TABLEAU. EVIL AND GOOD

The Stage represents the Deacon's workshop; benches, shavings,
tools, boards, and so forth. Doors, C. on the street, and L.
into the house. Without, church bells; not a chime, but a slow
brokentocsin.

SCENE I

BRODIE (SOLUS). My head! my head! It's the sickness of the
grave. And those bells go on . . . go on! . . . inexorable as
death and judgment. [There they go; the trumpets of
respectability, sounding encouragement to the world to do and
spare not, and not to be found out. Found out! And to those who
are they toll as when a man goes to the gallows.] Turn where I
will are pitfalls hell-deep. Mary and her dowry; Jean and her
child - my child; the dirty scoundrel Moore; my uncle and his
trust; perhaps the man from Bow Street. Debt, vice, cruelty,
dishonour, crime; the whole canting, lying, double-dealing,
beastly business! 'My son the Deacon - Deacon of the Wrights!'
My thoughts sicken at it. [Oh the Deacon, the Deacon! Where's a
hat for the Deacon? where's a hat for the Deacon's headache?
(SEARCHING). This place is a piggery. To be respectable and not
to find one's hat.)


SCENE II

To him, JEAN, a baby in her shawl. C.