The Wolves and the Lamb | Page 5

winter mornings. She did when we was in humbler
life, she did.
Enter MARY.
You have a good heart, Mary!
MARY.--Have I, dear John? [sadly.]
JOHN.--Yes, child--yes. I think a better never beat in woman's bosom.
You're good to everybody--good to your parents whom you send half
your wages to: good to your employers whom you never robbed of a
halfpenny.
MARY [whimpering].--Yes, I did, John. I took the jelly when you were
in bed with the influenza; and brought you the pork-wine negus.
JOHN.--Port, not pork, child. Pork is the hanimal which Jews ab'or.
Port is from Oporto in Portugal.
MARY [still crying].--Yes, John; you know everything a'most, John.
JOHN.--And you, poor child, but little! It's not heart you want, you
little trump, it's education, Mary: it's information: it's head, head, head!
You can't learn. You never can learn. Your ideers ain't no good. You
never can hinterchange em with mine. Conversation between us is
impossible. It's not your fault. Some people are born clever; some are
born tall, I ain't tall.
MARY.--Ho! you're big enough for me, John. [Offers to take his hand.]

JOHN.--Let go my 'and--my a-hand, Mary! I say, some people are born
with brains, and some with big figures. Look at that great ass, Bulkeley,
Lady K.'s man--the besotted, stupid beast! He's as big as a
life-guardsman, but he ain't no more education nor ideers than the ox he
feeds on.
MARY.--Law, John, whatever do you mean?
JOHN.--Hm! you know not, little one! you never can know. Have YOU
ever felt the pangs of imprisoned genius? have YOU ever felt what 'tis
to be a slave?
MARY.--Not in a free country, I should hope, John Howell--no such a
thing. A place is a place, and I know mine, and am content with the
spear of life in which it pleases heaven to place me, John: and I wish
you were, and remembered what we learned from our parson when we
went to school together in dear old Pigeoncot, John--when you used to
help little Mary with her lessons, John, and fought Bob Brown, the big
butcher's boy, because he was rude to me, John, and he gave you that
black hi.
JOHN.--Say eye, Mary, not heye [gently].
MARY.--Eye; and I thought you never looked better in all your life
than you did then: and we both took service at Squire Milliken's-- me
as dairy-girl, and you as knife-boy; and good masters have they been to
us from our youth hup: both old Squire Milliken and Mr. Charles as is
master now, and poor Mrs. as is dead, though she had her
tantrums--and I thought we should save up and take the "Milliken
Arms"--and now we have saved up--and now, now, now--oh, you are a
stone, a stone, a stone! and I wish you were hung round my neck, and I
were put down the well! There's the hup-stairs bell. [She starts,
changing her manner as she hears the bell, and exit.]
JOHN [looking after her].--It's all true. Gospel-true. We were children
in the same village--sat on the same form at school. And it was for her
sake that Bob Brown the butcher's boy whopped me. A black eye! I'm
not handsome. But if I were ugly, ugly as the Saracen's 'Ead, ugly as
that beast Bulkeley, I know it would be all the same to Mary. SHE has
never forgot the boy she loved, that brought birds'-nests for her, and
spent his halfpenny on cherries, and bought a fairing with his first
half-crown--a brooch it was, I remember, of two billing doves
a-hopping on one twig, and brought it home for little yellow-haired,

blue-eyed, red-cheeked Mary. Lord, Lord! I don't like to think how I've
kissed 'em, the pretty cheeks! they've got quite pale now with
crying--and she has never once reproached me, not once, the trump, the
little tr-rump!
Is it my fault [stamping] that Fate has separated us? Why did my young
master take me up to Oxford, and give me the run of his libery and the
society of the best scouts in the University? Why did he take me abroad?
Why have I been to Italy, France, Jummany with him--their manners
noted and their realms surveyed, by jingo! I've improved myself, and
Mary has remained as you was. I try a conversation, and she can't
respond. She's never got a word of poetry beyond Watt's Ims, and if I
talk of Byron or Moore to her, I'm blest if she knows anything more
about 'em than the cook, who is as hignorant as a pig, or that beast
Bulkeley, Lady Kick's footman. Above all, why, why did I see the
woman upon whom my wretched heart is fixed for ever, and who
carries away my soul with her--prostrate, I say, prostrate, through the