SCENE iv PART FIRST
NELSON (suddenly) What are you thinking, that you speak no word ?
HARDY (waking from a short reverie)
Thoughts all confused, my lord :—their needs on deck,
Your own sad state, and your unrivalled past;
Mixed up with flashes of old things afar—
Old childish things at home, down Wessex way,
In the snug village under Blackdon Hill
Where I was born. The tumbling stream, the garden,
The placid look of the grey dial there,
Marking unconsciously this bloody hour,
And the red apples on my father's trees,
Just now full ripe.
NELSON
Ay, thus do little things Steal into my mind, too. But ah, my heart Knows not your calm philosophy!—There's one— Come nearer to me, Hardy.—One of all, As you well guess, pervades my memory now; She, and my daughter—I speak freely to you. JTwas good I made that codicil this morning That you and Black wood witnessed. Now she rests Safe on the nation's honour . . . Let her have My hair, and the small treasured things I owned, And take care of her, as you care for me !
HARDY promises.
NELSON (resuming in a murmur)
Does love die with our frame's decease, I wonder, Or does it live on ever ? . . .
A silence. BEATTY reapproach.es.
HARDY
Now I'll leave,
See if your order's gone, and then return.
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