NEWCOMBE _gives a smothered cry, as one who half sees, and takes courage._ FENTON _dazedly starts to salute. Outside a bugle sounds, and a voice, almost at the door, is heard to speak._) VOICE OUTSIDE. For the last time: will you surrender you? JOHN TALBOT (_in a loud and confident voice_). No! Not while our commander stands with us! VOICE OUTSIDE. And who might your commander be? JOHN TALBOT. Hugh Talbot, the Captain of the Gate! The light here, Phelimy. (JOHN TALBOT _bends to set the candle to the powder that shall destroy Cashala Gatehouse, and all within it. His mates are gathered round him, with steady, bright faces, for in the little space left vacant in their midst they know in that minute that_ HUGH TALBOT _stands._) [CURTAIN] GETTYSBURG[1] Percy MacKaye SCENE: A woodshed, in the ell of a farm-house. The shed is open on both sides, front and back, the apertures being slightly arched at the top. (_In bad weather, these presumably may be closed by big double doors, which stand open now--swung back outward beyond sight._) Thus the nearer opening is the proscenium arch of the scene, under which the spectator looks through the shed to the background--a grassy yard, a road with great trunks of soaring elms, and the glimpse of a green hillside. The ceiling runs up into a gable with large beams. On the right, at back, a door opens into the shed from the house kitchen. Opposite it, a door leads from the shed into the barn. In the foreground, against the right wall, is a work-bench. On this are tools, a long, narrow, wooden box, and a small oil-stove, with steaming kettle upon it. Against the left wall, what remains of the year's wood supply is stacked, the uneven ridges sloping to a jumble of stovewood and kindlings mixed with small chips of the floor, which is piled deep with mounds of crumbling bark, chips and wood-dust. Not far from this mounded pile, at right centre of the scene, stands a wooden armchair, in which LINK TADBOURNE, in his shirt-sleeves, sits drowsing. Silhouetted by the sunlight beyond, his sharp-drawn profile is that of an old man, with white hair cropped close, and gray moustache of a faded black hue at the outer edges. Between his knees is a stout thong of wood, whittled round by the drawshave which his sleeping hand still holds in his lap. Against the side of his chair rests a thick wooden yoke and collar. Near him is a chopping-block. In the woodshed there is no sound or motion except the hum and floating steam from the tea-kettle. Presently the old man murmurs in his sleep, clenching his hand. Slowly the hand relaxes again.