin to feel it now, I think;

But you complain like boys for a game spoilt:

Shaping your carts, forging your iron! But Life,

Life, the mother who lets her children play

So seriously busy, trade and craft, -

Life with her skill of a million years' perfection

To make her heart's delighted glorying

Of sunlight, and of clouds about the moon,

Spring lighting her daffodils, and corn

Ripening gold to ruddy, and giant seas,

And mountains sitting in their purple clothes -

O life I am thinking of, life the wonder,

All blotcht out by a brutal thrust of fire

Like a midge that clumsy thumb squashes and smears.

Huff

Let me but see the show beginning, though!

You'ld mind me then! O I would like you all

To watch how I should figure, when the star

Brandishes over the whole air its flame

Of thundering fire; and naught but yellow rubbish

Parcht on the perishing ground, and there are tongues

Chapt with thirst, glad to lap stinking ponds,

And pale glaring faces spying about

On the earth withering, terror the only speech!

Look for me then, and see me stand alone

Easy and pleasant in the midst of it all.

Did you not make your merry scoff of me?

Was it your talk, that when you shameless pair

Threw their wantoning in my face like dirt,

I had no heart against them but to grumble?

You would be saying that, I know! But now,

Now I believe it's time for you to see

My patient heart at last taking its wages.

Sollers

Pull up, man! Screw the brake on your running tongue,

Else it will rattle you down the tumbling way

This fellow's gone.

Merrick

And one man's enough

With brain quagged axle-deep in crazy mire.

We won't have you beside him in his puddles,

And calling out with him on the End of the World

To heave you out with a vengeance.

Huff

What you want!

Have I not borne enough to make me know

I must be righted sometime? - And what else

Would break the hardy sin in them, which lets

Their souls parade so daring and so tall

Under God's hate and mine? What else could pay

For all my wrong but a blow of blazing anger

Striking down to shiver the earth, and change

Their strutting wickedness to horror and crying?

Merrick

Be quiet, Huff! If you mean to believe

This dowser's stuff, and join in his bedlam,

By God, you'll have to reckon with my fist.

[SHALE comes in. HUFF glares at him speechless, but with wrath evidently working.]

Shale

Where's the joker? You, is it? Here's hot news

You've brought us; all the valley's hissing aloud,

And makes as much of you falling into it

As a pail of water would of a glowing coal.

Sollers

Don't you start burbling too, Shale.

Shale

That's the word!

Burbling, simmering, ay, and bumpy-boiling :

All the women are mobbed together close

Under the witan-trees, and their full minds

Boil like so many pans slung on a fire.

Why starlings trooping in a copse in fall

Could make no scandal like it.

Merrick

What is it, man?

Shale

End of the World! The flying star! End of the World!

Sollers

They don't believe it though?

Shale

What? the whole place

Has gone just randy over it!

Merrick

Hold your noise!

Sollers

I shall be daft if this goes on.

Shale

Ay, so?

The End of the World's been here? You look as though

You'd startled lately. And there's the virtuous man!

How would End of the World suit our good Huff,

Our old crab-verjuice Huff?

HUFF [seizing the DOWSER and bring him up in front of Shale]

Look at him there!

This is the man I told of when you

Were talking small of sin. You made it out,

Did you, a fool's mere nasty game, like dogs

That snuggle in muck, and grin and roll themselves

With snorting pleasure? Ah, but you are wrong.

'Tis something that goes thrusting dreadfully

Its wilful bravery of evil against

The worth and right of goodness in the world:

Ay, do you see how his face still brags at me?

And long it has been, the time he's had to walk

Lording about me with his wickedness.

Do you know what he dared? I had a wife,

A flighty pretty linnet-headed girl,

But mine: he practised on her with his eyes;

He knew of luring glances, and she went

After his calling lust: and all since then

They've lived together, fleering in my face,

Pleased in sight of the windows of my house

With doing wrong, and making my disgrace.

O but wait here with me; wait till your news

Is not to be mistaken, for the way

The earth buckles and singes like hot boards:

You'll surely see how dreadful sin can be

Then, when you mark these two running about,

With raging fear for what they did against me

Buzzing close to their souls, stinging their hearts,

And they like scampering beasts when clegs are fierce,

Or flinging themselves low as the ground to writhe,

Their arms hugging their desperate heads. And then

You'll see what 'tis to be an upright man,

Who keeps a patient anger for his wrongs

Thinking of judgment coming - you will see that

When you mark how my looks hunt these wretches,

And smile upon their groans and posturing anguish.

O watch how calm I'll be, when the blazing air

Judges their wickedness; you watch me then

Looking delighted, like a nobleman

Who sees his horse winning an easy race.

Merrick

You fool, Huff, you believe it now!

Huff

You fool,

Merrick, how should I not believe a thing

That calls aloud on my mind and spirit, and they

Answer to it like starving conquering soldiers

Told to break out and loot?

Shale

You vile old wasp!

Sollers

We've talkt enough: let's all go home and sleep;

There might be a fiend in the air about us, one

Who pours his will into our minds to see

How we can frighten one another.

Huff

A fiend!

Shale will soon have the flapping wings of a fiend,

And flaming wings, beating about his head.

Ther'll be no air for Shale, very soon now,

But the breathing of a fiend: the star's coming!

The star that breathes a horrible fury of fire

Like glaring fog into the empty night;

And in the gust of its wrath the world will soon

Shrivel and spin like paper in a furnace.

I knew they both would have to pay me at last

With sight of their damned souls for all my wrong!

Shale

Somebody stop his gab.

Merrick [seizing the DOWSER and shaking him]

Is it the truth we're in the way of the star?

A crowd of men and women burst in and shout confusedly.

1. Look out for the star!

2. 'Tis moving, moving.

3. Grows as you stare at it.

4. Bigger than ever.

1. Down it comes with a diving pounce,

As though it had lookt for us and at last found us.

2. O so near and coming so quick!

3. And how the buring hairs of its tail

Do seem surely to quiver for speed.

4. We saw its great tail gwitch behind it.

'Tis come so near, so gleaming near.

1. The tail is wagging!

2. Come out and see!

3. The star is wagging its tail and eyeing us -

4. Like a cat huncht to leap on a bird.

Merrick

Out of my way and let me see for myself.

[They all begin to hustle out: HUFF speaks in midst of the turmoil.]

Huff

Ay, now begins the just man's reward;

And hatred of the evil thing

Now is to be satisfied.

Wrong ventured out against me and braved:

And I'll be glad to see all breathing pleasure

Burn as foolishly to naught

As a moth in candle flame,

If I but have my will to watch over those

Who injured me bawling hoarse heartless fear.

[They are all gone but HUFF, SHALE and the DOWSER.]

Shale

As for you, let you and the women make

Your howling scare of this; I'll stand and laugh.

But if it truly were the End of the World,

I'ld be the man to face it out, not you:

I who have let life go delighted through me,

Not you, who've sulkt away your chance of life

In mumping about being paid for goodness.

[Going.]

Huff [after him]

You wait, you wait!

[He follows the rest. ]

Dowser [alone]

Naught but a plague of flies!

I cannot do with noises, and light fools

Terrified round me; I must go out and think

Where there is quiet and no one near. O, think!

Life that has done such wonders with its thinking,

And never daunted in imagining;

That has put on the sun and the shining night,

The flowering of the earth and tides of the sea,

And irresistible rage of fate itself,

All these as garments for its spirit's journey -

O now this life, in the brute chance of things,

Murder'd, uselessly murder'd! And naught else

For ever but senseless rounds of hurrying motion

That cannot glory in itself. O no!

I will not think of that; I'll blind my brain

With fancying the splendours of destruction;

When like a burr in the star's fiery mane

The crackling earth is caught and rusht along,

The forests on the mountains blazing so,

That from the rocks of ore beneath them come

White-hot rivers of smelted metal pouring

Across the plains to roar into the sea. . . .

The curtain is lowered for a few moments only.