No More Learning

Here it is, my Friend,
[Presents the Horn. ]
A charming beverage for you to carouse,
This bitter night.


HERBERT Ha! Oswald! ten bright crosses
I would have given, not many minutes gone,
To have heard your voice.


OSWALD Your couch, I fear, good Baron,
Has been but comfortless; and yet that place,
When the tempestuous wind first drove us hither,
Felt warm as a wren's nest. You'd better turn
And under covert rest till break of day,
Or till the storm abate.
(To MARMADUKE aside. ) He has restored you.
No doubt you have been nobly entertained?
But soft! --how came he forth? The Night-mare Conscience
Has driven him out of harbour?


MARMADUKE I believe
You have guessed right.


HERBERT The trees renew their murmur:
Come, let us house together.
[OSWALD conducts him to the dungeon. ]


OSWALD (returns)
Had I not
Esteemed you worthy to conduct the affair
To its most fit conclusion, do you think
I would so long have struggled with my Nature,
And smothered all that's man in me? --away! --
[Looking towards the dungeon. ]
This man's the property of him who best
Can feel his crimes. I have resigned a privilege;
It now becomes my duty to resume it.


MARMADUKE Touch not a finger--


OSWALD What then must be done?


MARMADUKE Which way soe'er I turn, I am perplexed.


OSWALD Now, on my life, I grieve for you. The misery
Of doubt is insupportable. Pity, the facts
Did not admit of stronger evidence;
Twelve honest men, plain men, would set us right;
Their verdict would abolish these weak scruples.


MARMADUKE Weak! I am weak--there does my torment lie,
Feeding itself.


OSWALD Verily, when he said
How his old heart would leap to hear her steps,
You thought his voice the echo of Idonea's.


MARMADUKE And never heard a sound so terrible.


OSWALD Perchance you think so now?