No More Learning

MARMADUKE Not I alone,
Thou too art deep in guilt.


OSWALD We have indeed
Been most presumptuous. There _is_ guilt in this,
Else could so strong a mind have ever known
These trepidations? Plain it is that Heaven
Has marked out this foul Wretch as one whose crimes
Must never come before a mortal judgment-seat,
Or be chastised by mortal instruments.


MARMADUKE
A thought that's worth a thousand worlds!

[Goes towards the dungeon. ]


OSWALD I grieve
That, in my zeal, I have caused you so much pain.


MARMADUKE Think not of that! 'tis over--we are safe.


OSWALD (as if to himself, yet speaking aloud)
The truth is hideous, but how stifle it?
[Turning to MARMADUKE. ]
Give me your sword--nay, here are stones and fragments,
The least of which would beat out a man's brains;
Or you might drive your head against that wall.
No! this is not the place to hear the tale:
It should be told you pinioned in your bed,
Or on some vast and solitary plain
Blown to you from a trumpet.


MARMADUKE Why talk thus?
Whate'er the monster brooding in your breast
I care not: fear I have none, and cannot fear--
[The sound of a horn is heard. ]
That horn again--'Tis some one of our Troop;
What do they here? Listen!


OSWALD What! dogged like thieves!


[Enter WALLACE and LACY, etc. ]


LACY You are found at last, thanks to the vagrant Troop
For not misleading us.


OSWALD (looking at WALLACE)
That subtle Greybeard--
I'd rather see my father's ghost.


LACY (to MARMADUKE)
My Captain,
We come by order of the Band. Belike
You have not heard that Henry has at last
Dissolved the Barons' League, and sent abroad
His Sheriffs with fit force to reinstate
The genuine owners of such Lands and Baronies
As, in these long commotions, have been seized.
His Power is this way tending. It befits us
To stand upon our guard, and with our swords
Defend the innocent.


MARMADUKE Lacy! we look
But at the surfaces of things; we hear
Of towns in flames, fields ravaged, young and old
Driven out in troops to want and nakedness;
Then grasp our swords and rush upon a cure
That flatters us, because it asks not thought:
The deeper malady is better hid;
The world is poisoned at the heart.


LACY What mean you?


WALLACE (whose eye has been fixed suspiciously upon OSWALD)
Ay, what is it you mean?