Scored and re-scored,-- Illegible. Magdalen. Oh!--my father! Graham. So, sir! What Jupiter are you that walk away With ladies over mountains in the night! What radiant devil rather! With an art, Seven times refining the seducer's dross, You brand the reputation curelessly. And leave the spotless sufferer to pine, The guiltless-guilty in a hell of woe. Or are you but a thundering, blundering fool, Mad, not malignant? Do you understand? to-morrow all the county shall declare, And shortly London echo how Graham's girl-- Graham, the old fool, who never stirred from Garth, And out of harm's way kept his daughter snug, Filtering her reading, her acquaintanceship-- Never a man but Brown, her lord to be-- How she, when he, too confident because She just had named the day, brought home that night-- The first time since his daughter turned fifteen-- Two men, wild London fellows--hark, away, With both among the heather, o'er the moor! For there's your friend, I see, sir. Do you see? What's to do? Who is to suffer? Speak, sir! Maudlin, he stares at you; you, at the ground-- But that is well, Brown, speak to him--to them. Brown. Love holds my tongue, sir. Graham. What! do you love him? Why, now, as we came panting up the hill, You swore he was a mean adventurer, Poor as a rat, and friendless as a toad: A scribbling, bibbling, fribbling, poet, he Who takes it all so coolly there. Smith. He's dead. Graham. Dead!--O my God!--my head--my heart is split: No hiding now. O man, man, you have done Worse than you think! In every ha'penny rag, Cried in the streets, the talk of billiard-rooms-- My daughter Magdalen!--my happiness, My poem, picture, my divinity! I haven't fired a gun, or touched a card, Donned buckskin, made a bet, for five long years. I've led a dog's life; done dog's duty too; And been as happy as a faithful dog: And all to save my daughter from the taint That taints me, taints the world, and taints the best: I've no fine names for it; I know it's there. I've taught her everything--professors, books: Made her a--what's the word?--a paragon: And now I've got my nephew here, young Brown, Who had a grandfather, who had one too-- An Oxford man, a wholesome, handsome boy, Rich, well-disposed, to marry her: and here, Safe in my pocket, is their honeymoon-- A map, I mean, where I will follow them-- I've marked in red the route they'll take, you see-- Before I go to bed. I'll have my fling After they're married--do you understand? My poem out, my picture on the line, I'll dance, and sing, and dine, and wine, and shine! My God, Magdalen, don't stand staring there! The moon can't help you, bouncing as it is. I'm going mad. Brown, take my daughter home. Magdalen. Father I cannot, now, go home to-night, Unless he comes with us. Graham. He! whom? What! him? Magdalen. Father, for him you sacrificed yourself,