Chapter 5

I renewed my acquaintance with "Henry VIII" in 1902, when I played Queen Katherine for Mr. Benson during the Shakespeare Memorial performances in April. I was pretty miserable at the time--the Lyceum reign was dying, and taking an unconscionably long time about it, which made the position all the more difficult. Henry Irving was reviving "Faust"--a wise step, as it had been his biggest "money-maker"--and it was a question whether I could play Margaret. There are some young parts that the actress can still play when she is no longer young: Beatrice, Portia, and many others come to mind. But I think that when the character is that of a young girl, the betrayal of whose innocence is the main theme of the play, no amount of skill on the part of the actress can make up for the loss of youth.

Suggestions were thrown out to me (not by Henry Irving, but by others concerned) that, although I was too old for Margaret, I might play _Martha_! Well! well! I didn't quite see _that_. So I redeemed a promise given in jest at the Lyceum to Frank Benson twenty years earlier, and went off to Stratford-upon-Avon to play in "Henry VIII."

I played Katherine on Shakespeare's Birthday--such a lovely day, bright and sunny and warm. The performance went finely--and I made a little speech afterwards which was quite a success.

During these pleasant days at Stratford, I went about in between the performances of "Henry VIII," which was, I think, given three times a week for three weeks, seeing the lovely country and lovely friends who live there. A visit to Broadway and to beautiful Madame de Navarro (Mary Anderson), was particularly delightful. To see her looking so handsome, robust, fresh, so happy in her beautiful home, gave me the keenest pleasure. I also went to Stanways, the Elchos' home--a fascinating place. Lady Elcho showed me all over it, and she was not the least lovely thing in it.

In Stratford I was rebuked by the permanent inhabitants for being kind to a little boy in professionally ragged clothing who made me, as he has made hundreds of others, listen to a long made-up history of Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice," "Julius Cæsar," and other things--the most hopeless mix! The inhabitants assured me that the boy was a little rascal, who begged and extorted money from visitors by worrying them with his recitation until they paid him to leave them alone.

Long before I knew that the child was such a reprobate, I had given him a pass to the gallery and a Temple Shakespeare! I derived such pleasure from his version of the "Mercy" speech from the "Merchant of Venice" that I still think he was ill-paid!

The quality of mercy is not strange It droppeth as _the_ gentle rain from 'Eaven Upon _the_ place beneath; it is twicet bless. It blesseth in that gives and in that takes It is in the mightiest--in the mightiest It becomes the throned monuk better than its crownd. It's an appribute to God inself It is in the thorny 'earts of Kings But not in the fit and dread of kings.

I asked the boy what he meant to be when he was a man. He answered with decision: "A reciterer."

I also asked him what he liked best in the play.

"When the blind went up and down and you smiled," he replied--surely a naïve compliment to my way of "taking a call!" Further pressed, he volunteered: "When you lay on the bed and died to please the angels."

_Other Plays_

I had exactly ten years more with Henry Irving after "Henry VIII." During that time we did "King Lear," "Becket," "King Arthur," "Cymbeline," "Madame Sans-Gêne," "Peter the Great," and "The Medicine Man," I feel too near to these productions to write about them. But a time will come. The first night of "Cymbeline" I felt almost dead. Nothing seemed right. "Everything is so slow, so slow," I wrote in my diary. "I don't feel a bit inspired, only dull and hide-bound." Yet Imogen was, I think, the _only_ inspired performance of these later years. On the first night of "Sans-Gêne" I acted _courageously_ and fairly well. Everyone seemed to be delighted. The old Duke of Cambridge patted, or rather, _thumped_ me on the shoulder and said kindly: "Ah, my dear, _you_ can act!" Henry quite effaced me in his wonderful sketch of Napoleon. "It seems to me some nights," I wrote in my diary at the time, "as if I were watching Napoleon trying to imitate H. I., and I find myself immensely interested and amused in the watching."

"The Medicine Man" was, in my opinion, our only _quite_ unworthy production and I wrote in my diary: "If 'Manfred' and a few such plays are to succeed this, I simply must do something else."

But I did not! I stayed on, as everyone knows, when the Lyceum as a personal enterprise of Henry's was no more, when the farcical Lyceum Syndicate took over the theatre. I played a wretched part in "Robespierre," and refused £12,000 to go to America with Henry in "Dante."

In these days Henry Irving was a changed man. He gave the whole thing up--as a producer, I mean. As an actor he worked as faithfully as ever. Henley's stoical lines might have been written of him as he was in those last days:

Out of the night that covers me Black as the pit from pole to pole I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody but unbow'd.

Henry Irving did not treat me badly. I did not treat him badly. He revived "Faust" and produced "Dante." I would have liked to stay with him to the end of the chapter, but I could not act in either of these plays. But we never quarrelled. Our long partnership dissolved naturally. It was all very sad, but it could not be helped.

THE LOST MOTHER

BY BLANCHE M. KELLY

DECORATIONS BY LESTER RALPH

... among the rocks one of the sea women combing her long hair, and if he can creep up to her unbeknownst, and steal away from her her "cubuleen driuth," which is a kind of small cap the merrows do be wearing, she can never go back under the sea any more at all, but must follow his bidding while ever he has it in his keeping.

O Scarlet hunter, riding past, O hunter, do not ride so fast, But tell me where's my mother?-- "Nay, child, why dost thou ask of me? Safe by the hearth should mothers be, And thine like any other." --While I was playing on the floor Deep in a hollow near the door I found a shining cap laid by. My mother gave a piercing cry, And snatched it up and fled away.... Though I have sought her all the day, I cannot find my mother.--

--O woman with the milking stool, Standing among the grasses cool, Hast thou not seen my mother?-- "What like is thy mother, lad?" --A stripèd petticoat she had, Her snooded hair is soft as silk, She's whiter in the face than milk, My lost, sweet mother!-- "I saw a poor mad thing go down By yonder highway to the town, I saw none other. But, oh, her hair was streaming wild, Sure, frenzy was upon her, child, And she was not thy mother."

--O friar, in thy long rough gown, Say in what corner of the town I'll find my mother.-- "What is thy mother's name, poor boy?" --My father always called her Joy.-- "It hath the ring of Heathenesse, But to all creatures in distress Lord Christ is Brother. In the church-yard an hour ago I saw a witch-girl crouching low, But oh, she fell to weeping sore For that she feared the cross I wore. I'll dry thy tears and lead thee home, Good mothers have no wish to roam." --Nay, I must find my mother.--

--O fisher, coming in from sea, Lay by the oar and answer me, O hast thou seen my mother?-- "Nay, but I saw, upon my life, 'Mong yonder rocks a merrow wife With long locks gleaming in the sun. She saw the billows shoreward run, She heard the splashing of my oar, Wildly she glanced along the shore, She flung her foam-white arms on high, She cried a weird and wailing cry, And leaped and vanished in the sea. I crossed the brow and breast of me, And thanked the Maker of my life That I've a christened maid to wife."

PATSY MORAN

THE BOOK AND ITS COVERS

BY ARTHUR SULLIVAN HOFFMAN

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MAITLAND THOMAS

"Adventure, is it?" said Patsy, pushing his empty glass away from him. "What happened me last night would be makin' a adventure seem like grass growin' in a cimitery!"

From the other side of the table, in their own particular corner of the back room at Devinsky's Place on the Upper East Side, Tim regarded his friend with characteristic stolidity and replied with a grunt of interrogatory interest. Patsy seldom needed urging in the matter of talking about himself.

"It all come of Mike O'Hara's owin' me three dollars," he continued. "Sure, the good heart of me keeps me brains busy rescuin' me from trouble. Mike is after keepin' a boat-house over on the North River near Spuytendivil, and seein' no other way I wint up to see him early last evenin' and took wan of his boats out for five hours, though it's me hates floatin' about in a bunch of boards and workin' to do it.

"Twas me intention to work up the river with the tide and thin cheat O'Hara by gittin' out and settin' on the shore. Which I done, tyin' me boat to wan of thim skinny little private docks over on the Jersey shore beyant Fort Lee. And thin, Tim, it come on me to climb clear up thim Palisades, which was amazin' unnatural and the first of the queer things that happened me the night.

"It was hard climbin' by a path what was mostly growed up with vines, and whin I come to the top they wasn't anny too much daylight left to me, and the place was lonely as a Dimmycrat. They was lights over across the river in New York--och, but thim lights was far off!--but Jersey was just wan hunk of nuthin', with some ghosty trees in the front of it. Excipt for a tug or a ferry whistlin' now and thin, they was niver a sound but the hummin' of ivry wan of all the mosquities that iver was, barrin' thim as was tryin' was they a chanct to kiss each other by borin' through me from both sides at wanct.

"It was no place for usin' up boat-rint, but me shoes was full of gravel and, seein' the ruins of a house a bit off, I wint over to it to set down and take thim off comfortable. It's the fine large house it must 'a' been wanct, but they'd been a fire in it, and 'twas only the walls of it was standin', with wan big second-story room stickin' up big and darkish in a corner of it. Raymimber that wan second-story room in your mind. It was all a bit creepy-like, and I wint at me shoes in a hurry.

"I had the both of thim off and shakin' thim, rubbin' me sock-feet together to keep some of thim mosquities away, whin all to wanct I heard something walkin'. Just as I was, I turned mesilf to stone, with me feet up off the ground and a empty shoe held out in the air afore me in each hand, balancin' mesilf wonderful.

"The steps come nearer. 'They ain't anny ghost makes that much noise,' I says, niver losin' me nerve or movin' a inch annywheres. 'Though ye can't niver tell about ghosts.' And just thin a little man come strollin' round the corner of a wall and stood lookin' at me. It wasn't so dark yet but what I could be makin' out what little they was of him, and if iver wan of thim dudes in the newspaper funny-pictures come to life, here he was, only thim funny-pictures must 'a' been drawed by ammyteurs. I misdoubted was he real, but if he was, they was money on him, and if they was money on him, it would come off of him easy-like, and I could be namin' the man would spend it. Thin I raymimbered I was still holdin' up me shoes and me feet, like I was settin' on the point of a church-steeple, for his mouth was hangin' open like I was the first wan he iver seen, and belike I was.

"'Pardon me,' he says, 'but why do ye do that?' says he, singin' it off like a Englishman.

"'Whisht!' I says, not thinkin' of anny answer yet and cursin' the stone for bein' so hard.

"'But, me good man,' says he, payin' no attention, '_why_ are ye holdin' thim shoes up in the air?'

"'Whisht!' says I. 'Why not?'

"'Why not?' says he, gaspin'.

"'Ye said "why" the other time,' I says. 'Which do ye mean?'

"'Which what?' says he, weak-like.

"'Either wan of thim,' says I; 'sure, all what's is the same to me. But run along with ye now and don't be disturbin' me; it's workin' a charm I am. Unless ye would be helpin' me hold these shoes steady,' I adds enticin', bein' wishful of gittin' him close enough to grab him.

"'Hold thim shoes steady?' says he.

"'Hold thim shoes steady,' says I.

"'A charm?' says he.

"'Yis,' says I, 'a charm. And would ye mind not usin' me own conversation over ag'in so soon, sor? I've heard tell 'twas bad luck, and annyways, it's nervous it's makin' me.'

"'Do you _have_ to set that way?' says he, comin' closer.

"'Indeed and I do,' I says, 'though it's mortal wearin'. But whin ye are makin'--' and just there I makes a grab at him. But, och, blathers, if his brains was slow, his feet was quick, and away he wint, me after him, divil-racketty.

"Thim ruins was right on the edge of the Palisades, and 'twas me endeavor to keep him atween me and the cliff so he couldn't make for the open. Up and down we wint, scramblin', running and crawlin', first to wan ind of thim crumblin' walls and thin back ag'in to the other, me always hemmin' him in and headin' him off, but niver quite catchin' him, and thim piles of loose brick hurtin' me sock-feet cruel, me havin' dropped me shoes whin I tried to grab him. They wasn't much light left, but all to wanct I saw him goin' right up in the air, and whin I come up he was just climbin' over the edge of that wan second-story room. Faith, for a minute I was thinkin' he _was_ a ghost, but he hadn't no more than landed whin he begun draggin' up after him a long board with slats nailed to it what some boys must 'a' left there for a ladder. Me hand just missed the ind of it, me foot slippin' on top a pile of bricks and rollin' me down over the sharp corners of thim.

"I wint all round that second-story room, mostly crawlin'--och, me poor feet, it was perishin' with the pain of thim I was!--but niver a way of gittin' up to him, and him likely to drop down on the off side and run like a rabbit if I took me attention off him. So I wint scramblin' back where I'd be atween him and the road and set down on a pile of bricks. He'd been layin' flat on his stommick, gittin' his wind back in him, but prisintly he clumb up on his knees and throwed a brick at me.

"'Ye young gomeral,' I says, 'if ye do that ag'in, I'll shoot a hole in ye!'

"He wint behind a bit of brick wall and throwed another. If iver I go annywheres ag'in without a gun, may the divil fly away with me! So I wint behind a bit of wall mesilf. And there he was.

"Of course, I was ragin', and I begun tossin' bricks back at him. Hiven knows they was enough of thim! Whin he'd throwed about twinty, doin' no harm with thim, thim little arms of his wore out, and I kept just enough of thim goin' to make him nervous-like without hurtin' him, wonderin' in between would it be safe to go after me poor shoes and could I git thim on if I did, me feet bein' swelled surprisin'. Sure, the little spalpeen owed me ivrything he had about him!

"All to wanct a grand idea come to me. I would kidnap me little gintleman and hold him for wan of thim ransoms! 'Sure,' I says to mesilf, 'they're kidnappin' boys all the time, and it's the tidy sum a grown man would be bringin' me, though it's the little wan he is and part wore out.'

"'I say, sor,' I calls up to him, polite, from behind me wall, and droppin' a whole brick closer to him than common, 'wouldn't it be after bein' more pleasant for ye to come down willin',' I says, 'than to have wan of thim bricks search the head of ye for brains and turn the corpse over to me? To say nothin' of the mosquities,' I says.

"'They niver bite me,' he says, trembly-like, from behind his bit of a wall.

"'Holy Saints,' I says, 'that's queer! Are ye as bad as that?'

"'What do ye want of me annyways?' says he, still trembly.

"'Well,' I says, ''twas me intention to rob ye, but now--' And thin I stopped to listen to him keepin' quiet and worryin'. 'But now,' says I prisintly, 'I'm goin' to kidnap ye and inform your friends ye'll be killed entirely if they don't sind me five thousand dollars immediate.'

"'Oh!' says he, like I'd said I was goin' to give him something he wanted. 'Oh,' says he, 'I'll be right down. Just wait till I find me hat.'

"Och, it took me breath away to have him so willin', but I could hear him scramblin' round up there, and prisintly I seen him at a hole in the wall, and he begun lettin' down his ladder and losin' no time over it.

"'I'll just be takin' anny sticks of things ye have,' I says, frindly, whin he come down to me, and, findin' the flat side of two bricks for me poor feet, I wint through him careful and religious. So help me, they was only elivin dollars and twinty cents and niver the sign of a watch! He might as well been some wan that earned his own livin'.

"'Look here,' says he, maybe feelin' sort of hurt himsilf, 'ye said five thousand. Why not make it ten?'

"'What?' says I, gaspin'.

"'Why not make it ten?' says he.

"'Arrah,' says I, 'are ye wantin' me to feed ye till me grandchilder can be collectin' of it? Ten thousand, indeed! Ye ought to be thankful ye ain't marked down to forty-nine-fifty.'

"'Oh, well,' he says, careless, 'it's none of my business. But where do ye take me?'

"Now I'd been thinkin' of a old warehouse near Mike O'Hara's dock with a fine cellar in it and no wan nosin' round, but it's mesilf is too knowledgeable to be tellin' ivrything that's in me head, even if they was time for it. 'We'll be gittin' me shoes first,' I says, 'and thin we'll be climbin' down to me boat and cross the river,' I says, 'where they ain't room for so manny mosquities.'

"All right,' says he, cheerful, 'though I don't mind thim anny, as I told ye a bit gone. Come along afore it gits too dark.'

"Was they iver the like of that, and him bein' kidnapped! 'Faith, maybe it's a bluff he's workin',' thinks I, 'though divil the wan of me knows why he'd be workin' it.' And whin I'd took him to where I'd dropped me shoes--oh, wirra, how bad the walkin' was!--I let go of him entirely whilst I was crammin' thim two feet of mine into thim, to see would he run ag'in, but keepin' me arm handy to a brick to throw through him whin he tried it. Och, he niver made a move, and the more chanct I give him, the peaceabler he stood there waitin' for me. It was most unsettlin'.

'We'll be goin' down the cliff now,' says I, takin' off me suspinders and tyin' wan ind of thim in a hard knot around the scrawny little neck of him to hold him by.

"'Do ye always tie thim up that way?' says he.

"'Yis, sor,' I says; 'thim suspinders has kidnapped nine men, divil a wan less,' I says.

"'I hope they was nice people,' says he.

"'And why do ye hope that?' I says.

"'Why not?' says he, gintle-like.

"'Don't ye git gay, sor,' says I, 'and don't be goin' so fast whin it's so steep-like. Faith, it's you is bein' kidnapped, not mesilf.'

"'Yis,' says he, 'I raymimber that.'

"'Oh, ye do?' says I. 'Ye'd better be usin' your brains to walk with instid of strainin' thim like that. Here! That ain't the way!' I yells at him as we come to where a side path turned off. And with that me poor feet slipped on some loose stones, and I would 'a' jerked the head off him but for the suspinders stretchin'.

"'Guh!' says he, which was about what ye'd expect from him whin he talked without stoppin' to think it up aforehand. And thin says he: 'Here, me good man, ye'd better be fixin' this. The rope's comin' loose.'

"'I near dropped the suspinders entirely. 'Holy hiven,' I says to mesilf, 'he must think we're playin' he was Queen of the May, and me wantin' to quit and go home! Bedad, they's something behind all this!' But I tied him up ag'in and we wint on down, with me thinkin' till the roots of me hair was twisted, tryin' to find was they anny explanation of him, and him stumblin' along in the dark and askin' me quistions, happy and continted.

"Whin we come to the bottom I says 'whoa' to him, till I could see they was no wan hangin' round, and thin we wint down where I'd left me boat. Divil the lie I'm tellin' ye, some wan had took it!

"'Is it gone?' says he.

"'Mother of hiven, is it _here_?' says I, irritated at the empty head of him.

"'No,' says he.

"'Thin where is it?' I says.

"'Gone,' says he.

"'Right,' says I, 'and ye guessed it without puttin' yoursilf greatly about. It shows what thinkin' would do for ye if ye was to try it.'

"'What are we goin' to do now?' says he, bleatin' sorrowful like a sheep.

"'Look here, sor,' I says, drawin' with me finger in the sand, the moon havin' come up so we could see a bit; 'here is wan side of the river, and we're on it,' I says, 'and here is the other side, and we ain't, but we wish we was. What's the answer, and how manny sides is they to the river? Come along with me and figure it out to yoursilf,' I says. 'I'm goin' to see is they a chanct to steal somewan ilse's boat,' I says, pullin' him after me by the suspinders.

"But sure, wan half thim jersey omadhawns must spind all their time arrangin' to keep the other half from stealin' boats off thim, for what boats they was was chained up with enough iron to sink thim, and me with only me knife for the patent locks. Kidnappin' is easy whin ye have a place to kidnap thim to, but they ain't no money in settin' down with a man annywheres ye find him and tellin' him ye've got his tab and will his frinds give ye all their money.

"'Let's climb up the Palisades ag'in and take the trolley to the ferry,' says he.

"'The saints in glory be among us! Is it a lunytic ye think I am to take ye where ye can git help and have me arrested by openin' your mouth but wanct?'

"'Well,' says he, excusin' himsilf, 'thin what?'

"'Twinty years,' says I, 'and lucky at that.'

"'I mean,' says he, 'what are we goin' to do, thin?'

"'"We"?' says I, fair losin' me timper, '"we"? Arrah, and whose doin' this kidnappin', annyways? Ye'll be collectin' money off me next for takin' me home! Ain't ye niver been kidnapped afore?'

"'No,' says he, 'this is the first time.'

"'Yis,' I says, 'and it was gittin' dark whin I took ye.'

"'Well,' says he, peaceable and irritatin', 'what are we goin' to do?'

"'We're goin' to drown ye, if ye ask me that ag'in!' I says, bein' beyont mesilf entirely. And thin all to wanct it come to me I might be tryin' the trolley after all, and tellin' the people he was a crazy man I was takin' home, if he begun talkin'. Sure, wan look at him would convince thim he'd been a lunytic afore he was took so bad. And this way I could be takin' him to me own place on the East Side instid of to the warehouse near O'Hara. It was a fool plan, but most plans is fool wans, and what ilse could I be doin' with him?

"'I'd been considerin' the trolley mesilf,' I says, 'and I'm thinkin' we'll take it and go over on the 130th Street ferry, but if ye make wan peep to annywan, it's me will kill ye on the spot. Do ye mind that!' I says to him, ferocious.

"'Oh,' says he, 'ye don't need to talk to me like that,' he says. 'I wasn't goin' to say annything or make ye anny trouble.'