An early summer evening.
The window of the room opens on to a smooth lawn, used for bowling, and
a garden full of flowers._
_OLIVER'S wife, ELIZABETH CROMWELL, is sitting at the table, sewing. In
a chair by the open window MRS. CROMWELL, his mother, is reading. She is
eighty years of age._
_Mrs. Cromwell:_
Oliver troubles me, persuading everywhere. Restless like this.
_Elizabeth:_
He says that the time is uneasy, and that we are part of it.
_Mrs. Cromwell:_
There's a man's house. It's enough surely.
_Elizabeth:_
I know. But Oliver must be doing. You know how when he took the
magistracy he would listen to none of us. He knows best.
_Mrs. Cromwell:_
What time is John coming?
_Elizabeth:_
By nightfall he said. Henry Ireton is coming with him.
_Mrs. Cromwell:_
John Hampden is like that, too. He excites the boy.
_Elizabeth:_
Yes, but mother, you will do nothing with Oliver by thinking of him as
a boy.
_Mrs. Cromwell:_
Of course he's a boy.
_Elizabeth:_
He's forty.
_Mrs. Cromwell:_
Methuselah.
_Elizabeth:_
What?
_Mrs. Cromwell:_
I said Methuselah.
_Elizabeth:_
He says John's the bravest man in England.
_Mrs. Cromwell:_
Just because he won't pay a tax.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25