ACT II

"Now, damsels, get to bed," Plunkett said to Martha and Nancy as he opened the door of the farmhouse upon their arrival. "Get to bed, because ye must get up at dawn." The two giddy young women looked about them. There were doors at the right and left of the big room which they first entered, and they doubtless led to bedrooms. On the table a lamp was burning and there were a couple of spinning wheels to be seen. As they came in they noticed a bell hung on a pole just outside the door. Not a bit like the palace of Queen Anne! and altogether the lark didn't appear to have the advantages it first had.

"O heaven! What shall we do?" Martha said to Nancy. "We must get out of this soon, in some way."

"Well, the main thing is to get to bed now," Nancy declared, and so the girls turned to say good-night to the two farmers.

"Good-night? Not so. There are your duties to be done first."

"Our duties?" Martha exclaimed, looking blank.

"Oh, don't disturb them to-night," Lionel interrupted, speaking to his brother. Lionel was more and more impressed with both of them, especially with the beauty of Martha. "They are very tired. Don't disturb them to-night."

"But you will spoil them to begin with," Plunkett insisted. "And by the way, what are your names?" he asked.

"Mine is Martha," Lady Harriet answered dolefully.

"Mine is--Julia," Nancy said impatiently.

"Ho, ho! Too grand to please me!--but, Julia, my dame of fashion, pray, put my cloak away," Plunkett returned, handing it to her.

"Upon my life! What impertinence!" she cried, throwing the cloak upon the floor. "Put away your own cloak."

"What--what?" Plunkett shouted, enraged, and starting up.

"Now, pray be lenient with them, brother. They are quite strange to our ways, perhaps--and then they are very tired, you know. Probably overworked by their last master. Leave matters to me. I'll put them quite at their ease;" whereupon Lionel took his hat and held it out to Martha.

"Martha--take it, if you please," Martha looked at him haughtily, and turned her back on him. Poor Lionel was distracted and abashed.

"Well, really, I don't--I don't know just what to do myself," he declared, as his brother snorted with satisfaction at Lionel's discomfiture.

"Well," said Lionel, hesitating a moment; then he took his hat and hung it up himself; then Plunkett picked up _his_ cloak and waited upon _him_self.

"A pretty kettle-of-fish, I should say," he muttered. "Well, then, to your spinning!"

"To our spinning?" they cried in unison.

"Yes, yes, to your spinning," Plunkett returned testily. "Do you expect to do nothing but entertain us with conversation? To your spinning, I said." Then all at once the women burst out laughing.

"Are ye good for nothing?" Plunkett shouted, in a greater rage. "Come, we've had enough of this! You go and bring those spindles," and Plunkett shouted this so loudly that the girls were downright frightened at last.

"Oh, do not scold us," Martha entreated, shrinking back.

"No, no, brother, let us be gentle."

"Stuff! Now, girls, you get at that spinning wheel as I tell you."

The two girls looked at each other. They no longer dared carry matters with a high hand, and yet how could they spin? They knew no more how to spin than did a couple of pussy-cats. After going up to the wheels and looking at them in wonder, they exclaimed:

"I can't."

"What?" yelled Plunkett.

"We--we don't know how."

"Well, upon my soul!" Plunkett cried. "Now you two sit down there as quick as you can." They sat as if they were shot. Plunkett seemed very much in earnest. "Now turn those wheels!"

"They--they will _not_ turn," they cried, trying and making an awful botch of it.

"Twist the thread," Lionel instructed with much anxiety.

"O Lord! It _won't_ twist, they _won't_ turn. Oh, good gracious! We can't! we can't do it at all."

"Now then, look at this," Plunkett cried, and he took Nancy from the chair, and seated himself at the spinning wheel; and Lionel unseated Martha--gently--and took her place, and then the fun began. "Now watch--and we will teach you something about this business."

This way set the wheel a-flying, Set it whirring, set it flying. Work the treadle with a will. While an even thread you're plying, Never let your wheel be still.

Come, you will not lose by trying, I can see you have good will.

And while the girls joined in this gay spinning song, the men buzzed an accompaniment of "Brr, brr, brr," and the fun waxed fast and furious, the men spinning faster and faster every moment, the girls becoming more and more excited with watching and trying to learn--because they now saw that there was nothing for them but to begin business; and more than this, they began almost to like the farmer chaps. After a moment, first one began to laugh, then another, till suddenly they all dragged off into a merry "ha, ha, ha!"

Look! How the busy task he's plying, Hercules is at the wheel; Look, I too can set it flying, Scold me if I do it ill

Nancy--or rather Julia--sang, as she took a turn at it. All had turned to fun and frolic, and now even Lady Harriet--or Martha--could not withstand the temptation to try her hand; so down she sat, and away she went spinning, and singing with the best of them. Suddenly Nancy upset her wheel, Plunkett gaily threatened her, and away she ran, with Plunkett chasing after her. In a minute they had disappeared, and Martha was left alone with Lionel.

"Nancy--Julia--where are you? here! don't leave me--" Martha cried.

"Have no fear, gentle girl," Lionel said, detaining her. "There is no one who will hurt you." Martha regarded him with some anxiety for a moment, then became reassured.

"No--I will not be afraid," she thought. "This stranger has a kind way with him. True, they are strange in their ways--to me--but then I am strange in my ways--to them."

"Come! I'll promise never to be impatient with you nor to scold you if you do not get things right. I am sure you will do your best," he gently insisted, trying to put her at her ease. "To tell the truth--I am desperately in love with you, Martha."

"Oh, good gracious--it is--so sudden----" she gasped, looking about for some chance of escape. "Don't, sir! I assure you I am the worst sort of servant. I have deceived you: as a matter of fact, I know almost nothing of housework or farm work--I----"

"Well, at least, you know how to laugh and while the time away. Never mind about the work--we shall get on; we'll let the work go. Only sing for me--come, let us be gay."

"Alas! I do not feel gay----"

"Then sing something that is not gay. Sing what you will--but sing," he urged. He was more in love with her every moment, and not knowing what else to do Martha sang--"'Tis the Last Rose of Summer!"

By the time the song was sung, Lionel had quite lost his head.

"Martha, since the moment I first saw thee, I have loved thee madly. Be my wife and I will be your willing slave--you may count on me to do the spinning and everything else, if only you will be my wife. I'll raise thee to my own station." This was really too much. Martha looked at him in amazement.

"Raise me--er--" In spite of herself she had to laugh. Then, with a feeling of tenderness growing in her heart, she felt sorry for him.

"I am sorry to cause you pain, but really you don't know what you are saying. I----" And at this crisis Nancy and Plunkett came in, Plunkett raising a great to-do because Nancy had been hiding successfully from him, in the kitchen.

"She hasn't been cooking," he explained; "simply hiding--and I can't abide idle ways--never could--now what is wrong with you two?" he asks, observing the restraint felt by Lionel and Martha; but before any one could answer, midnight struck.

"Twelve o'clock!" all exclaimed.

"All good angels watch over thee," Lionel said impulsively to Martha, "and make thee less scornful."

For a moment, Plunkett looked thoughtful, then turning to Nancy he said manfully, while everybody seemed at pause since the stroke of midnight.

"Nancy, girl, you are not what I sought for--a good servant--but some way, I feel as if--as if as a wife, I should find thee a good one. I vow, I begin to love thee, for all of thy bothersome little ways."

"Well, well, good-night, good-night, sirs," Nancy cried hastily and somewhat disconcerted. To tell the truth, she had begun to think kindly of Plunkett. Plunkett went thoughtfully to the outer door and carefully locked it, then turned and regarded the girls who stood silently and a little sadly, apart.

"Good-night," he said: and Lionel looking tenderly at Martha murmured, "Good-night," and the two men went away to their own part of the house, leaving the girls alone.

"Nancy----" Martha whispered softly, after a moment.

"Madame?"

"What next?--how escape?"

"How can we go?"

"We must----"

"It is very dark and the way is strange to us," she said, sadly and fearfully.

"Well, fortune has given us gentle masters, at least," Martha murmured.

"Yes--kind and good----"

"What if the Queen should hear of this?"

"Oh, Lord!" And at that moment came a soft knocking at the window. Both girls started. "What's that?" More knocking! "Gracious heaven! I am nearly dead with fear," Martha whispered, looking stealthily about. Nancy pointed to the window.

"Look----" Martha looked.

"Tristram--Sir Tristram!" she whispered excitedly. "Open the window. I can't move, I am so scared. Now, he'll rave--and I can't resent it. We deserve anything he may say." Nancy opened the window, and Sir Tristram stepped in softly, upon receiving a caution from the girls.

"Lady Harriet, this is most monstrous."

"Oh, my soul! Don't we know it. Don't wake the farmers up, in heaven's name! Things are bad enough without making them worse."

"Yes, let us fly, and make as little row about it as we can," Nancy implored.

"Then come--no words. I have my carriage waiting; follow me quickly and say good-bye to this hovel."

"Hovel?" Lady Harriet looked about. Suddenly she had a feeling of regret. "Hovel?"

"Nay," Nancy interrupted. "To this peaceful house--good-bye." Nancy, too, had a regret. They had had a gleeful hour here, among frank and kindly folk, even if they had also been a bit frightened. Anything that had gone wrong with them had been their fault. Tristram placed a bench at the window that the ladies might climb over, and thus they got out, and immediately the sound of their carriage wheels was heard in the yard. Plunkett had waked up meantime and had come out to call the girls. It was time for their day's work to begin. Farmer folk are out of bed early.

"Ho, girls!--time to be up," he called, entering from his chamber. Then he saw the open window. He paused. "Do I hear carriage wheels--and the window open--and the bench--and the girls--gone! Ho there! Everybody!" he rushed out and furiously pulled the bell which hung from the pole outside. His farmhands come running. "Ho--those girls hired yesterday have gone. Get after them. Bring them back. I may drop dead the next instant, but I'll be bound they shan't treat us in this manner. After them! Back they shall come!" And in the midst of all this confusion in ran Lionel.

"What----"

"Thieves!--the girls have run off--a nice return for our affections!"

"After them!--don't lose a minute," Lionel then cried in his turn, and away rushed the farmhands.

"They are ours for one year, by law. Bring them back, or ye shall suffer for it. Be off!" And the men mounted horses and went after the runaways like the wind.

"Nice treatment!"

"Shameful!" Plunkett cried, dropping into a chair, nearly fainting with rage.