LITMIR.BIZ

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by haze.]

      SCENE VI

       LONDON. SPRING GARDENS

       [Before LORD MALMESBURY'S house, on a Sunday morning in the

       same autumn. Idlers pause and gather in the background.

       PITT enters, and meets LORD MULGRAVE.]

      MULGRAVE

       Good day, Pitt. Ay, these leaves that skim the ground

       With withered voices, hint that sunshine-time

       Is well-nigh past.—And so the game's begun

       Between him and the Austro-Russian force,

       As second movement in the faceabout

       From Boulogne shore, with which he has hocussed us?—

       What has been heard on't? Have they clashed as yet?

      PITT

       The Emperor Francis, partly at my instance,

       Has thrown the chief command on General Mack,

       A man most capable and far of sight.

       He centres by the Danube-bank at Ulm,

       A town well-walled, and firm for leaning on

       To intercept the French in their advance

       From the Black Forest toward the Russian troops

       Approaching from the east. If Bonaparte

       Sustain his marches at the break-neck speed

       That all report, they must have met ere now.

       —There is a rumour... quite impossible!...

      MULGRAVE

       You still have faith in Mack as strategist?

       There have been doubts of his far-sightedness.

      PITT [hastily]

       I know, I know.—I am calling here at Malmesbury's

       At somewhat an unceremonious time

       To ask his help to translate this Dutch print

       The post has brought. Malmesbury is great at Dutch,

       Learning it long at Leyden, years ago.

       [He draws a newspaper from his pocket, unfolds it, and glances

       it down.]

       There's news here unintelligible to me

       Upon the very matter! You'll come in?

       [They call at LORD MAMESBURY'S. He meets them in the hall, and

       welcomes them with an apprehensive look of foreknowledge.]

      PITT

       Pardon this early call. The packet's in,

       And wings me this unreadable Dutch paper,

       So, as the offices are closed to-day,

       I have brought it round to you.

       [Handling the paper.]

       What does it say?

       For God's sake, read it out. You know the tongue.

      MALMESBURY [with hesitation]

       I have glanced it through already—more than once—

       A copy having reached me, too, by now...

       We are in the presence of a great disaster!

       See here. It says that Mack, enjailed in Ulm

       By Bonaparte—from four side shutting round—

       Capitulated, and with all his force

       Laid down his arms before his conqueror!

       [PITT's face changes. A silence.]

      MULGRAVE

       Outrageous! Ignominy unparalleled!

      PITT

       By God, my lord, these statement must be false!

       These foreign prints are trustless as Cheap Jack

       Dumfounding yokels at a country fair.

       I heed no word of it.—Impossible.

       What! Eighty thousand Austrians, nigh in touch

       With Russia's levies that Kutuzof leads,

       To lay down arms before the war's begun?

       'Tis too much!

      MALMESBURY

       But I fear it is too true!

       Note the assevered source of the report—

       One beyond thought of minters of mock tales.

       The writer adds that military wits

       Cry that the little Corporal now makes war

       In a new way, using his soldiers' legs

       And not their arms, to bring him victory.

       Ha-ha! The quip must sting the Corporal's foes.

       PITT [after a pause]

       O vacillating Prussia! Had she moved,

       Had she but planted one foot firmly down,

       All this had been averted.—I must go.

       'Tis sure, 'tis sure, I labour but in vain!

       [MALMESBURY accompanies him to the door, and PITT walks away

       disquietedly towards Whitehall, the other two regarding him

       as he goes.]

      MULGRAVE

       Too swiftly he declines to feebleness,

       And these things well might shake a stouter frame!

      MALMESBURY

       Of late the burden of all Europe's cares,

       Of hiring and maintaining half her troops,

       His single pair of shoulders has upborne,

       Thanks to the obstinacy of the King.—

       His thin, strained face, his ready irritation,

       Are ominous signs. He may not be for long.

      MULGRAVE

       He alters fast, indeed,—as do events.

      MALMESBURY

       His labour's lost; and all our money gone!

       It looks as if this doughty coalition

       On which we have lavished so much pay and pains

       Would end in wreck.

      MULGRAVE

       All is not over yet;

       The gathering Russian forces are unbroke.

      MALMESBURY

       Well; we shall see. Should Boney vanquish these,

       And silence all resistance on that side,

       His move will then be backward to Boulogne,

       And so upon us.

      MULGRAVE

       Nelson to our defence!

      MALMESBURY

       Ay; where is Nelson? Faith, by this time

       He may be sodden; churned in Biscay swirls;

       Or blown to polar bears by boreal gales;

       Or sleeping amorously in some calm cave

       On the Canaries' or Atlantis' shore

       Upon the bosom of his Dido dear,

       For all that we know! Never a sound of him

       Since passing Portland one September day—

       To make for Cadiz; so 'twas then believed.

      MULGRAVE

      

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