The Impuritans

The ImpuritansAuthor(s): Austin ClarkeSource: Irish University Review, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Autumn, 1970), pp. 131-148Published by: Edinburgh University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25476964 .

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131

Austin Clarke

The Impuritans

A play in one act freely adapted from the short

story 'Young Goodman Brown'

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

CHARACTERS

Goodman Brown Deacon Gookin

Faith, his wife Goody Cloyes The Man from Boston Goody Bibby The Minister of Salem The Preacher

Villagers, Red Indians, and others

scene :

Near Salem. Forest, right, garden gate left. Moonlight.

faith Dear Goodman, do not go into the forest

Tonight.

GOODMAN Faith, why dost thou shake thy pretty curls and

Pink ribbon of thy cap at me?

faith In truth, I fear that something ungodly may hap to thee

In the wilderness.

goodman I have to go, sweet love, I'm late already and the Man from Boston

Has lengthier legs than I have.

faith What can he want

With thee? Thou did'st not tell thy little wife

Last night even in bed when she was warming

Thy cold toes.

Goodman He is a merchant, a cornfactor, And when I have done a secret business for him,



132 Austin Clarke

All that we wish for will tumble into our laps, like, Like . . . buckets of blueberries, huge water-melons,

Oranges, nectarines.

faith Our cot, the bit, The sup, what more do we want?

Goodman Delay will empty The poke. I dare not disappoint him. Just say A prayer for me before thou takest thy skirt off,

My Saint, for it has kept me close to Heaven.

faith Bide with me, Goodman, for, in truth, I know that

Ungodliness is waiting for thee, there, In the wilderness.

Goodman Why dost thou tremble ? Art thee a Quaker, The name we throw at the new kind of Christians ?

Remember the martyrs in Old England, mocked at,

Sore-beaten, stocked, imprisoned, fined. Remember

Those who were carted to the faggots at Tyburn,

Sea-Pilgrims who escaped Leviathan, hobbled

Ashore from bowline to the warm wash. Far in The forest, thy whisper will clasp me in the dark

As though we shared the same pillow. Come, give me the kiss

I fancy, the colonial one, to buttonhole my thoughts on

The Indian trail.

faith (listening) Goodman, what's that?

The leaves Are creeping over there. O God above, The Wampanoias are padding towards the village

Again.

GOODMAN No . . .

People are coming from it, two

By two. Look, there's old Ebenezer Muggins, With Hookham, the tanner, Thomas Maul, Deliverance Parker from Poison Lane.

faith And Alice, his third wife, Ann Pudento, Mary Easty of Topsfield, Her grannie, Good Easty, hobbling on

A stick.

What can it mean?



The Impuritans 133

GOODMAN

FAITH

GOODMAN

The butternut tree. Keep in the shade of

FAITH

GOODMAN

Faith

GOODMAN

There's Bethial Carter, Dorcas

Hoare, Abigail Hobbs, Bartholomew Gender, Martha

Gunne, Jonathan Ruck and Mary Ripper from Main

Street.

Who'd believe it, Faith?

Matthias Pilgrim, The anchor-smith, with David Hodge, the boatman

From Cat Cove, closer than a pair of smugglers Running a cargo from Nantucket.

Goodman, I saw your mother and mine go by, hiding

Their faces as they passed, but I would know

Those Sunday bonnets of theirs from the

whipping-post Of Salem to Sateschewan.

Your father and mine

Are with them. All's well. It must be a midnight Revival. Yes, there ride the Reverend Ezekiel

Burroughs and Deacon Gookin with three Select

Men. One of them is holding up a heavy Bible.

It must be from our Village Hall.

But tell me, Goodman, why is Titibu, The Indian, among them in his war-dress, Head-feathers aflaunt, when he has twice renounced

The Devil and all his pomps, saved by the Holy

Spirit that drew him from the bench to testify? And look at her?Mistress Bibby with her broomstick.

They say she is?

(whispering) a witch?

although she has taken

A tight little corner, safe from draughts, at our Sunday Services.

What's to fear?

They share the Holy

Spirit with us and come to offer up Their follies tonight. If all were wickedness

Below, how could we cherish our fellow-beings,

Disperse the Gospel ?



134 Austin Clarke

faith Husband, thou must be right And speakest as well as any preacher. The Saints, Of Salem are going into the wilderness

To find their true selves.

(inspired) Others to come will hymn,

Hack, fell, a westward trail, drive out the evils, The strange superstitions, that dumble out of

The forest at night-come, making our very

Scalps shiver, the mask-men, cruel as the black bears

That snuffle around our middens.

Goodman Spirit has moved thee, Thou speakest so well. Remember these words and

rise from The bench, next Sunday.

(she clasps his hand, turns)

faith Look, more have taken to

The wild. We'll count them, finger by finger

(In their excitement, they forget everything else) Sarah

Busk. Susannah Rootes.

Goodman Captain John Alderson

From Pickering Point.

faith Watchmaker Obadiah Godley.

Jane Wheat.

GOODMAN Christopher Babbige from the Neck.

Mark Grimes.

faith Elizabeth Broadfoot.

Isaac Jacobs.

Goodman Giles Gorey.

Prophecy Felt.

faith With Mistress Felt.

Goodman Roger, the warehousman.

faith Isaiah Googe.

Goodman Benjamin Brome

faith Praise-God Cromel



The Impuritans 135

Goodman John Wallace of Wilts HalL

faith Ann Puddlephat.

goodman Bridget Bishop

faith William Warwell.

And Robert Kitchin.

goodman Peter Cheeve, the glover.

faith John Skevvy.

goodman Mary Crowningshead.

faith Nathaniel

Gubbins from Beadle Lane.

goodman Rebecca Eames.

faith John Crowe, the slaughterer.

goodman More still... Elijah Soames from the Blue Anchor Inn.

faith His wife.

goodman Elizabeth Colsin.

faith Goliath Muggeridge, The quill-man. Miriam Laca. Last of all, Poor Mistress Peabody, who lost her man

A year ago, come Fall.

That's fifty-four,

No, almost sixty, counting our parents. Still more?

Martinmas Huggins and that religious example? Old Goody Cloyes.

goodman Aye; Goody Bibby has beaten

Her to it !

faith What is it?

goodman (alarmed) I forgot that man!

faith Whatman?

goodman The Man from Boston.

I'll take the left

Turn, leap along the war-trail like a chipmunk And startle my own shadow.



Austin Clarke

(He darts towards forest. She follows him)

faith Goodman, our kiss, The tippy-go-by one.

Goodman (off) Too late.

Too late.

(echo) Too late.

( The Indian trail, dimly lit)

goodman Aye, every trunk might have a Redskin behind

It or above my poll. (an owl hoots) Owl's Feather and

His braves, their scalping knives in belt. I'll cling to

The lacy flounces of my Faith. May Heaven

Protect me!

(Dark stage, slow pad of hooves, jingle of

harness, at some distance).

deacon gookin Pox on it, Reverend Sir, I'd rather miss

An Ordination Dinner than the Midnight Atonement. They tell me that a dozen Ministers

From Falmouth, Connecticut, Rhode Island, are to

Be with us, besides the pow-pows in their paint and war

Attire; all pleasant fellows with a sharp eye for

A scalp! Is it true that a godly young woman from Salem

Will take the Communion Cup?

minister Yes, Deacon Gookin

And a young man will be fired with her.

The moon is

Up, we must hurry.

( They leave in a moonray. Goodman Brown is seen)

goodman Our minister and Deacon Gookin.

(Exit. Farther on. A heavy man is sitting on a

stump. He leans on a twisted snakewood stick.

Goodman enters)

the man from boston

You're late, young Goodman Brown. The big South Clock was striking midnight as I came



The Impuritans 137

Through Boston ? and that's a quarter of an hour

Ago.

goodman Faith, I mean my wife. Sir, would have me stay Lest I be lost.

the man (impatient) You needn't tell me that.

I know. I know.

goodman Then came the Venerables, The Revival men.

man (getting up) Let us stroll on, my boy, and talk

It out. When we have gone farther into

The forest, where trees wed; sun, moon, have never

come

For centuries.

goodman Too far, too far. My father, God rest him, would never run on an errand such

As this, Sir, nor his father's father before him.

They held that the wilderness was accursed

And both were honest men, used harder than

Their spades and cutters by the Masters of

New England, holding the Faith, respecting the

Martyrs.

No Brown has ever shamed us.

the man

Well said, my cockerel. I knew the Browns before you were begotten

At half-past three on a snowy Sabbath morning When your Dad woke up, stiff with the cold, till the

short

Time making you warmed him and your mother. I

knew

As well Constable Brown who lashed a Quaker Girl through the Salem Streets. I gave your

grandfather A pitchpine torch to fire an Indian camp

When scalpers and squaws with their babbies were

asleep ; And that was in the good old days of King Philip's

War.

(chuckling) Many a night your rip of a grandpa and I

Spent in the forest cuckolding the village,



Austin Clarke

With women horn-maddened after the menopause.

Aye, horny-mad every month for men. O, pause

My lad, and think how very strong the bad habits

Acquired in matrimony become?even In Puritan abodes.

goodman Begging your pardon, Good Sir, I never heard a slap against the Browns

In street or by-way. Such misbehaviour in

A small town would have drifted their folly out

To sea.

man You may be right. I knew your ancestor, The Old Archbishop, who buckled poor Annie Boleyn And Harry Tudor, the Welshman. She sang. He played On his recorder one night, then rose after supper,

Sweating and bawling for her maidenhead.

She lay halfback on the table's edge, obeyed him

So quietly, so quietly, he could

Not hear her last sigh. Come, let me think for a moment, Or two. The Bishop hated all superstition And vice; friars sizzling behind the convent grills,

Discussing their Saint Thomas with the Abbess. He bade his catechumens keep from the stews.

goodman Then, Sir, You disapprove of wickedness?

man (testily at first) Whether

I do or not, I've had a wide acquaintance, both

With high and low. Five Deacons of the Church

Have broken the communion loaf with me. Appointed Townsmen have voted me their Chairman. I hold The majority vote in the Great and the General

Council? But these are secrets of State.

goodman What could I know of

The Governor and his Council? I am a simple Toiler and if I followed your way how could I greet that poor old man, our minister,

At Salem village? His voice would unfloor my worn

Dutch sabots on Sabbath or Lecture night.

(The Man from Boston laughs immoderately. Stops)



The Impuritans 139

the man I see

My friend, Old Goody Cloyes, come plodding

Along. She must have lost her slippery broomstick

Again.

(sternly)

Step into a brake and wait for me.

(As the old woman hobbles past, he touches her

lightly on the shoulder. She screams)

goody cloyes The Devil Himself!

the man So Goody Cloyes does know

Her old friend again.

goody cloyes And is it, really and truly Your worship, looking so like Master Brown, The granda of that silly galoot who mitched from

My Sunday school.

Dear me, would you believe it?

I've lost my broomstick again. That unburned hag, Old Goody Bibby, stole it and my fine pot Of ointment to rub her part with.

Aye, smallage,

Cinquefoil and wolf's bane, hellebore.

the man Indian poke.

goody cloyes Dried stinkwort.

Itch-weed we put at night in philtres, With piss-a-bed salat, Love-lies-bleeding?

(chuckling) and the upshot Still warm, of a murderer?at the wrong end

Of a rope.

the man (slyly) Perhaps, a tender little bit

Of babbie's fat to bind it.

goody cloyes Aye, well indeed

Your Worship knows the recipe. But as I

Was saying a minute ago, without a gee-gee Between my legs, I had to slog it on foot, for

The gossips in Salem say a nice young fellow

Is to be fired tonight. I love to hear

The hullabaloo when their shirt-tails are aflame, So lend me your arm and we'll be there, Sir, in the

Flick of a whip.



140 Austin Clarke

the man Here, take my stick. I've much

To do this night.

goody cloyes The Crooked One, the rod

The Aegyptian High-priest blessed at Pharoah's

Court

And shook into the shape of a serpent ! Look, his

scales

Are bangling. Aye, he's trying to escape but

I'll put here where he should be, scamper along The sky.

(she gets astride the stick and whirls out)

goodman (emerging) My God! So that's the pious old woman

Who taught me the catechism every Sunday in

Class.

Sir, my mind is made up. That wretched creature, who

Mistook you for my Grandad, may go to blazes

But I'll not follow her smouldering shawl.

My Faith And I will never part.

the man Well-spoken, my Boy. You should have been a clergyman. The Browns

Were always eloquent and studied the Breeches

Bible.

But think of it, my Lad.

We'll meet

Hereafter.

(He leaves, left, Goodman hides as Goody Bibby passes)

goody bibby Wicked old rip, she always gets my dander, but

I'll catify her mus, her old familiar.

(Another part of forest. Goody Bibby hides stick as Goody Cloyes enters. Goodman, behind a tree)

goody cloyes Hi ! Wait for me.

What are you doing here

In the forest, Goody Bibby?

goody bibby (with dignity) The same as you, Good Mistress Cloyes.

(sniggering) Old women want it still

When their man's bedridden.

goody cloyes Then, go to the Devil for it.



The Impuritans 141

goody bibby I'm going, duckie.

goody cloyes

Yestr'een, you pinched my broomstick

And smeared your filthy hide with my fine ointment, Slabbered your you-know-what three times to please

His Lordship.

goody bibby (primly) He is most particular

goody cloyes Now, give me back broom-handle, grease-pot. goody bibby I can't.

goody cloyes Why not?

goody bibby I haven't got them.

jOODY cloyes

You hag, you'r using

My broom to sweep the thrash under your bed

And you frothed the philtre-pot I charmed

For Mary Titch, last Hallowe'en.

Bid your Familiar fetch them from Salem or by the giblets Of Thoth and Set, I'll embalm your shabby remains,

Pyramidize them by old Nilus.

goody bibby I'll strip Your smicket off, sockdolger your tail

By Azrael and Ahriman, the doers i'

The dark.

(runs at her)

goody cloyes Let go my diddies.

goody bibby Let go my mousie.

goody cloyes Come all ye, Spirits of salt, from Sprinkledom,

Help Goody Cloyes.

goody bibby Come up, Sulphuria, Dire heat from below, help Goody Bibby And singe her smig.

goody cloyes I'll let mouse go, if you

Cry Pax.

goody bibby Aye, Pox vopiscum.

(with a jigstep) And dip it, my Girls, In the old piscina.



142 Austin Clarke

goody cloyes Goody, I call to mind

The first time when I was seventy to a night?

GOODY BIBBY (piously) I lingo'd his papatus

And Goody?it Was cold as ice.

goody cloyes I yelled like a young Salem

Bride. Suddenly all was a milk-soft fiery flux

That blissed me. All night I took and shared with him The immortal flow to the jiggedy-joggedy tune

Of

(lilting) We're awa' to Piddlecock Hill

(Arm-in-arm, they dance out with wobbly steps to the wild refrain. The Man from Boston and

Goodman enter left, right.)

the man Well met again, my Boy. The Earth is dwindling. As I was about to say, the last time. I've dined at

The Governor's table with the Quality :

And revisited the Old World. There, I was received

At King William's Court in a full bottom wig, Advised the Statesmen, Privy Councillors, sat on

The woolsack, met the Deist, Lord Bolingbroke, Had tay with Mr. Pope and his good friend, Martha

Blount, bowed to Dr. Swift, the pamphleteer. He recognized me, damned me as the first Whig. He

Has been far gone in farthingales, poor man, And will come to a rotten end. In the Coffee-house near

The Strand, Addison told me that the future Dean had been poxed by a Flemish whore at Ranelagh Gardens and left his new clerical umbrella

Behind a laurel. And by the way, Dr. Arbuthnot

Gave me a big wash-out. My rear was sore

For a week. I was acquainted with John Toland, Too, renegade mass-priest, reasonable fellow, Read, smoky page by page, his learned tome

Christianity Not Mysterious, burned

By order of the Irish Parliament :

And gave the wink to Mattie Tindal at

A Grub St. tavern. He never guessed that I

Had corrected in the Lock the sooty proofs of His book. The Right of the Christian Church Asserted.



The Impuritans 143

The printer's devils hoofed it to St. Paul's

And hid their rumps in the whispering Gallery, when

The House of Commons by a special vote

Condemned it. I know their Johnnie Dennis, too, The best of critics. His day will come back for pen Must dip in the inkwell of memory, to keep The type employed.

Damme, I'm getting old, For what could you know of such important matters?

(He leaves abruptly)

faith (far off) Help !

(a distant scream)

goodman Faith!

(Wild laughter. A ribbon flutters down) O God, her ribbon, her little pink cap-ribbon. I've lost my Faith for ever. Nothing is left

On earth but what is bad. Sin is a name

For besters. Beelzebub has turned our globe Around a dark sun, eclipsed by Armageddon. O never, never can I find my poor Faith

Again or clutch her skirt so near to Heaven.

She is betrayed. So let the Devil have

My hinders, flitch them, smoke them.

Soul's gone.

(He darts forward. Black out. Rumble of thunder.

Distant sound of a hymn. Gradual light. A forest

clearing. On left, downstage, a rock-cut pulpit, in which the Preacher is waiting, arrayed in red

surplice and black soutane. At the back, on a platform, Goodman wearing a demi-devil mask and Faith, veiled, in a night-dress, are standing by a flat altar. Right,

Minister and some townspeople, Titibu squatting. Left, Deacon Gookin and others, with two Indian sorcerers

in devil-costumes. Crowd offstage. The cyclorame

deepens to a red glow during the Sermon).

THE preacher Behated Brethern.

The blasphemous text

Of my discourse is stolen from the unauthorized

Version of Deuteronomy. For I say Unto you, my Chosen People, as Primate

Of the afflicted, the crafty One, the Chief Tormentor



Austin Clarke

Of the damned?Prepare ye for the Eternal Fire and

Rejoice because my Unf?llen power, angelic

Nature, turn pain to bliss, despair to a lasting Contentment. Know ye the deliberate truth

That much in your human will is evil, but learn

likewise that cruelty is banished by a loving Word. This is the doctrine of Pelagius :

The travelling light of the last star.

Therefore

My newly beloved Brethern, take ye every

Liberty with one another's person, practise The seven intimacies of touch. The Wells

Of Marah are no longer bitter as gall. Beneath your triumphant feet are strewn the

unwitherable

Leaves; self-plucked from the Tree of Knowledge. I

snuff

The sword of expulsion

(Blows. Flash. Thunder-clap) Lo ! Your Paradise has been

Re-entered. Step into the Future.

But, first, Welcome these two young converts to our Sabbath

Before they take the chalice of unbelief, The agape of their last agony. The momentary pang, the violating rod

Of fire, within, the coupling on the altar Of Baal.

(to the congregation) Welcome them.

crowd Welcome.

preacher Come, call louder.

crowd Welcome, welcome.

(a cloaked, hooded woman runs forward)

woman My son, think of

Thy Mother ! Beware of Clerk, frocked in the falsities

Of Reason.

goodman Mother!

man Stifle that wandering shade,



The Impuritans 145

(Black men bear her off. Goodman tears

off his mask. As he does so, Faith unveils herself)

goodman (crying out) O Faith, False as a Quakeress.

(He dashes to front) I have renounced the Devil

And all his pomps and works !

(Black out. Silence?long pause. Fade into morning sunshine outside cottage. Goodman is at gate. The Minister and Deacon

Gookin enter).

minister Good morning to you, young and deacon Goodman Brown. Our blessings on you.

Come to

The Sunday Service to-day, at eleven o'clock

To hear my new sermon.

(Goodman turns away. They nod in surprise as they leave. Faith hurries from the cottage).

faith Goodman, thank Heaven thou

Art back for I have had an evil dream in

The night. I thought that I was slowly drawn,

Will-sleeping, out of the bed, then, inch by inch, Across the matting to ewer. O then

My hand was on the door-knob and, Goodman , it

Was hot and sticky?with an odour of almonds. And

I remembered the words of the Scripture, heard my Black

Beloved, behind the golden tasselled curtains

Of Solomon, heard my own words : 'Lo ! my hands are

Under thy belly, sweet as calomel, aloes or

The hill-waters of Siloah. Thy twin fruit

Are rounder than pomegrenates.' 'But thine are two

Roes, knee-deep among lillies. Vine-curlets that

cluster

Thy virtue,' he sang, 'hide not the honeycomb That yields as thy scarlet lips yield.' Inch by inch

He drew me into his blackness and I knew

Too late, O Heaven, too late, that he was unclean.

Moonrays were fingering my nightdress. Inch

By inch, I was pulled into the forest, ran

Back, our cottage was gone, our butternut tree



Austin Clarke

A crackle of flame, a shower of sparks that midged me

Back into the forest. Then I was hurried past rows

Of measurement; yard by yard; They aimed at me

And I saw that they were fusils. Blasphemy

Spittled me. Foulness lipped my breath.

I stumbled

Along a clearing, fell and the Nubian

Possessed me under a totem pole, graven With dreadful grimace of idols while the half-clad

Women and men from Salem danced around us

With whoops of Red Indians. I slipped from under

My suffocater, torn nightdress in his hands, Saw Abigail Hobbs, Anne Pudento, Dorcas

Hoare, Mary Ripper?I blush to say it?buggered In turn by fiends in the shapes of sumpter, hell-hound,

Catamount.

Then I saw our Minister and

The rascally Deacon Gookin, with Mistress Hoare and

Her Grandmamma, all doing together at the same time

What we do, twice a week, when thou blowest the candle

Out quickly to save us from an unvirtuous glance. Black thighs was after me again, sweetness

Was swooning my will.

I lost all.

Our cottage door

Flew open. I jumped into our bed and?woke! Earliest sunlight, bee-light, on the patchwork

Quilt, Mother gave us when we were wed.

I told thee That Man from Boston was the Devil ; those people

We saw were village phantoms, bogies ; Their Worship false.

goodman I tell you it was no dream

Just now I meet our Minister and his new

Companion, Deacon Gookin, coming out of the

Forest, Buttons undone.

faith (softly) A dream.

Goodman (suddenly remembering) It was no dream for

I saw your haunches mooning two letchers into

A forest ride : I hid, watching my wife

Take both together, spend them, then go beneath



The Impuritans 147

Her Nubian, white legs, black legs, bandying it

Out.

faith Why dost thou start like that, so

goo-goo-eyed?

GOODMAN (pointing at forest) I see them at it still, the saints of Salem,

There in the forest around the accursed Maypole Naked as flowers, patriarchs who chattled

The women of Chaldea, casting lots in

The Land of Moab for the pectoral, The square of gold or dicing for the royal Ones, concubines of Siloah double-shotten

At midnight, when the moving Pillar of Fire

Glows under the sky-pegs of their tents, taking Their promises from the Old Testament.

So by My Faith, I'll give and take as they do, borrow

Their amulets, lie down to it

And never trust thy dainty placket-hole Till Doomsday.

faith (joyfully) Thou thouest me again.

goodman Thou are my wife, my whore.

faith (softly) Thy wife, thy whore for better

Or worse.

goodman Come, let us try the worst.

Do all that we say in dream or earnest. We

Are Bible-mad. Prophetic words possess us. God stays The pilgrim ships that carry salvation ever

Westward and on their homeward voyage, bring The pox that rages in Europe, uncovering monarchs, Their nobles, rutting 'em, rotting 'em, in and out.

Bedevilling the brainpans of the subjects. I see

These united states to come spread awful wars in

The Old World, brimestoning, pitching the very skies,

Lucifering their cities, massacring Men, women, children, setting them on fire

With naptha. O how can we make peace, cherish

Our Wives, our littlings, our crybabbies, neighbours, If wickedness has been jehovahed in us

And Puritan become Impuritan?



Austin Clarke

Never, never, can I believe a word

In this world or the next, never, never

Open the ancient Scripture without a new

Suspicion, trust thee in my bed or out

Of it.

What did Red Surplice say last night in That stone pulpit of his ?

Whether we dreamed or not, No marker is in the Book.

But I've a text

From the Epistles of St Paul.

Thou knowest it !

Marry or burn.

(approaching her) I burn for it

faith (softly) And I For thee.

goodman (at door of cottage) Let frolics missrule our known behaviour

We'll randy it out together, cuckold ourselves

And watch each other sporting in the handglass Of a dream played out in Genesis.

So, off with

Puritan costume and cap, petticoat, shift, Thick drawers. Let immodesty fill our chamber.

White chief Feel bad, want favourite squaw in her red skin

To pow-pow with him, squat in the wigwam, share

Big pipe of peace until the last puff is gone.

curtain



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The Impuritans