Original subtitles

(upbeat instrumental music)

- Honored friends, come with us!

Heaven and her angelic host shields the innocent!

Come!

- So, dear friends, this strange incident

is happily elucidated.

Bygones, therefore be bygones.

The future brightens with orange blossoms.

Hymen and Felicity stand here with us together

ready to unite these bashful lovers.

His Lordship is reticent.

Yet you alone of all beautiful ladies, Mistress Rachel-

- Silence!

- My Lord- - Silence!

Dare not speak to her.

(eerie music)

(metal hammering)

- Dickon, more flame!

- [Dickon] Yeah, Goody.

- Oh, nay Dickon, so fierce.

- [Dickon] (speaking in foreign language)

Is that better?

- Oh, it will do.

Hey, be quick work.

Yeah.

There be nothing like brimstone for the smithy trade.

Yeah, now I got me a stout set of ribs

will withstand any nor'easter that blows.

I've no notion to lose my corn crop this summer.

(crows cawing)

Oy.

You'll be up up before me and the sun daily!

One, two.

One for sorrow, two for mirth!

Oh, Dickon, we'll have the laugh on our side this summer.

Dickon, more flame, where be thy wits?

- [Dickon] 'Tis early, dame.

- All the more need.

- [Dickon] Ow, ow, ow!

- Now, have I got thee, Dickon!

- Oh, deus!

I haven't been nabbed like that

since Saint Dunstan tweaked me by the nose!

Well, sweet Goody?

- The bellows, Dickon.

- But 'tis hardly dawn yet.

Honest folks are still abed.

It makes for a long day.

- Aye.

The more time for your pets the black crows to play in.

You heard 'em before.

That's why we must get this scarecrow out before sunrise.

There.

We've made a fine body to withstand the weather.

Now, you must make it look lifelike to fool the crows

and make 'em think there's a real human critter.

- The fool philosophies is my specialty, but the crows--

- That staggers thee, does it

- Prod not the quick of my genius, Madame Rickby.

I am Phidias, I am Raphael, I am the Lord God.

Here, I'll show thee.

Yonder broomstick!

There, ha!

Ha!

Giddy up, my Salem mare!

A broomstick, that's for imagination.

We're all pretty artists, to be sure, Bess.

Phidias, he sculptures the gods.

Raphael, he paints the angels.

The Lord God, he created Adam, and Dickon?

Yonder poker.

Dickon!

What doth Dickon, huh?

He nullifies them all.

He endows the scarecrow.

Poker, fines.

That's for conscience.

There's two fine legs to stand on.

Imagination, and conscience.

Yonder flails.

The ideal, the beau ideal, dame,

that's what we ought to seek.

The apotheosis of scarecrows.

And prithee, what is a scarecrow?

'Tis the antithesis of Adam.

"Let there be candles", quote the Lord God,

sitting in the darkness.

Let there be candle extinguishes, saith Dickon.

"I am created in the image of my maker", quoth Adam.

"Look at thyself in the glass," saith Goodman Scarecrow.

Fine, fine, here are flails.

One for wit, t'other for satire.

Simplicity with two such arms, my lad,

how they'll work thy way through the world.

- Thou talks as if though we're making

a real mortal, Dickon.

- To fool the crows, Goody, I must fashion the critter

that'll first deceive a man.

- Scarce do that without a head.

Oh, what say you to housey jack-o-lantern?

- Ay, rare, my psyche!

We shall collaborate!

Now...

- Oo.

- We stain!

Cob, carrots, beets, turnips!

The anatomy!

- Look!

- Oh, Johannes Baptista.

What wouldst thou have given for such a head?

I helped Salome cut his off, dame,

and was not half so appetizing on her charger.

Tut, Copernicus once had such a pumpkin, but 'tis rotten.

Look at his golden smile!

Hail, Phoebus Apollo!

- 'Tis the finest scarecrow in town.

- Nay, it is but a skeleton yet.

Must need to have the heart of a man.

Oo, Goody.

Dost hear it beat?

- (laughs) Thou merry rogue.

- Now, for the lungs of him, billows!

That's for eloquence.

He'll preach the black knaves a sermon on theft.

Here goes, Goody, for digestion and inherited instincts!

Now he'll learn to fight for his own flesh and blood.

- Oh, Dickon I'll really be proud to thee.

- Aye, wait, wait 'til you see his peruke.

Voici, scalps of the enemy!

Oh, rare conqueror.

- Beauty!

- And now for a little comfort

on dark days and stormy nights.

I tell thee, Goody, with yonder brand-new coat of mine,

he'll make a lad we should be proud of.

Why, he'll be a son to thee.

- Aye, aye, if I had but had a son.

- Why here thou hast him.

Thou't scare the crows from my mother's cornfield,

won't, my pretty?

And send them over to other side the wall

to thee a neighbor's Justice Gilead Merton's.

- Justice Gilead Merton.

So they would peck out his eyes instead of his corn.

- And yet the Justice was a dear friend to Blacksmith Bess.

- Aye, Blacksmith Bess!

If I had a stout arm when he cast me off and the babe,

guess I should have starved for all his worship cared.

- True, it was a scurvy trick he played upon thee,

and upon me, too, who took such pains

to bring you two together.

To steal the heart of a young girl.

- Aye, to toss it away like a bad penny in the gutter,

and the child to die.

- If I could get my hands on that worshipful Justice.

Oh, but no.

No, I shall beat out my heart on this anvil.

Whilst his worshipful Justice clinks his coin

and drinks his port to a ripe, old age!

Justice!

Justice of God!

- Whist, dame!

Speak of the angels and hear the rustle of their relatives.

- His niece, Mistress Rachel Merton.

Why comes she so early?

She could...Nay, I mind me, 'tis the mirror.

Oh, she's a maid after our own hearts.

None of your Sabbath-go-to meeting airs about her, nay.

No, she hath read the book of the magi cover to cover

and paid good guineas for it.

Not her uncle knows on't.

Besides, Dickon, she be in love.

- [Dickon] With him?

A rendezvous?

- Be gone.

- Thou naughty rogue.

(expectant music)

- Mistress Rachel Merton!

Why so early?

I pray his lordship, your uncle, be not ill.

- My uncle?

No, my uncle is well.

The early morning suits me best for a walk.

- [Rickby] I see.

- Are you quite alone?

- Oh, quite alone, mistress.

There be nobody come visit Goody Rickby,

except in odd business.

- Yes, you must be busy.

Is it, is it here?

- You mean the glass-

- (gasps) Who's that?

- Oh, fear not.

'Tis but a scarecrow, mistress, for cornfield yonder.

The crows be so pesky this year.

- Oh, how loathsome.

- Aye, he'll do.

- Here, this.

This is the mirror.

- Aye, it is the glass I told you about.

Oh, I would not sell it to most comers,

but seeing how you and Master Talbot-

- Yes, that will do.

- Why if the town folk guessed what it could really do?

You've heard tell of the gibbets on Salem Hill?

Well, there be not many in New England like you, mistress.

Nay!

No, you approve miracles outside the scriptures.

- Oh.

Well, will the glass do all you say?

- Aye. - It never fails?

- No, mistress, no!

'Tis the glass of truth!

The glass of true lovers.

It shows folk as they really be.

No sham, no varnish!

Listen, if there be a black wolf in a white sheep's wool,

this glass shall pluck out the black beast inside it.

- The black beast?

- [Rickby] Aye.

- Well, what of the sins of the soul, Goody?

Vanity and hypocrisy, and inconstancy.

Will it surely reveal them?

- If it do not that, bring it back and get your money again!

Oh, nay, mistress!

Trust me, pretty sweeting!

An old dame hath eyes in her heart yet!

If thy lover be false, this glass shall pluck out, too,

his fine feathers.

- Oh, 'tis no question of that.

I wish the glass to amuse me.

- Aye?

Why, then try it on some of your neighbors.

- You ask a large price for it.

- Well, I run risks!

Where else could you get such a glass?

- Well, that's true.

All right, I will buy it.

I believe this is the price that you mentioned.

- I'll see, I'll see.

Let's see.

Mistress?

(Rachel mumbling)

Hear me!

Folks call me a witch.

Well, a witch's word is good as justice gold.

Take the glass with my blessing!

- Spare yourself that, dame.

Oh, but the glass, how will you get it to me quietly?

- Oh, I have a neighbor boy that does errands for me.

Ebeneezer!

- [Rachel] What? He's here?

- Ah, the boy's an orphan.

He sleeps in the hayloft at times.

Ebeneezer!

- Evening?

- You understand, I desire no comment on this purchase.

- Nor I neither, mistress, to be sure.

- Well, is he trustworthy?

- [Rickby] Trust his wits who hath no wit.

He be mum.

- [Rachel] Oh.

- Job?

- Yeah, rumple-head.

This morning thy job is to take yonder mirror

to Justice Gilead Merton's house.

The big one, top of the hill, by the side door,

and mind, no gabbing.

There doth he catch?

- 'E swallows.

- Is the boy strong enough?

- Him? Ebeneezer?

(Ebeneezer spits)

- Gracious!

- Trust him to take the glass for ya.

- I will return home at once, then.

Let him go quietly to the side door and wait for me.

Good morning!

Richard! - Good morning.

- Oh, Squire Talbot.

You're abroad early.

- As early as Mistress Rachel.

Is it pardonable I caught sight of you walking

in this direction, so I thought it wise to follow lest you-

- Very kind, thanks.

We'll return home together, then.

You will make sure that I receive the article?

- Trust me, mistress.

- What article?

- [Rickby] Begging your pardon, sir.

- What article? I said.

- Oh, the article?

It's a quaint, old glass yonder, to be sure.

- Rachel, you haven't come here

at sunrise to buy this thing.

- Verily, this thing.

And at sunrise, a pretty time for a pretty purchase.

Are you coming?

- More witchcraft nonsense.

Do you realize this is serious?

Of course, but you know I am desperately mystical,

so pray, let us not discuss it.

Goodbye.

- Rachel, just a moment!

If you want a mirror, you shall have the prettiest one

in all of New England, or I will import you one from London,

only I beg of you, don't buy stolen goods!

- Stolen goods? - Don't, please don't.

- Can you account for this mirror, how you came by it?

- I'll show you stolen goods.

- Come on, swindler.

Keep your mirror, and give the lady back her money.

- I damn you with your stolen goods.

- Will you come? - Look you, old Rickby.

This is not the first time.

Charm all the broomsticks in town you like.

Bewitch all the tables, and saucepans

and mirrors you please, but gull no more money

out of young girls!

Mind you, we're not so enterprising in this town as at Salem

but it may come to it, so look sharp!

I'm not blind to what's going on here.

- Not blind, are you, Master Puritan?

You see through my counterfeits?

You would scrape all the wonder out of the world

as I scrape the meat out of that pumpkin head!

Well, look sharp, master!

Afore sundown, I'll send you a nut to crack.

Will make your orthodox jaws ache!

Your servant, Master Deuteronomy.

- We'll go. - Trot away, you pretty team!

Toss your heads!

I'll unhitch you and take off your blinders!

Your stolen goods.

(Dickon laughing)

Dickon, stop laughing!

- Oh, Lord, Lord.

- [Rickby] What tickles thy mirth now?

- For to think that the soul of an orphan innocent,

but lives in a hayloft-

Should wear horns! (laughs)

- Ay, 'tis a wise devil knows his own face in the glass!

(Rickby mumbling)

Must find a rival for that cock-squire there.

One that shall steal away the heart of Rachel.

- And bring her to church?

- To church or to hell!

It's all one to me!

- A rival, eh?

Oh, how would he serve in there, dear Ebeneezer?

Fancy the deacons of the vestry, Goody,

when they see him escorting the bride to the altar

with his tail around her waist!

- Oh, think it over in earnest!

Take her the glass.

Oh, mind!

Make it small so as to attract no notice on the road.

- For Richard a rival, dear Rickby wants Dickon's connival?

Lord!

What can the trick be?

Pow!

(eerie music)

Bye-bye, Sonny.

Take care of thy mother.

- Aye, mind!

Mind the rival, Sir Richard!

(Dickon whistling)

Mother.

(laughs) If I but had a son,

Justice Gilead's in mind to remind him

of merrier times as you two have forgot. (laughs)

Oo, wouldn't I put a spoke in his wheel!

But no such luck.

No such luck.

- Permit me, madame.

- Him!

Justice Merton!

- Permit me, dame.

- [Rickby] You!

- I have had the honor.

Permit me to entertain suspicions

to rise up early, to follow my niece,

to meet just now Squire Talbot,

to hear his remarks concerning you, dame.

To call here, permit me to express myself, to inquire-

- Concerning your waistcoat!

- Woman.

- The one you left last time.

- I have not had the honor to remember.

- The one I embroidered.

- 'Tis a matter of...

- Two and 20 year ago.

Let's try it on now, dearie.

- Unconscionable.

Unconscionable witch!

- Witchling, you used to say.

- Pah, pah!

Permit me, I forget myself.

Pride permit me, goeth before a fall.

As a magistrate, Rickby, I borne with thee long,

but as the last straw, however,

that breaks the camel's back.

- Poor, poor camel.

- You have soiled.

You smirch the virgin reputation of my niece.

You've inveigled her in the notions of witchcraft.

Already, the neighbors are beginning to talk.

But 'tis a long lane that hath no turning.

Yea, barely saith the Lord, as a witch, permit me.

Thou art judged.

Thou shalt hang.

- [Man] Me too?

(foreboding music)

- I beg pardon?

- [Man] Not at all.

- Did somebody speak?

- [Man] Don't you recognize my voice?

Still and small, you know.

Let me out, we'll have a chat.

- This is thy sorcery.

- Aye.

- But I fear thee not.

The righteous man walketh with God, yea, barely.

Satan, I ban thee.

I will read from the holy scripture.

(firecracker explodes)

- Thanks, it was stuffy in there.

- Dickon! Dickon!

- Oh, hello, Gilly.

Hello, Bess.

- [Gilead] No, no, Dickon.

No, no.

- You mind a little bit of Auld Lang Syne, Gilly?

A chorus of that night long ago.

Gilead, Gilead, Gilead Merton.

He was a silly head, silly head, certain,

who forgot to close the old bed curtain.

Encore, now!

- No, no.

Mercy, mercy.

No, mercy.

She shall not hang, I swear it!

I swear it, I will not harm her!

I swear, I swear, I...

Is he gone?

Witchcraft.

Witchcraft!

I have witnessed it!

'Tis proved on thee, slut!

Thou art judged, yea, barely!

Thou shalt hang, witch!

- Aye, Gilead!

Aye!

I shall hang on!

Oh, Dickon, oh, angel! (laughs)

If I but had a son.

- Videlicet in law, a bastard.

(speaking in foreign language)

- In law!

In justice!

Worse luck he died.

- More than 20 years ago.

Good, he should be of age now.

One and 20, a pretty age, too, for a rival.

For a rival?

Arrival.

Marry, he shall arrive, and marry,

and inherit his patrimony, all on his birthday.

Come to work.

- What rant is this?

- And yet, Dickon, it pains me to perform

such an anachronism.

All this medievalism in Massachusetts.

These old-fashioned flames.

These alchemic accompaniments.

And I've tried so hard to be a native American product.

It jars.

(speaking in foreign language)

I suppose I'm naturally middle-aged.

I haven't been myself, really, since 1492.

- What be you mooning about?

- I'm reminded of my old friend in Germany,

Doctor Johann Faust.

He was just such a bag of old rubbish when I made him over.

Ain't it trite?

You can't teach an old dog like me new tricks.

Still, Goody.

A scarecrow.

It's decidedly local color.

Come, then.

A Yankee masterpiece.

Behold, madame, your son.

The future affianced of Rachel Merton.

The heir-elect through matrimony of Merton house!

Gilead Merton II!

Lord Ravensbane!

Your lordship, your mother!

- Can you do it? - I can try.

- Can you create him for me and for Gilead?

- I will for a kiss.

- Oh, Dickon! - Later!

Now, the waistcoat.

- Oh, rare, rare, rare, he shall go wooing in it,

like his father!

- Come on, stand still, Jackie, stand still.

So, my macaroni.

Ah, perfecto.

Stay, a walking stick.

- A spoke from the wheel of the chaise he took me riding in.

(speaking in foreign language)

Oh, Sam Hill, my Latin is stale.

In the beginning, Goody, was the gourd.

- Do it.

- Of these thy modest ingredients may thy spirit smack.

Flail, flip, broom sweep (speaking in foreign language).

Cornstalk, turnip talk.

Turn, critter.

Pulse, beat, gourd, eat.

Ave Hellas!

Poker and pumpkin, stir the old junk in.

Breathe, bellows!

Corn cob, crow's feathers to end the job.

Jumble the rest of the rubbish together.

Dovetail and tune 'em.

E pluribus unum!

Devil.

Have I forgotten the hang of it?

Oh, he's lost his pipe!

What's a dandy without his 'baccy?

'Tis thy own grand, Goody.

Brimstone.

Well, without it, he's not but a scarecrow.

'Tis the very breath and life of him.

So, now, yon hazel switch.

Ah, presto!

Brighten coal in the dust between us.

Whiten soul (speaking in foreign language).

(eerie music)

Sic!

Sic, Jacobus!

Bravo!

- Puff, manny!

'Tis thy life!

(speaking in foreign language)

- Go it!

(slow cello music)

- See, see his eyes.

(speaking in foreign language)

- Take thy first step, bambino.

Toddle.

(quizzical music)

- Oh! Have a care!

- Well done, Pumpkin Jack!

Thou shalt be knighted for that.

Rise, Lord Ravensbane!

- Oh, see how he bows?

Oh, he smiles.

Like a tik-doo-loo-roo.

He flaps his flails at thee!

- Oh, will his lordship deign to follow his tutor?

- Oh.

Oh.

Lord, the style of the broomstick!

- Will his lordship be seated and rest himself?

Oh, he's dropped his pipe.

Thou must puff, boy.

Puff.

'Tis thy life.

Does his lordship find his tobacco refreshing?

- Look, red is in his cheeks.

The beet juice be pumping.

- Will his lordship deign to receive an audience?

The Marchioness of Rickby, your lady mother,

entreats leave to present herself.

- My son.

(speaking in foreign language)

- Speak.

(speaking in foreign language)

Accost thy mother!

- Mother!

- Oh (speaking in foreign language) I shall die!

- Thou hast thy son.

- Thou calls me mother.

Speak again, boy, speak again.

- From the bottom of my heart.

Mother?

- "From the bottom of my heart, mother."

Oh, thou killest me.

- Permit me,

madame.

- Oh, Gilead, Gilead himself!

Waistcoat, permit me, and all!

(laughs) 'Tis thy father all over again.

- It give me, I assure you, lady.

The deepest happiness.

- Just so the old hypocrite spoke to me

when I told him I'd have him. (laughs)

Oh, but thou, thou hast a sweeter deference, my son.

- And now, my lord, your tutor is ready.

- I have the honor to wish you good morning.

- Whoa, Jackie!

Whither away!

- Deign to reply, sir.

- I go with my tutor, Master Dickonson,

to pay my respects to his worship, the Justice Merton,

to solicit the hand of his fair niece, Mistress Rachel.

Permit me.

- Permit ye?

I beseech ye!

Thou wilt teach him his trick, Dickon.

- Trust me, Goody.

On the way to Justice Merton's I'll play the mother hen,

and I promise thee that our bantling

will be stuffed with compliments

as a callow chick with caterpillars.

Hark!

Your lordship's retainers acclaim you on your birthday!

They welcome you to your majority!

Listen!

Long live Lord Ravensbane!

- Count 'em.

One for sorrow, two for mirth,

three for a wedding, four for a birth!

Good.

Good luck on thy birthday!

And see how three fly into yonder Justice Merton's field!

As the crow flies, so the wind blows.

Get thee gone, my boy.

Wed the girl and sting the Justice!

Bless you, my son!

- Mother?

Believe me to be your ladyship's most devoted

and obedient Lord...

- Ravensbane.

- Lord Ravensbane!

(solemn music)

- [Announcer] And now, Act II of "The Scarecrow",

by Percy MacKaye.

(solemn music)

- Now, are you willing?

- So, you suspect me of dark, villainous practices.

- Oh, no, no, foolish Dick.

- Ah, still I am to be tested?

Is that it?

- That's it.

- As your true lover?

- Well, yes.

- Well then of course, I consent.

Every true lover always consents to the follies of his lady.

- Oh, thank you, Dick!

I'm sure the glass will sustain your character.

Now, when I draw the curtain-

- Now, what if I be false?

- The glass will reflect you as the subtle fox that you are.

- And you as the goose?

- Very likely.

(man laughing)

Oh, no, Richard!

Do not laugh.

'Tis very serious.

You do not guess, you do not dream of the mysteries.

- You pluck at too many mysteries.

Remember our first mother Eve?

- 'Tis is the glass of truth, and Good Rickby told me-

- Oh, Rickby! Forsooth!

- Shh! Nay, come.

Let's have it over.

(gasps) There you are.

(laughs) Oh, there we both are,

just as we have always seemed to each other.

True.

Isn't it wonderful?

- Oh, it's miraculous that a mirror

bought in a blacksmith shop before sunrise for 20 pounds

should prove to be actually a mirror.

- Oh, Richard, I am so happy!

- Happy are thou, sweet goose?

Why then, God bless Goody Rickby.

- Squire Talbot.

Strange words from you.

- Sir, the old witch is perhaps more innocent

than I represented her.

- Believe me, sir, witches are never innocent.

(laughs) Oh, my young lovers, permit me.

I was young once myself.

Young and amorous.

- Verily.

- [Gilead] My worthy young man,

my fair niece, beware of witches.

- And Goody Rickby too, brother.

- Well, she will suffer for her misdeeds.

She is proscribed.

- Proscribed?

What is that?

- [Maid] What is this?

- She shall hang.

- Oh uncle, no!

Not merely because of my purchase this morn!

- What purchase?

- This, I suppose.

- What?

You purchased this mirror from her and brought it here?

- No, the boy brought it.

I found it here when I returned.

- What? From her shop?

From her infamous den into my parlor?

Call the servant, take it away.

- Oh Gilead! - Micah, Micah!

Where is that man?

Micah, I say!

- Gilead, I bought it with my own money!

- With your own money?

Wilt have the neighbors gossip?

Would have thyself in my house

suspected of complicity with witches!

- Micah, take this mirror away!

- Yes, sir, but sir-

- Out of the house.

- There be visitors-

- Take it away, I say!

- Visitors, sir!

A gentry!

- [Gilead] Huh? - Yes, sir.

Shall I show them in, sir?

- Visitors?

This hour in the morning?

Who are they?

- They're strangers, but I should judge

very high gentry, sir.

Lords.

- Lords? - Yes, sir,

at least one of them.

The other one, the dark gentleman,

he said they left their horses at the inn.

(dogs howling)

- What is that unearthly sound?

- Must be in the cellar.

- 'Tis only the dog howling, madame.

When he spied the gentry, he fled.

He went below.

- Well, show them in.

- Yes, sir. Yes, sir. - Don't keep them waiting!

Hurry along now!

Lords, huh?

Well, we'll speak of this matter later.

Lords.

Cynthia, think of that.

Lords.

- And in the morning, too.

- Oh, what a fortunate interruption.

Dear Dick, I wish we needn't meet these strangers now.

- Would you really rather we were alone together?

- We need only be introduced,

and then we could steal away together.

- Lord Ravensbane!

Marquis of Oxford, Baron of Wittenberg,

Elector of Worms, and Count of Cordova!

And Master Dickonson!

- Oh, believe me, sir.

You are excessively welcome.

I am deeply honored to meet-

- Lord Ravensbane of the Rookeries, Somersetshire.

- Lord Ravensbane.

- Oh, I am truly honored, sir.

- Truly honored.

- And his lordship's-

- Tutor.

- Tutor.

- Justice Merton, I believe.

- Of Merton House.

Lord Ravensbane, permit me.

My sister, Mistress Merton of Merton House.

Rachel, Rachel!

Oh, this is a young neighbor of ours.

Squire Richard Talbot.

Richard Talbot of, of-

- Of nowhere, sir.

- Nowhere.

- (laughs) Lord Ravensbane, permit me

to introduce my niece, Mistress Rachel Merton.

- Mistress Rachel Merton.

- Lord Ravensbane...

(peaceful music)

- Mistress Rachel Merton.

- Your lordship.

- (gasps) A pipe!

- Gilead, smoking in the house!

- Your lordship has just arrived in town?

- [Dickon] From London, via New Amsterdam.

- [Gilead] Ah.

- Are you ill, Rachel?

- What?

- Your lordship is truly welcome under my humble roof.

- Your lordship, roof.

- Roof of my father's oldest friend

bestows generous hospitality upon his only son.

- His only son.

Oh, your father is--

- My father, permit me, has never forgotten

your unceasing solicitude for his happiness

in the days of his youth.

- Oh, forgive me.

The few slight favors I was enabled to render

to your illustrious father.

- Upon quitting my home, mother mother bade me,

be sure to pay your respects to his worship,

the Justice Merton, and deliver to him first,

my father's remembrances, and secondly, my mother's epistle.

- Her ladyship's letter, sir.

- Oh, a crested seal.

- His lordship's grace, rooks rampant.

- Rooks ram, oh.

Permit me, your lordship.

- Have you noticed his bearing, Richard?

What personal distinction, what inbred nobility.

Every inch, a true lord.

- He may be a lord, my dear, but he walks like a broomstick.

- How dare you!

Oh!

- Mistress Rachel?

Permit me.

- Oh, thank you.

- So, Lord Ravensbane and his family

are old friends of yours?

- I never heard the name before, Richard.

- Would you like me to tell your fortune?

- Oh, yes.

- Believe me, sweet lady.

It would give me the deepest pleasure.

- Can you really tell fortunes?

- More than that, I can bestow them.

- Richard?

- Permit me.

I am astonished, overwhelmed!

But is her ladyship really serious?

An offer of marriage?

- Pray read it again, sir.

- Oh.

To his worshipful, the Justice Gilead Merton, Merton House.

My honorable friend and benefactor,

with these brief lines I commend to you, our son.

- Our son?

- [Dickon] She speaks likewise for his lordship's father.

- Ah, in a strange land I entrust him to you as to a father.

I'm honored, believe me.

I have only to add my earnest hopes

that the natural gifts, graces,

and inherited fortune, fortune?

- 20,000, pounds on his father's demise.

- Ah, a fortune of this young scion of nobility

will so propitiate the heart of your niece,

Mistress Rachel Merton, as to cause her

to accept his proffered hand in matrimony.

Well, but Squire Talbot is already betrothed to my...

Well, well, we'll see.

Matrimony, and thus cement the early bonds

of interest and affection between your honored self

and his lordship's father, not to mention, dear sir,

your worship's ever grateful and obedient admirer,

Elizabeth, Marhioness of R.

Of R?

Of R.

(laughs) Well, believe me, my dear sir,

it's been so long since my extended travels,

and I visited so many noble estates, permit me.

It's so awkward I cannot recall! (laughs)

- Not at all, not at all.

- [Ravensbane] Dickon, my pipe!

- Permit me one moment, sir.

I didn't quite catch your name.

- My name?

Dickonson.

- Dickonson?

(laughs) Oh, thank you.

I mistook.

Thank you.

- A compound, your worship.

Dickon-son.

- [Gilead] Dickon.

- Both at your service.

Is he, is he there?

- Bessie's brat, yes.

He didn't die, after all, poor suckling.

Dickon weaned it.

Saved it from balm of Gilead.

Raised it for joyful homecoming.

21st birthday.

Happy son, happy father.

- My, my son?

- Felicitations.

- What do you want?

- Only the happiness of your loved ones.

The joyful union of hearts and hands.

- Oh no, but think of it.

He is an illegitimate-

- Oh, fie, fie, Gilly.

The brat's a lord, now.

- Oh, no, no, no.

Don't repeat it.

Not disgrace now.

No think of that and my niece.

She's already betrothed to young Squire Talbot.

- Twiddle-twaddle, Gilly.

It's a brilliant match.

Besides, her ladyship desires it.

- Her ladyship?

- Marchioness of Rickby.

- Oh, oh.

Rickby, I'd forgotten.

- Her ladyship has never forgotten.

So, you see, your worship's alternatives are quite simple.

Alternative one, advance the suit of my young lord

with your niece as speedily as possible,

and save all scandal.

- Oh, no.

- Alternative two, impede the suit of my young lord

with your niece, and then-

- No, no, no.

Not disgrace now.

Don't reveal it now, Dickon.

- Good, we're agreed, then.

- Well I, I have no choice.

- Why, true.

We'd ignored that, hadn't we?

- Gilead?

This young lordship.

Why, Gilead, are you ill?

- Not in the least.

Rachel's deportment, my dear brother, I tell you,

they are fortunetelling.

- Tush! Tush!

- Tush?

Tush, to me?

Tush?

- I am really at a loss.

Well, your lordship's hand is so very peculiar.

- Peculiar?

- Well, see this line here?

This is the line of life.

- Line of life.

- But you see how it begins so abruptly,

and then it just breaks off, and ends nowhere?

Same just so with this line here.

The line of love.

- Of love?

So, it breaks?

- Yes.

- Then that must be the heart line.

- Why, Lord Ravensbane, your pulse.

Really, if I am cruel, you are quite heartless.

I declare I cannot feel your lordship's heartbeat at all!

- That's because I've just lost it.

(laughing) - Where?

- Dickon, my pipe!

- Oh, my lord, are you ill?

- Pardon, sweet, young lady.

I must confide in you that his lordship's heart

is peculiarly responsive to his emotions.

When he feels very ardently, it quite stops,

hence, the use of the pipe!

- [Rachel] Is smoking then necessary for his heart?

- Absolutely, to equilibrate the valvular palpitations.

Without his pipe, should his lordship experience,

for instance, the emotion of love?

He might die.

- (gasps) You alarm me, sir.

- This is only for you, Mistress Rachel.

We may confide in you.

- Utterly, sir.

- His lordship, you see, is so sensitive.

- You've given it back to me.

Why didn't you keep it?

- What, my lord?

- My heart.

- It's intolerable!

Sir, do you approve of this?

Are Lord Ravensbane's financials satisfactory?

- Eminently, eminently.

- Then her ladyship's letter appears-

- Charming, charming.

Your lordship, permit me, will make my house your home.

- My home.

- Really?

My goodness, uncle!

What is this Master Dickonson tells us?

- What has he revealed?

- Why yes, indeed!

- Rachel-

- My uncle is doubtless astonished to find you so grown.

- I am doubtless astonished to be so grown.

- You have dared be-

- Let me remark, sir, that your worship

dandled his lordship, as an infant.

- Oh, oh, yes, quite, quite so.

I dandled as an infant merely.

- Well, how interesting.

Then you must have seen his lordship's home in England.

Do you know that I've heard in England

that ladies followed the hounds?

And sometimes, they even dance.

- Dance, yes!

My mother dances about the altar.

She swings a hammer-

- Your lordship, you lordship!

Pray, check this vein of poetry.

His lordship symbolizes as an altar and hammer,

a golf stick and tee, a Scottish game

which her ladyship plays on her Highland estates.

- Oh, oh.

- Who is this magpie?

- Satan, sir.

- Beg your pardon?

- Satan makes you jealous.

- Lord Ravensbane?

I have a rustic colonial question to ask.

Is it the latest fashion to smoke incessantly

in ladies' parlors, or is it medieval?

- His lordship's health, sir, necessitates-

- I addressed his lordship.

- In, tn the matter of fashion, sir.

My pipe, Dickon.

- Well?

- Pardon, sir, but the fact is

that my young pupil is sensitive.

The wound from his latest duel has not yet healed.

You will observe a slight lameness

and occasional absence of mind.

- [Rachel] Oh, a wound in a real duel?

- You, Mistress Rachel know the true reason.

His lordship's heart.

- Well, well, your lordship,

as you were saying in the matter of fashion, sir.

- In the matter of fashion, sir, I am the fashions.

- Insufferable.

- Well, what do you make of that?

- Spoken like King Charles himself.

- Brother, brother, is there nothing wrong here?

- [Dickon] Your worship.

- Rachel?

- [Rachel] Oh, you?

- You take quickly to European fashions.

- Yes?

Which one in particular?

- Two, smoking and flirtation.

- Jealous? - Of an idiot?

I hope not.

Manners differ, however.

Your confidences to his lordship have evidently

not included your relations to me.

- Oh, our relations?

- Since you wish him to continue in ignorance.

- Not at all.

He shall know at once.

Lord Ravensbane?

- [Talbot] Rachel, stop.

I didn't- - Mistress Rachel?

- My uncle did not introduce to you

with sufficient elaboration this gentleman.

Allow me to do so now.

- I adore Mistress Rachel's elaborations.

- Lord Ravensbane?

I beg to present Squire Talbot, my betrothed.

- Betrothed?

Is it pleasant?

- Are you satisfied?

- More than satisfied.

- Oh, betrothed is not pleasant.

- Not always.

- Mistress Rachel is not happy?

- With him.

- Mistress Rachel will smile again?

- [Rachel] Soon.

- Will you smoke my pipe?

- Shall I try?

- It's very pleasant.

- [Gilead] Rachel?

- Uncle!

- Permit me, your lordship.

Rachel, will you withdraw for a moment?

I wish to speak to his lordship

concerning his mother's, his ladyship's letter.

That is, if your noble pupil is not too fatigued.

- Not at all.

I think his lordship will listen to you with much pleasure.

- With much pleasure.

- And in the meanwhile, if Mistress Rachel will allow,

I will assist her in writing those invitations

which her worship wishes to send in her name.

- Invitations, from my niece?

- To his excellency, the Lieutenant Governor,

to your very good friends, the Reverend Masters

at Harvard College, et cetera, et cetera.

In brief, to all those of your worship's select

social acquaintance in the vicinity to meet his lordship.

Indeed, it was most thoughtful of you to suggest it, sir,

and I assure you that my young lord

is most appreciative of the courtesy you have shown

in arranging the reception in his honor for this afternoon.

(Gilead babbles) - This afternoon?

Why Uncle, are we really to give a reception

for Lords Ravensbane, and will it be here?

- I believe you said yes, sir.

- Quite so, quite so.

Quite so, sir.

- Permit me to act as your scribe, Mistress Rachel.

- Oh, with pleasure, sir.

'Til we meet again.

- Mistress Rachel.

- I advise nothing rash, Gilly.

The brat has a weak heart.

- Remember, Jack!

Puff, puff!

- She's gone. - Imposter.

Thou at least shall not play the lord and master to my face.

I know with whom I have to deal.

If I be any judge of my own flesh and blood, permit me,

you shall quail before me!

- Didn't smile.

- Affected rogue, I know thy feigned pauses,

thy assumed vagaries.

Speak, how much do you want!

- Mistress Rachel?

- Scoundrel, mention her name again.

That sweet, that innocent maid.

If thou dost, thou godless spawn of temptation,

mark me, I will put an end to-

- Beg pardon, I forgot something.

- God, thou art just.

- [Ravensbane] Permit me, sir.

Are you ill?

- What art thou?

- I am Lord Ravensbane, Marquis of Oxford,

Baron of Wittenberg, Elector of Worms-

- Ah.

- [Ravensbane] Shall I call Dickon?

- No, no, no-

- Dickon! - No, do not call him.

Tell me, I hate thee not.

Thou wast innocent.

Tell me, I thought thou hadst died as a babe.

Where has Dickon, our tyrant, kept thee, these 20 years?

- Master Dickonson is my tutor-

- Why has thy mother?

Oh, I know well.

I deserve all of it.

Still, it must not be published now.

I'm a justice, an honored citizen,

and my niece, thy mother will not demand so much.

- My mother is the Marchioness of Rickby.

- Yes, yes, it was well planned.

A very clever trick.

Twas skillful of her,

but surely thy mother gave commands-

- My mother gave me her blessings.

- Ah, 'tis well, then.

Tell me, young man.

My son, I too, will give thee my blessing,

if thou wilt but go.

Go instantly.

Go with half my fortune.

Go, but leave me my honor and Mistress Rachel.

- Mistress Rachel is mine.

- Oh, surely, think of the disgrace.

You, an illegitimate, and my niece.

She...Think what thou art.

- I am Lord Ravensbane, Marquis of Oxford,

Baron of Wittenberg, Elector of Worms

and Count of Cordova.

- Devil's child!

Boor! Baffoon!

I will bear thy insults no longer!

If thou hast no heart-

- My heart. - Hypocrite!

You cannot fool me!

I am thy father!

- Father?

- Stand away!

You may break thy heart and mine and the devil's,

but you shall not break Mistress Rachel's!

- Mistress Rachel is mine.

Smiles are mine.

Eyes are mine.

- Oh, can it be his heart?

He's still.

Oh, not a sound.

Oh, thank God, he is, he is...

He is my son.

Judge Almighty, if he were to die,

may I not be still a moment longer and make sure?

He's, he's my son.

He's changing.

He's change.

Help, help!

Mistress Rachel!

Master Dickonson!

Cynthia!

Squire Talbot!

- [Rachel] Uncle?

- [Gilead] Lord Ravensbane has fainted.

Bring some wine.

- Micah, wine!

- Stay, his pipe.

Where is his lordship's pipe?

- He threw it away.

- Terrible.

- what's the matter?

Oh!

- He's getting worse!

Where's the wine?

- Look how strange he appears?

- His pipe, his lordship's pipe.

Master Dickonson, it is lost!

- [Dickon] It must be found.

This is a heart attack, my friends.

His lordship's life depends upon the nicotine.

- Oh, here it is!

Thank God!

Shall I put it in?

- No, not you.

- [Rachel] Sir!

- You let his tutor perform that office!

- Lord! - [Talbot] Rachel!

- [Ravensbane] Rachel.

- Pardon, mistress, give the pipe at once.

Only a token of affection can revive his lordship now.

- I forbid it, Rachel!

- My lord.

My lord.

- Give him air, open his coat.

Heavens, what do I see?

Cynthia?

- That waistcoat, that waistcoat!

Brother, hast never seen that before?

- Never, never.

- See he puffs.

He revives.

He's coming to himself.

- At last.

- [Dickon] Look, he's restored.

- Oh, God be thanked.

- My lord, my lord.

Mistress Rachel has saved your life.

- Mistress Rachel is mine.

- Do you dare to repeat that!

- Mistress Rachel is mine.

- This, sir, is yours!

- Richard!

- I believe such is the proper fashion in England.

If your lordship's last dueling wound

is sufficiently healed, perhaps you will deign a reply.

- Richard.

My lord.

(expectant music)

- [Announcer] We will return in a moment

with Act III of "The Scarecrow" by Percy MacKaye

on "Hollywood Television Theater".

And now, Act III of "The Scarecrow",

by Percy MacKaye.

(upbeat music)

- Believe me, ladies, with the true sincerity of the heart.

- No, no, no, Jackie!

In inflection, a little more lachrymose.

The true sincerity of the heart.

- Believe me, ladies, with the true sincerity of the heart.

- Prettily, prettily!

Next.

- Verily, sir, as that prince of poets,

the immortal Virgil has remarked

(speaking in foreign language).

- (speaking in foreign language) next!

- Trust me, your excellency.

I will inform his majesty of your courtesy.

- No, no, Jackie.

No, his majesty, a little more emphatic.

Remember, you must impress all of the people this afternoon.

Come now, the retort to the challenge.

- The second, I believe!

- Quite so, my lord.

- Sir, the local person whom you represent

has done himself the honor to submit to me

a challenge to mortal combat.

Sir, in such affairs of honor, choice of weapons

has ever been the...

- Prerogative.

- Prerogative of the challenged.

Sir, this right of etiquette must be observed.

Nevertheless, believe me, I have no selfish desire

that my superior...

- Attainment.

- Attainments in this art should assume advantage

over my challenger's ignorance.

I have therefore, selected those combative utensils

most appropriate from his own humble origin.

Permit me, sir, to reveal my choice.

There are my weapons.

- Delicious!

Oh, thou exquisite flower of love.

How all thy natal composites have burst in bloom.

The golden pumpkin in thee to this golden collarette!

Thy mop of crow's wings to these raven tresses!

Thy broomstick to this lordly limp.

Thy corn-silk to these pale-tinted tassels.

Truly, in the gallery of scarecrows,

thou art the Apollo Belvedere.

- Mistress Rachel, I may see her now?

- Oh, Romeo, Romeo, wast ever such an amorous puppet show!

- Mistress Rachel?

- Now let me think.

Thou art wound up my pretty apparatus for six and 30 hours.

The wooden angel Gabriel that trumpets the hours

on that big clock in Venice is not a more punctual manikin

than thou art with my speeches.

Thou shouldst run, therefore-

- Stop talking!

Permit me, a tutor should know his place.

- Nay.

His lordship is beyond comparison.

- She'll come?

I'll see her?

- Oh, pardon me, my lord.

- [Ravensbane] Is it she?

- Captain Bugby, the governor's secretary.

- Good, Squire Talbot's second.

Send him in, please.

- Oh, my lord.

Shall I remove these?

- Drop them and go.

- Sir! - Go, thou slave!

- [Micah] Yes, sir.

- Here, my lord, read.

You must be found reading.

- She doesn't come! I won't see her!

- Fie, fie, Jackie.

Thou mustn't break thy Dickon's apron strings

with a will of thine own.

Come.

- Mistress Rachel.

- Be good, and you shall see her.

His lordship was saying, oh, Captain Bugby.

Captain Bugby, sir, at Lord Ravensbane's service.

- [Dickon] I am Master Dickonson, his lordship's tutor.

- Happy, sir.

- My lord, this gentleman waits upon you from Squire Talbot.

In regard to the challenge of this morning, I presume?

- The second, I believe!

- Quite so, my lord.

- Sir, the local person whom you represent

has done himself the honor to submit to me

a challenge to mortal combat.

Sir, in such affairs of honor, choice of weapons

has ever been the pre-gative of the challenged.

Sir, this right of etiquette must be observed.

- Indeed, yes- - Do not interrupt.

Your lordship observed?

- Observed.

Nevertheless, believe me, I have no selfish desire

that my superior attainments in this art

should assume precedence over my challenger's ignorance.

I have therefore, selected those combative utensils

most appropriate to his own humble origin.

Permit me, sir, to reveal my choice.

There are my weapons.

- These, my lord?

- Those.

- But those are flails!

- Flails. - Flails, my lord?

Am I to understand that your lordship-

- [Ravensbane] Exactly.

- But your lordship, flails!

- My adversary should be deft in their use.

He has no doubt wielded them frequently

on the floor of his barn.

- But...

Ah, I understand now! (laughs)

Well, your lordship is a wit!

Flails!

- His lordship's satire is poignant.

- Indeed, sir.

So keen that I must apologize for laughing

at my principal's expense.

But your lordship, if you will deign to speak

one moment seriously, I will take pleasure

in informing Squire Talbot as to your real preference for...

- Flails.

Flails are final.

I have, permit me, nothing further to say.

- (laughs) What?

Must I really report-

- His lordship's will is inflexible.

- And his wits are incomparable.

I am sorry for the squire,

but 'twill be the greatest joke in years.

Tell me, is it, is...the latest fashion?

- Lord Ravensbane is always the latest.

- Obliged servant, sir.

(laughs) Flails!

(laughs) Your lordship!

Flails!

- Bravo, pumpky dear.

That squelches the jealous betrothed.

Now that all that remains is for you to continue

to bedazzle the enamored Rachel,

and so present yourself to Justice Merton

as his pseudo-son-nephew-in-law.

- I may go to Mistress Rachel now?

- She will come to you.

Even now, she's reading a poem from you,

which I have left on her dressing table.

- Reading a poem from me?

- With your pardon, my lord, I penned it myself.

I am something of a poetaster.

I flatter myself that I have dictated

some of the finest lines in literature.

- Dickon, she will come?

- She comes.

- To Mistress R, enchantress.

If faith in witchcraft be a sin,

alas, what peril is he in,

who plights his faith and love in thee,

sweetest maid of sorcery?

If witchcraft be a whirling brain,

a roving eye, a heart of pain,

whose wound no thread of fate can stitch,

how hast thou conjured, cruel witch?

With the brain, eye, heart and total mortal residue

of thine enamored, Jack Lanthorne.

- Rachel.

- Oh, my lord, how you surprised me.

- You've come again.

- Has anything happened, my lord?

I have been in such terror.

Promise me there will be no duel.

- No duel.

- Oh, I am so gratefully happy.

- Happy, and you look at me, I live.

(slow music)

- It is strange indeed, my lord,

how the familiar world, the daylight,

the heavens themselves have changed since your arrival.

I never met a real lord before.

You, my lord, must have met so many, many girls

in the great world.

- No, never.

- No other girls before today, my lord?

- Before today, I wasn't here.

I was born in your eyes.

My brain whirls.

- If witchcraft be a whirling brain,

a roving eye, a heart of pain.

My lord, do you really believe in witchcraft?

- With all my heart.

- And approve of it?

- With all my soul.

- So do I.

Well, that is, innocent witchcraft.

Not to harm anybody, you know,

but just to feel all the trembling excitement

and the dark mystery.

You know the way you feel when you blow out your candle

all alone in your bedroom,

and watch the smoke fade away in the moonshine?

- Fade away in the moonshine.

- Oh, but we mustn't speak of it, my lord.

In a town like this, all such mysticism

is considered damnable.

But my lordship understands and approves.

I am so glad.

Have you read the Philosophical Considerations of Glanville?

(speaking in foreign language)

Presignification of Dreams?

What kind of witchcraft do you believe in, my lord?

- In all of yours.

- Nay, your lordship must not take me for a real witch.

I only tell fortunes, you know like this morning.

- I know, you told how my heart would break.

- Oh, that's palmistry.

That's not always certain.

But the surest way to a prophecy, do you know what that is?

- [Ravensbane] Tell me.

- To count the crows.

Do you know how?

- One for sorrow.

- Ah, yes!

Two for mirth.

- Three for a wedding.

- [Rachel] Four for a birth.

- And five for the happiest thing on Earth.

- My lord, how did you ever learn that?

(Ravensbane laughing)

I got it from an old goody here in town.

A real witch-wife.

And if you promise not to tell a secret, I will show you.

But you must promise.

- I promise.

- Come, then.

I will show you a real piece of witchcraft

that I bought from her this morning.

The glass of truth, there, behind that curtain.

If you look in, you will see.

But come, I will show you.

- My lord, your pipe. (Rachel exclaims)

- Master Dickonson, oh, you frightened me!

- So excessively sorry.

- But how did you-

- I believe you were showing his lordship-

- No, nothing.

Nothing at all.

- Why did you come?

- Allow me.

'Tis high time you got to the point, Jack.

'Tis near your lordship's reception.

Woo and win, boy, woo and win.

- Leave me.

- Your lordship's humble, very humble.

- My lord, why do you keep this man?

- [Ravensbane] Why?

- Forgive me, but he frightens me.

- You don't like him?

Then I don't like him, either.

We'll send him away, you and I.

- Well you, of course, but I-

- You be Dickon.

You light my pipe and be with me always.

And I'll live for you, and fight for you,

and kill your betrothed.

- No, no.

- But your eyes say yes.

Mistress Rachel leaves me, but Rachel in her eyes remains.

Is it not so?

- Oh, my lord, what can I say?

It, it is true that since my eyes met yours

a new passion has entered into my soul.

I have felt, oh, but 'tis so impertinent,

'tis so absurd in me, a mere girl,

and you, a nobleman of power.

Yet I have felt it irresistibly, my lord,

a longing to help you.

I am so sorry for you, my lord, so sorry.

I pity you deeply.

Oh, forgive me, forgive me, my lord.

Indeed, indeed, it is so rude, just so absurd.

I do not understand it, my lord,

how so mere and poor a girl as I can have helped you,

yet I do believe it is so, for I feel it is so.

My lord, what can I do for you?

- Be mine.

Let me be yours.

- But my lord, do I love you?

- Love, is it a kiss, an embrace?

Then you don't love me.

Is it to nourish, to lift up?

To smile upon a worm?

Then you love me.

- Oh, my lord, do not speak so of yourself.

Nor exalt me so falsely.

- Be mine.

- Great glory has descended upon this day.

- Be mine?

- Oh, could I but be sure that this glorious love, oh then-

- It is not love, it is witchcraft!

- Who is that?

Richard!

- You have indeed forgotten me?

Oh, to God, Rachel, I could forget you.

- Permit me, sir.

- Silence!

Against my will, I am a convert to your own mysticism.

For nothing less than damnable illusion could so instantly

wean your heart from me to this.

I do not pretend to understand it,

but that it is witchcraft, I am convinced,

and I will save you from it.

- No, go.

Please go.

- Permit me, sir.

You have not yet replied to flails.

- Permit me, sir.

My answer is bare cob.

Thresh this, sir, for your antagonist.

'Tis the only one worthy of your lordship.

- [Rachel] Richard!

- Upon my honor as a man-

- As a man forsooth!

Were you indeed a man, Lord Ravensbane,

I would've accepted your weapons and flailed you

out of New England, but it is not my custom

to chastise renegades from asylums

or to banter further words with a natural and a ninny.

- Squire Talbot, will you leave my uncle's house?

- One moment, mistress.

I didn't wholly catch the import of this gentleman's speech,

but I fancy I've insulted him by my reply to his challenge.

One insult may perhaps be remedied by another.

Permit me to call you a ninny!

And to offer you swords!

- Thanks, I reject the offer.

- He rejects it.

Well...

- And now, will you leave?

- At once, but one word more.

Rachel, Rachel, have you forgotten this morning

and the glass of truth?

- No.

- Call it a fancy now, if you will.

I scoffed at it, yes, yet you believed it.

I loved you truly, you said.

Well, have I changed?

- Yes.

- Or will you test me again in the glass?

- No, please go!

- I will go.

I have still a word with your aunt.

- [Ravensbane] I beg pardon.

You said just now that had I been a man...

- I say, Lord Ravensbane, that the straight fiber

of a true man never warps the love of a woman.

As for yourself, you have my contempt and pity.

Pray to God, sir.

Pray to God to make you a man.

- Oh, this is intolerable!

My dear lord,

I do believe in my heart that I love you.

And if it is so, I will with gratitude be your wife.

That strange, glamorous, strange darknesses reel

and bewilder my mind.

I, I must be alone.

I must think and decide.

Will you give me this tassle?

- Take it.

(gentle music)

- If I decide that I love you,

that I will be your wife, I will wear it

at the reception this afternoon.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

- Oh God, are you here?

Dear God, I pray,

make me to be a man.

- Oh, Jackie.

Thou shouldst of prayed to t'other one.

- Will you not listen?

- Such a delightful room.

I particularly admire that portrait.

The waistcoat is beautifully executed.

If I were to give him 10,000 pounds-

- Flails, flails in the study!

- Madame, the minister and his wife

have turned in at the gate.

- Guests, is it so late?

- 'Tis four o'clock, madame.

- Micah, move these flails, at once.

- Yes, madame.

Madame, in all my past years of service at Merton House,

I never waited upon a lord until today, and madame,

in all my future years of service at Merton House,

I trust I may never wait upon a lord again.

- Micah, mind the knocker.

Yes madame, yes madame.

- Rachel!

Rachel!

- And you are satisfied with nothing less

than the sacrifice of my niece?

- Your worship, Minister Dodge, Mistress Dodge.

- Oh, oh, believe me, this is the greatest privilege.

- Nay, nay, nay, nay, the privilege is ours, Justice.

To enter a righteous man's house is to stand,

as t'were, on the threshold of God.

- Amen, amen.

- My guest, the Lord Ravensbane will be here directly,

but permit me to introduce to you his tutor,

Master Dickonson, Master Dodge, Mistress Dodge.

- Master Dickonson, sir.

- Madame, of all the professions in the world,

your husband's most allures me.

- 'Tis a worthy one, sir.

- And so arduous, especially for a minister's wife.

- (laughs) Oh, thank you.

- Lord Ravensbane comes from abroad, huh?

- London.

- Oh, he's an old friend of yours, I understand.

- From London, yes.

Did I say London?

Quite so, London.

- Captain Bugby!

The governor's secretary.

- Justice Merton, your very humble servant.

- Permit me, Captain Bugby.

- And Minister Dodge.

Master Dickonson, my good friend Master Dickonson,

this is indeed.

How is his lordship?

(Dickonson coughing)

Ah, discretion, Mistress Dodge, your servant.

(Mistress Dodge coughing)

Oh, the latest, the very latest from London, I assure you.

Ask Master Dickonson.

- These will all hatch out in the springtime.

(Gilead laughing)

- Really, my good friend, may I not venture to inquire

how his lordship is in health since-

- Oh, quite, quite.

- [Cynthia] Mistress Dodge.

- I informed Squire Talbot of his lordship's

epigrammatic retort, the retort of (laughs),

that reply was a stiletto.

'Twas sharper than a sword thrust, I assure you.

To have conceived it was inspiration,

to have expressed it, was genius.

- Indeed it is, madame, but if there were more

like your brother in the parish,

the conscience of the community would be clearer.

- Ah.

- The Reverend Master Rand of Harvard College,

the Reverend Master Todd of Harvard College!

- Oh, permit me, gentlemen.

Oh, this is the greatest honor.

It's most fortunate you should come here

before you return to Cambridge.

- It sticks me now in the ribs.

I shall die with concealing it.

- His excellency should be here directly.

- I cannot understand what keeps her, Charles.

He has two such charming daughters.

- That would never be countenanced in the college yard, sir.

Nay (speaking in foreign language).

- (laughs) 'Tis most unfortunate,

but I understand 'tis the new vogue in London.

- His excellency, Sir Charles Reddington,

Lieutenant Governor, the Mistress Reddington!

- My cousins. - Oh, your excellency.

Oh, this is the greatest honor, I assure you.

- Fine weather, Merton.

- [Girls] Justice Merton.

- Young ladies.

- Now, where's this young lord of yours?

- [Bugby] My dear Mistress Reddington.

Charming, Miss Amelia.

You two are so very late, but you shall hear.

- Your pipe, captain, what is this?

- Oh, the latest, the very latest,

I assure you, from London.

Wait 'til you see his lordship.

- Oh what, isn't he here?

- What say?

Traveling for his health?

- Partially, your excellency, but my young pupil and master

is of a singularly affectionate nature.

(girls laughing)

- What?

Flails, really?

- He has traveled here to Massachusetts singularly

to pay this visit to Justice Merton,

his father's dearest friend.

- Ah, knew him abroad, eh?

- In Rome, your excellency.

- [Mistress Dodge] Why, I thought it was in London.

- Oh, well, we traveled so many places together.

Rome, Lisbon.

- Paris, was it not, sir?

- Huh? Oh, Paris, yes.

Quite so, Paris.

- Lord Ravensbane!

- His lordship's arriving.

Permit me, your excellency.

May I introduce to you-

- Permit me, Mistress Rachel will introduce.

- Sir Charles, may I present my friend Lord Ravensbane?

- Lord Ravensbane.

- Trust me, your excellency I will inform his majesty

of your courtesy.

- Ah, Mistress Rachel.

You are as pretty as ever, I see.

Oh, I say, Bugby.

- Verily, sir.

As that prince of poets, the immortal Virgil has remarked

(speaking in foreign language).

- His lordship is evidently a university man.

- My daughters, sir.

Fanny and Amelia.

Lord Ravensbane.

- Your lordship. - Lordship.

- They're good girls, but silly.

- [Fanny and Amelia] Papa.

- Believe me, ladies, with the true sincerity of the heart.

- [Mistress Reddington] Isn't he perfection?

- [Bugby] What said I?

- Believe me, it's beyond all bounds of custom and decorum.

- Believe me, there's no such flatterer

to a woman's mind as music.

- In this presence?

Never.

- Nevertheless, it will amuse me vastly,

and you will announce it.

(guests chatting)

- Your excellency, my honored friends.

Permit me, his lordship has condescended to consent

to regale us, our company, with a song.

- [Group] A song?

- [Cynthia] Gilead, what is this?

- It is an old German ballad leader,

last performed by his lordship.

A particular favorite at the court of the King of Prussia,

and the title, has given it translation by his tutor.

- "The Prognostication of the Crows".

- [Gilead] Crows.

- [Group] Crows?

- Well, I'm further requested to tell you

that in ancient German heathen mythology,

the crow or the raven is considered to be

the fateful bird of the God Woden.

(guests murmuring)

- Come, come, come, come, come.

It's only a ballad.

It sounds like old England again.

- [Todd] Excellency?

- Oh, sit down, sit down.

Let's have it, Merton.

Yes, but will his lordship sing without music?

- Oh, his tutor, Master Dickonson

has consented to accompany his lordship at the spinet.

- [Amelia] Oh, how delightful.

- [Rand] Shall we remain?

- [Todd] We must.

(eerie spinet music)

- My tassle, you don't wear it.

- My heart still wavers, my lord.

Whilst you sing, I will decide.

- Whilst I sing?

My fate is waiting for me then, at the end of a song.

At the end of a song.

- Your lordship.

- Permit me.

♪ Baron von Rabenstod arose ♪

♪ The golden sun was rising ♪

♪ Before him flew a flock of crows ♪

♪ Sing high, sing high, sing high ♪

♪ Sing ♪

♪ Ill speed, ill speed, thee baron-wight ♪

♪ Ill speed thy palfrey pawing ♪

♪ Blithe is the morn, but black the night ♪

♪ That hears a raven's cawing ♪

(crows cawing)

- Do you hear them?

Shh. - [Amelia] What can that be?

(guests murmuring) (eerie music)

- Please note, my friends, the accompanying harmonics.

♪ The baron wrecked not a pin ♪

♪ For the golden sun was shining ♪

♪ He rode to woo, he rode to win ♪

♪ Sing high, sing high, sing high ♪

♪ Sing ♪

♪ He rode into his prince's hall ♪

♪ Through knights and maidens flowery ♪

♪ Thy daughter, prince, I bid thee call ♪

♪ I claim her hand and dowry ♪

(crows cawing)

- This gentleman's playing is somewhat ventriloquistical.

- 'Tis more than that, sir.

- It's abyssal. - [Todd] It is unholy!

- Shall we leave?

♪ What cock is this with crest so high ♪

♪ That crows with such a pother ♪

♪ Baron von Rabenstod am I ♪

♪ Methinks we know each other ♪

♪ Now, welcome, welcome, dear guest of mine ♪

♪ So long why didst thou tarry ♪

♪ Now, for the sake of auld lang syne ♪

♪ My daughter thou shalt marry ♪

(crows cawing) (eerie music)

- Smacks of witchcraft.

(woman whispers)

♪ The bride is brought, the priest, as well ♪

♪ The golden sun was passing ♪

♪ They stood beside the altar rail ♪

♪ Sing ah, sing ah, sing ah ♪

♪ Sing ♪

♪ Woman, with this ring I thee wed ♪

♪ What makes his voice so awing ♪

♪ The baron by his bride is dead ♪

♪ Outside the crows ♪

♪ Are cawing ♪ (crows cawing)

- This is no longer godly!

Justice Merton (speech drowned out by crows)

- See, I will wear it now.

You yourself shall fasten it.

- Rachel.

- My lord.

- I told you, witchcraft, like murder, will out.

Lovers, behold yourself.

(Rachel gasps)

- Do not look!

- Too late.

- What? - Leave me!

Richard!

(women exclaiming)

- Fear not, mistress.

I'll kill this thing.

Fear'st thou me?

What art thou?

Why, 'tis a glass.

Mockest, thou me?

Look, mistress.

It mocks me.

(metal clanging) (women exclaiming)

Oh.

No.

No.

Oh God, please.

Take it away.

No.

Don't.

Don't look.

It's, it's...

I...

- Witchcraft.

- [Group] Witchcraft!

- [Man] Witchcraft!

Witchcraft!

(solemn music)

(beeping)

- [Announcer] And now, Act IV

of "The Scarecrow", by Percy MacKaye.

(sorrowful music)

- All have left me.

Rachel has left me.

All that I loved, all that loved me have left me.

But not thou.

If thou art I,

if thou dost feel these pangs thine own,

show themself mercy, speak.

What art thou?

What am I?

Why are we here?

Nay, though thou answer not these doubts,

yet mock them, mock them aloud,

even as there, monstrous, thou counterfeitist mine actions.

Speak, abject enigma.

Speak, poor shadow.

Thrust not thy mawkish face in pity toward me.

Ape and idiot.

Speak!

God, dost thou dwell in this thing?

Is it thou that peerest forth at me, from me?

Between the rise and setting of the sun,

I've walked in this world of thine.

I've been thrilled with wonder.

I've been calmed with knowledge.

I've trembled with joy and passion.

Love has ravished me.

And I've cried this world, the heavens,

time itself are mine to conquer!

And I've thrust forth mine arm to wear thy shield forever!

And for thy shield, thou givest me a mirror,

and whisperest, know thyself!

Thou art a scarecrow.

A tinkling clod.

A rigmarole of dust.

At least I thank thee, God.

At least thou hast vouch-safe to me to know myself.

Scarecrow.

Scarecrow.

Scarecrow.

- [Scarecrow] Scarecrow!

Scarecrow!

Scarecrow!

(thoughtful music)

What face are you high up between the twinkling leaves?

Do you not like all the rest

turn aghast your eyes away from me?

Oh, beautiful face.

You are Rachel's, and you've changed the world.

Nothing is mean, nothing is loathsome.

But you have changed it to loveliness.

That even this shadow of a mockery

gives me the dear assurance I am a man.

[Scarecrow] A very pretty sophistry.

What voice has snatched you from me?

- A most poetified pumpkin.

- Thing?

Dost thou speak at last?

My soul abhors thee.

- [Scarecrow] (laughs) I am thy soul.

Thou liest!

Our daddy Dickon and our mother Rickby

begot and conceived us at sunrise in a Jack-o-lantern.

- Thou liest!

Thou art but a phantom in a glass!

- Why, very true.

So art thou.

We are pretty phantom in a glass.

- It's a lie.

It's a lie.

I am no longer thou, I feel it.

I am a man.

- And prithee, what's a man?

Man's but a mirror wherein the imps and angels

play charades, make faces, mope and pull each other's hair.

'Til crack!

The sly urchin death shivers the glass,

and the bare coffin boards show underneath.

- Yay, if it be so, thou coggery.

If both of us indeed be but illusions,

let's end together now.

But if it be not so, then let me

forever more be free of thee.

Now is the test.

The glass.

I'll play your urchin death, and shatter it!

Let's see what shall survive!

- I wouldn't really.

- Dickon.

Dear, Dickon.

Is it you?

- [Dickon] Yes, Jackie, it's dear Dickon,

and I really wouldn't.

- Wouldn't what?

- Sweep the cobwebs off the sky

with thine aspiring broomstick.

When a man questions fate, it's bad digestion.

When a scarecrow does it, it's bad taste.

- Dickon, at least you'll tell me the truth.

Am I then, that thing?

- You mustn't be so skeptical.

Of course you're that thing.

- Oh! Oh, God.

Rachel.

Rachel.

Why didst thou ever look upon me?

- I'm afraid Jackie, thou hast never studied

a woman's heart and hero worship.

Take thyself now.

I was remarking only this morning to thy mother Goody

when I was chucking her by pate from off the hayloft.

That wouldst make an Alexander

or a Mark Antony before night.

- Cease, cease, in pity's name!

You don't know the agony of being ridiculous!

- Nay, all mortals are ridiculous.

Like you, they are rummaged from the muck.

Like you, they should return to the dunghill.

And I advise 'em, like you, to enjoy the interim and smoke.

- This pipe.

This ludicrous pipe that I forever set to my lips and puff.

Why must I, Dickon?

Why?

- To avoid extinction, merely.

You see, Jackie, it's just as that fellow

in the mirror has explained.

You yourself are the subtlest of mirrors,

polished out of pipe smoke and pumpkin.

Into that mirror, the fair Mistress Rachel

has projected her lovely image,

and so provided you with what men call a soul.

- Then, then I have a soul?

Mistress Rachel has indeed made me a man.

- Oh, don't flatter thyself, Jackie.

Break thy pipe and whiff.

So, Mistress Rachel, man, truth,

this pretty world itself go up in the last smoke.

- No, no, not Rachel.

- Mistress Rachel exists for you

merely in your lordship's pipe bowl.

- Then all, all is lost to me.

- Paradise lost again.

They're always blaming it on me.

There was that gaunt fellow in England,

recently wrote a parody on me

when I was in the apple business.

Good verse, too, for a parody.

Farewell, thou happy fields, where joy forever dwells.

Hail, horrors.

Hail, infernal world.

And thou profoundest hell receive thy new possessor.

- [Rickby] Dickon!

- [Dickon] Hello, you, Bess.

- There be no moment to lose.

Justice Merton and his neighbors

have ended their meeting at Minister Dodge's.

They be coming here.

- Well, let 'em come. We're ready.

- But thou toldst me they had discovered-

- See the scarecrow in a mirror?

What of it?

It's bewitched, that's all.

- All?

Witchcraft is hanging, that's all!

The glass was bought of me, of me, the witch!

Whilst be my hangman, Dickon.

- Let's give me a kiss, Bess.

- But how wilt thou explain that?

- Shh, trust me and thy son.

When Mistress Rachel is thy daughter-in-law

all will be safe, for the Justice

will protect his niece's family.

- But when he knows that-

- Shh, but he will not know.

How can he?

When the mirror's declared a fraud,

how can he or anyone know that we made

this fellow out of rubbish?

Who, but a poet, forsooth thought, the devil,

would even believe it?

You mustn't credit men with our imaginations, my dear.

- Will bring me through this safe?

- As I adore thee, and my own reputation.

- I see their lanterns down the road.

- Stay, marchioness.

His lordship, my lord, your lady mother!

- Your servant, my son. (laughs)

- [Ravensbane] You lie, both of you.

I was born of Rachel.

- Tut, tut, Jackie.

You mustn't mix up mothers and prospective wives

at your age, it's fatal!

- Gah! They're coming.

- Shh, fear not.

I'll follow thee.

- She's coming.

Rachel's coming.

And I may not look upon her.

- Eh, why not?

- Because I am a monster!

- Fie, fie, Jackie.

Thou shalt have her.

- Have her.

- For lover and wife.

- For wife?

- For wife and all.

Thou hast but to obey.

- Who will do this for me?

- I.

- Dickon would make me a man and worthy of her?

- Fiddle-dee-dee, I make over no masterpieces.

No, your mistress shall be Cinderella,

and drive to the palace with her pumpkin.

- No.

- What, thou wilt not?

- No. Never.

- Harkee, manikin.

Hast thou learned to suffer?

- Yes. - I taught thee.

Shall I teach thee further?

- Thou canst not.

- Cannot, huh?

What if I should teach Rachel, too?

- Rachel?

Now I know thee.

- Flattered.

- Devil!

Thou wouldst not torment Rachel.

- Not if my lord-

Speak, speak.

What must I do?

- Be silent, and not speak,

and acquiesce in all that I say.

- I'll be silent.

- And acquiesce.

I will

be silent.

(crowd murmuring)

- Lord, be thou present with us in this unholy place.

- [Group] Amen.

- [Dickon] Friends, have you seized her?

- Stand you from us!

- Sir, the witch!

Surely, you would not let her escape.

- [Group] Witch? - [Dodge] A witch?

What witch?

- A dame in a peaked hood.

She but now fled this house.

She called herself Goody Rickby.

- [Male] Goody Rickby!

- Yea, mistress, yes, and confessed all the damnable art,

by which all of us had been so lately terrorized.

- She's confessed what?

- Ay, well, what said she?

- This.

It seemed that for some time past

she hath cherished vengeful thoughts

against our honored host Justice Merton.

- Ay, he hath often righteously condemned her.

- Precisely.

And so in revenge, she hath bewitched yonder mirror,

and this morning, unlawfully,

inveigled this sweet, young lady into purchasing it.

- Mistress Rachel!

- Girl, didst thou purchase that glass?

- Yes.

- [Dodge] From Goody Rickby?

- Yes.

Richard.

- But the image, what was that damnable image in the glass?

- It was a familiar devil of hers, sir.

A sly imp who wears two mortal eyes

the shape of a scarecrow.

It seems she commanded this devil to reveal himself

in the glass in the lord's own image,

that doth she might wreck Justice Merton's family felicity!

- Oh, infamous!

- Indeed, sir, and it was this very devil

who but now she stole here to consult withal,

when she encountered me, attendant here

upon my poor prostrate lord,

and held by the wrath in my eye, she confessed it all!

- Thunder and brimstone!

Where is this accursed hag?

- Gone, gone!

If you had but stopped her!

- I know her den, the blacksmith shop.

Come, we'll seize her there.

Honored friends, come with us!

Heaven and her angelic host shields the innocent!

Come!

- [Dodge] Ay.

- [Charles] Ay!

- So, dear friends, this strange incident

is happily elucidated.

Bygones therefore, be bygones.

The future brightens with orange blossoms.

Hymen and Felicity stand here with us together

ready to unite these bashful lovers.

His lordship is reticent.

Yet you alone, of all beautiful ladies, Mistress Rachel-

Silence!

- My lord- - Silence!

Dare not speak to her!

- My babe is weaned.

- My lord, if I have made you suffer-

- Rachel. - Gracious lady.

Please, look not upon me.

If I dare now speak one more time to you,

it is because I would have you know, forgive me,

that I love you.

- Sir!

This lady has renewed her promise to be my wife!

- Your wife or not, I love her.

- Sir! - Please, hear me.

For one day, I've gazed upon your world.

A million forms of stones, of trees, of men,

of common things have swum before mine eyes.

But only one was wholly beautiful.

That form was Rachel.

To her alone, I wasn't ludicrous.

To her, I also was beautiful.

Therefore, I love her.

- My lord-

- And what is love?

The night and day of the world, the all of life.

Mistress, mother, wife.

I love you.

- My lord, I can only reply for Mistress Rachel,

that you speak like one who does not understand this world.

- Do you?

If so, tell me before it's too late.

Why in this world such a thing as I can love,

and speak of love?

Why in this world a true man and woman

like you and your betrothed can look upon

this counterfeit and be deceived?

- Counterfeit? - Counterfeit?

- Me, on me.

- Why, are you not Lord Ravensbane?

- No, I'm not Lord Ravensbane.

I am a nobleman of husks, bewitched of a pumpkin.

I am Lord Scarecrow.

- Oh, me, then the image in the glass was true!

- Remember, if you dare.

Rachel shall suffer for it.

- You lie.

She is above your power.

- Still, thou darest not.

- Fool, I dare!

Mistress?

This pipe, this little pipe is I.

If I should break it, this of me that stands before you

would sink gentle to the floor, a scarecrow.

See? (wood breaking)

(eerie music) (Rachel gasps)

I break it.

Oh, Rachel.

If I could've been a man.

- Richard.

Richard.

My lord!

Look, the glass!

- Who's there?

It's yourself, my lord.

'Tis the glass of truth.

(gentle music)

- A man.

(whimpers) (Rachel gasps)

- Dead.

- But a man.

(solemn music)

(thoughtful music)