The Piper Part 5

BARBARA Is it for pay you loiter, Master Player?

Were you not paid enough?

MICHAEL No.--One more look.

BARBARA Here, then.--Still not enough?

MICHAEL

No! One more smile.

BARBARA [agitated ]

Why would you have me smile?

MICHAEL [pa.s.sionately]

Oh, when you smiled, It was--it was like sunlight coming through Some window there, [Pointing to the Minster]

--some vision of Our Lady.

[She drops her flowers.--He picks them up and gives them back slowly.

BARBARA Who are you? You are some one in disguise.

MICHAEL [bitterly]

A man--that pa.s.ses for a mountebank.

BARBARA [eagerly]

I knew!

MICHAEL What then?

BARBARA Thou art of n.o.ble birth.

'T is some disguise, this playing with the fire!

MICHAEL Yes.--For to-day, I lord it with the fire.

But it hath burned me, here.

[Touching his breast.]

[Overcome for the moment, she draws away.-- The PIPER, coming down, speaks stealthily to MICHAEL, who is still gazing.

PIPER For all our sakes!

There is bad weather breeding.--Take to thy heels.

[BARBARA turns back to see MICHAEL withdrawing reluctantly, and throws a rose to him with sudden gayety.

BARBARA Farewell to you, Sword-Swallower!--farewell!

MICHAEL [looking back]

Farewell to you, my Lady, in-the-Moon.

[Exit.

[JAN clings once more to the PIPER, while the other children hang about. VERONIKA calls to her boy, from the steps.

VERONIKA Darling.--

PIPER [drawing nearer]

Is this your Boy?

VERONIKA Ay, he is mine; My only one. He loved thy piping so.

PIPER And I loved his.

HANS' WIFE [stridently]

Poor little boy! He's lame!

PIPER 'T is all of us are lame! But he, he flies.

VERONIKA Jan, stay here if you will, and hear the pipe, At Church-time.

PIPER [to him]

Wilt thou?

JAN [softly]

Mother lets me stay Here with the Lonely Man.

PIPER The Lonely Man?

[JAN points to the Christ in the Shrine. VERONIKA crosses herself.

The PIPER looks long at the little boy.

VERONIKA He always calls Him so.

PIPER And so would I.

VERONIKA It grieves him that the Head is always bowed, And stricken. But he loves more to be here Than yonder in the church.

PIPER And so do I.

VERONIKA What would you, darling, with the Lonely Man?

What do you wait to see?

JAN [shyly]

To see Him smile.

[The women murmur. The PIPER comes down further to speak to VERONIKA.

PIPER You are some foreign woman. Are you not?

Never from Hamelin!

VERONIKA No.

AXEL'S WIFE [to her child]

Then run along.

And ask the Piper if he'll play again The tune that charmed the rats.