Plays by Alan Richardson

The Queensferry Diligence

Created as a no-competitive entry by my own club The Mercators for the 2011 S.C.D.A. One Act Festival, this piece has a running time of around 22 minutes.
I took an extract from The Antiquary, (Scott's third novel) and expanded into most of the first chapter of the novel. Standing as a complete item in its own right, 
The Queensferry Diligence can be staged very simply and requires a cast of six In this extract, Sir Walter Scott is trying to get on with his novel, but keeps getting unwelcome interruptions from a narrator.

The Characters
Narrator / Coachman
Sir Walter Scott
Lovel
 Mrs Macleuchar
Servant Wench Jonathan Oldbuck 

SCOTT           It was early on a fine summer's day, near the end of the eighteenth century, …..

  Lights up on main acting area.

  ..…when a young man, of genteel appearance, journeying towards the north-east of Scotland, provided himself with a ticket in one of those public carriages which travel between Edinburgh and the Queensferry, at which place, as the name implies, and as is well known to all my northern readers, there is a passage-boat for crossing the Firth of Forth. The coach was calculated to carry six regular passengers, besides such interlopers as the coachman could pick up by the way, and intrude upon those who were legally in possession. The tickets, which conferred right to a seat in this vehicle of little ease, were dispensed by a sharp-looking old dame, with a pair of spectacles on a very thin nose, who inhabited a "laigh shop” opening to the High Street at which she sold tape, thread, needles, skeins of worsted, coarse linen cloth, and such feminine gear, to those who had the courage to descend to the profundity of her dwelling.

  SERVANT WENCH enters. Moves to conduct business with MRS M.

  The written hand-bill which, pasted on a projecting board, announced that the Queensferry Diligence, or Hawes Fly, departed precisely at twelve o'clock, in order to secure for travellers the opportunity of passing the Firth with the flood-tide, lied on the present occasion like a bulletin.

  NARRATOR is puzzled by the last statement.

  NARR             ”Lied… like a bulletin”?.... A “bulletin”?.... (He consults his book)…. “A bulletin – a military dispatch for domestic publication, and therefore uneconomical with the truth”.

  SCOTT clears his throat.

  NARR             I do apologise. Pray continue.

SCOTT           The written hand-bill lied on the present occasion like a bulletin; for although that hour was pealed from Saint Giles's steeple….

LOVEL glances upward to the left.

….and repeated by The Tron….

LOVEL glances upward to the right.

…no coach appeared upon the appointed stand. It is true, only two tickets had been taken out, and possibly the lady of the mansion might have an understanding with her Automedon, that, in such cases, a little space was to be allowed for the chance of filling up the vacant spaces - or the said Automedon might have been attending a funeral….

NARR             “Automedon”? I fear our classical knowledge is being tested here. (Again consults his book) “In Greek mythology, Automedon was Achilles' charioteer”.  Not too many people know that.

NARRATOR realizes that SCOTT is giving him a look.

NARR             I am silent. 

SCOTT           Or the said Automedon might have been attending a funeral, and be delayed by the necessity of stripping his vehicle of its lugubrious trappings - or he might have stayed to take a half-mutchkin extraordinary….

NARRATOR is posed to interrupt again, but SCOTT raises a warning finger.

SCOTT           A mutchkin was a liquid measure. (Directly to NARRATOR) A little less than a pint.

NARR bows to acknowledge the information.

SCOTT (twisting the knife)   From the Dutch mudseken.

NARRATOR realizes that further interruptions will not be welcome.

SCOTT           Or the Automedon might have stayed to take a half-mutchkin extraordinary with his crony the hostler, or, in short, he did not make his appearance. The young gentleman, who began to grow somewhat impatient, was now joined by a companion in this petty misery of human life - the person who had taken out the other place.

  JONATHAN OLDBUCK enters.  He is carrying one piece of a luggage – a valise (or something suitably period-looking)

  He arrived with a hurried pace, and, casting an alarmed glance towards the dial plate of the church, then looking at the place where the coach should have been, exclaimed,

OLDBUCK                Deil's in it - I am too late after all!

SCOTT           The young man relieved his anxiety, by telling him the coach had not yet appeared. The old gentleman, apparently conscious of his own want of punctuality, waited in silence for the arrival of the expected diligence.

OLDBUCK leaves his luggage on the ground beside him.

NARR             Our new arrival is Jonathan Oldbuck, Squire of Monkbarns, the Antiquary of the title. Oldbuck is an amateur historian and collector of antiquity and here is where we venture into autobiography. The author himself was a renowned collector of historical artefacts. In his youth, Jonathan Oldbuck had been apprenticed to an attorney; Walter Scott had been apprenticed to his father's firm of solicitors. Also in his youth, Oldbuck had fallen in love with a noble lady, only to be jilted for a better-connected rival. A young Walter Scott had suffered the pangs of unrequited love for an heiress until she married a wealthy banker.

SCOTT           What a romance to tell!—and told, I fear, it will one day be. And then my three years of dreaming and my two years of wakening will be chronicled doubtless.

SCOTT becomes aware that everyone else is giving him a “let’s get on with it” look.

SCOTT           At length, after one or two impatient glances at the progress of the minute-hand of the clock, and having twitched about his features to give due emphasis to one or two peevish pshaws… (OLDBUCK demonstrates) …he hailed the old lady of the shop.

OLDBUCK    Good woman,—what the devil is her name?—Mrs. Macleuchar! Mrs. Macleuchar,—Good woman. (Aside to LOVEL) Old doited hag, she's as deaf as a post—I say, Mrs. Macleuchar!

SCOTT           Mrs. Macleuchar, aware that she had a defensive part to sustain in the encounter which was to follow, was in no hurry to hasten the discussion by returning a ready answer.

MRS M           I am just serving a customer. (Aside to SERVANT WENCH) Indeed, hinny, it will no be a bodle cheaper than I tell ye.

SERVANT WENCH exits.

OLDBUCK    Woman, do you think we can stand here all day till you have cheated that poor servant wench?

MRS M           Cheated! I scorn your words, sir: you are an uncivil person, and I desire you will not stand there, to slander me at my ain stair-head.

OLDBUCK    The woman does not understand the words of action.—Woman, I arraign not thy character, but I desire to know what is become of thy coach?

MRS M           What's your wull?

LOVEL          We have taken places, ma'am, in your diligence for Queensferry——

OLDBUCK    Which should have been half-way on the road before now, and now in all likelihood we shall miss the tide, and I have business of importance on the other side—and your cursed coach—

MRS M           The coach?—Gude guide us, gentlemen, is it no on the stand yet? Is it the coach ye hae been waiting for?

OLDBUCK    What else could have kept us broiling in the sun by the side of the gutter here, you faithless woman?

MRS M           Gude guide us - saw ever anybody the like o' that!

OLDBUCK    Yes, you abominable woman, many have seen the like of it, and all will see the like of it, that have anything to do with your trolloping sex!

SCOTT           Then pacing with great indignation before the door of the shop, he shot down complaints, threats, and reproaches, on the embarrassed Mrs. Macleuchar. He would take a post-chaise - he would call a hackney -coach - he would take four horses - he must - he would be on the north side to-day - and all the expenses of his journey, besides damages, direct and consequential, arising from delay, should be accumulated on the devoted head of Mrs. Macleuchar. There was something so comic in his pettish resentment, that the younger traveller, who was in no such pressing hurry to depart, could not help being amused with it.  But when Mrs. Macleuchar began also to join in the laughter, he quickly put a stop to her ill-timed merriment.

OLDBUCK    Woman, is that advertisement thine? (moving to the sign) Does it not set forth, that, God willing, as you hypocritically express it, the Hawes Fly, or Queensferry Diligence, would set forth to-day at twelve o'clock; and is it not now a quarter past twelve, and no such fly or diligence to be seen? Answer; and let it be in the words of truth and sincerity,—hast thou such a coach?—is it in rerum natura?—or is this base annunciation a mere swindle on the incautious to beguile them of their time, their patience, and three shillings of sterling money of this realm?—Hast thou, I say, such a coach? Ay or no?

MRS M           O dear, yes, sir; the neighbours ken the diligence weel, green picked oat wi' red—three yellow wheels… and a black ane.

OLDBUCK    Woman, thy special description will not serve—it may be only a lie with a circumstance.

MRS M           O, man, man! Take back your three shillings, and make me quit o' ye.

OLDBUCK    Not so fast, not so fast, woman - will three shillings transport me to Queensferry, agreeably to thy treacherous programme? - or will it requite the damage I may sustain by leaving my business undone, or repay the expenses which I must disburse if I am obliged to tarry a day at the South Ferry for lack of tide? - Will it hire, I say, a small boat, for which alone the regular price is five shillings?

SCOTT           Here his argument was cut short by a lumbering noise, which proved to be the advance of the expected vehicle, pressing forward with all the dispatch to which the broken- winded jades that drew it could possibly be urged.