had
changed your minds, and rush right across the other side. You are
confused, and don't know what to do. You, Mr. Bishop, shout out in your
tremendous voice, 'To the crypt.'"

This movement is rehearsed some twenty times before it satisfies Mr.
Irving. At last, the monks disappear, and _Becket_ is left to confront
his murderers. "I stand here in the transept, and _Fitzurse_ rushes up
to me. What's he say? Oh, 'I will not only touch but drag thee hence.'
Then I say, 'Thou art my man, thou art my vassal. Away,' and push him
off."

_Fitzurse_ falls, and Mr. Irving stops reading from the part. "No,
_Fitzurse_, you take hold of me, and I fling you off violently. You must
remember that I am supposed to be a strong man--a man who has been a
soldier. Like this," and Mr. Irving falls on the stage with an ease born
of long practice. "You pick yourself up, rush at me with drawn sword
(it's all one movement), and shout, 'I told thee that I should remember
thee.' I say, 'Profligate, pander.' You come on with, 'Do you hear that?
Strike! strike!' I cover my face. 'I do commend my cause to God,' and
you rush off, drunk with blood, half-horrified at what you've done, and
yet braving it out, crying, 'King's men! King's men!' to support your
Dutch courage."

[Illustration: MISS GENEVIEVE WARD. ("ELEANOR")]

The murderers go "off," and Mr. Terriss and Mr. Irving practise a series
of different attitudes for the death scene until Mr. Irving is finally
satisfied. He has taken off his coat in order to better rehearse the
murder scene. Mr. Terriss now helps him on with it again, the monks
are recalled, and some dozen more painstaking attempts made to get
everything right. "It's very simple, gentlemen," Mr. Irving assures the
monks. "Very simple, when you've once caught the spirit of it." This
rehearsal has lasted for nearly three hours, during the whole of which
time Mr. Irving has superintended everything, thrown himself into each
man's part, grouped everyone, created the action, devised suggestions
for scenery, as if regardless of the fact that in the evening he will
have to undergo the awful stress and strain of _King Lear_. Any other
man, with a less intense vitality, would simply collapse under all this
pressure. Mr. Irving puts up his eyeglass, takes a last look at the
stage, and walks buoyantly off as if the whole thing were mere child's
play.

But where is Miss Ellen Terry? The question answers itself as soon as
asked, for a g