"Oh, I don't think we need worry," answers B. "They are quite old
ladies, both of them. I met them on the stairs yesterday. I am
sure they look harmless enough."
"Well, I don't know," I reply. "We are all by ourselves, you know.
Nearly everyone in the village is at the theatre, I wish we had got
a dog."
B. reassures me, however, and I continue:
"Themselves mere peasants," I repeat, "they represent some of the
greatest figures in the world's history with as simple a dignity and
as grand a bearing as could ever have been expected from the
originals themselves. There must be a natural inborn nobility in
the character of these highlanders. They could never assume or act
that manner au grand seigneur with which they imbue their parts.
"The only character poorly played was that of Judas. The part of
Judas is really THE part of the piece, so far as acting is
concerned; but the exemplary householder who essayed it seemed to
have no knowledge or experience of the ways and methods of bad men.
There seemed to be no side of his character sufficiently in sympathy
with wickedness to enable him to understand and portray it. His
amateur attempts at scoundrelism quite irritated me.
