SCENE IV.--_A Country Road near a Gravel Pit. Night time.
_Enter_ BORACHIO _warily and hastily over the Stage with a stone in either hand._
_Bor._ Such stones men use to raise a house upon, But with these stones I go to ruin one. [_Descends._
_Enter two_ Servants _drunk, fighting with their torches;_ D'AMVILLE, MONTFERRERS, BELFOREST, _and_ LANGUEBEAU SNUFFE.
_Bel._ Passion o' me, you drunken knaves! You'll put The lights out.
_D'Am._ No, my lord; they are but in jest.
_1st Ser._ Mine's out.
_D'Am._ Then light it at his head,--that's light enough.-- 'Fore God, they are out. You drunken rascals, back And light 'em.
_Bel._ 'Tis exceeding dark. [_Exeunt_ Servants.
_D'Am._ No matter; I am acquainted with the way. Your hand. Let's easily walk. I'll lead you till they come.
_Mont._ My soul's oppressed with grief. 'T lies heavy at My heart. O my departed son, ere long I shall be with thee! [D'AMVILLE _thrusts him down into the gravel pit._
_D'Am._ Marry, God forbid!
_Mont._ O, O, O!
_D'Am._ Now all the host of Heaven forbid! Knaves! Rogues!
_Bel._ Pray God he be not hurt. He's fallen into the gravel pit.
_D'Am._ Brother! dear brother! Rascals! villains! Knaves!
_Re-enter_ Servants _with lights._
Eternal darkness damn you! come away! Go round about into the gravel pit, And help my brother up. Why what a strange Unlucky night is this! Is't not, my lord? I think that dog that howled the news of grief, That fatal screech-owl, ushered on this mischief.
[_Exit_ Servants _and Re-enter with the murdered body._
_Lang._ Mischief indeed, my lord. Your brother's dead!
_Bel._ He's dead?
_Ser._ He's dead!
_D'Am._ Dead be your tongues! Drop out Mine eye-balls and let envious Fortune play At tennis with 'em. Have I lived to this? Malicious Nature, hadst thou borne me blind, Thou hadst yet been something favourable to me. No breath? no motion? Prithee tell me, Heaven, Hast shut thine eye to wink at murder; or Hast put this sable garment on to mourn At's death? Not one poor spark in the whole spacious sky Of all that endless number would vouchsafe To shine?--You viceroys to the king of Nature, Whose constellations govern mortal births, Where is that fatal planet ruled at his Nativity? that might ha' pleased to light him out, As well as into the world, unless it be Ashamèd I have been the instrument Of such a good man's cursèd destiny.--
_Bel._ Passion transports you. Recollect yourself. Lament him not. Whether our deaths be good Or bad, it is not death, but life that tries. He lived well; therefore, questionless, well dies.
_D'Am._ Ay, 'tis an easy thing for him that has No pain, to talk of patience. Do you think That Nature has no feeling?
_Bel._ Feeling? Yes. But has she purposed anything for nothing? What good receives this body by your grief? Whether is't more unnatural, not to grieve For him you cannot help with it, or hurt Yourself with grieving, and yet grieve in vain?
_D'Am._ Indeed, had he been taken from me like A piece o' dead flesh, I should neither ha' felt it Nor grieved for't. But come hither, pray look here. Behold the lively tincture of his blood! Neither the dropsy nor the jaundice in't, But the true freshness of a sanguine red, For all the fog of this black murderous night Has mixed with it. For anything I know He might ha' lived till doomsday, and ha' done More good than either you or I. O brother! He was a man of such a native goodness, As if regeneration had been given Him in his mother's womb. So harmless That rather than ha' trod upon a worm He would ha' shunned the way. So dearly pitiful that ere the poor Could ask his charity with dry eyes he gave 'em Relief with tears--with tears--yes, faith, with tears.
_Bel._ Take up the corpse. For wisdom's sake let reason fortify this weakness.
_D'Am._ Why, what would you ha' me do? Foolish Nature Will have her course in spite o' wisdom. But I have e'en done. All these words were But a great wind; and now this shower of tears Has laid it, I am calm again. You may Set forward when you will. I'll follow you Like one that must and would not.
_Lang._ Our opposition will but trouble him.
_Bel._ The grief that melts to tears by itself is spent; Passion resisted grows more violent. [_Exeunt all except_ D'AMVILLE. BORACHIO _ascends._
_D'Am._ Here's a sweet comedy. 'T begins with _O Dolentis_[149] and concludes with ha, ha, he!
_Bor._ Ha, ha, he!
_D'Am._ O my echo! I could stand Reverberating this sweet musical air Of joy till I had perished my sound lungs With violent laughter. Lonely night-raven, Thou hast seized a carcase.
_Bor._ Put him out on's pain. I lay so fitly underneath the bank, From whence he fell, that ere his faltering tongue Could utter double O, I knocked out's brains With this fair ruby, and had another stone, Just of this form and bigness, ready; that I laid i' the broken skull upon the ground For's pillow, against the which they thought he fell And perished.
_D'Am._ Upon this ground I'll build my manor house; And this shall be the chiefest corner stone.
_Bor._ 'T has crowned the most judicious murder that The brain of man was e'er delivered of.
_D'Am._ Ay, mark the plot. Not any circumstance That stood within the reach of the design Of persons, dispositions, matter, time, or place But by this brain of mine was made An instrumental help; yet nothing from The induction to the accomplishment seemed forced, Or done o' purpose, but by accident.
_Bor._ First, my report that Charlemont was dead, Though false, yet covered with a mask of truth.
_D'Am._ Ay, and delivered in as fit a time When all our minds so wholly were possessed With one affair, that no man would suspect A thought employed for any second end.
_Bor._ Then the precisian[150] to be ready, when Your brother spake of death, to move his will.
_D'Am._ His business called him thither, and it fell Within his office unrequested to't. From him it came religiously, and saved Our project from suspicion which if I Had moved, had been endangered.
_Bor._ Then your healths, Though seeming but the ordinary rites And ceremonies due to festivals--
_D'Am._ Yet used by me to make the servants drunk, An instrument the plot could not have missed. 'Twas easy to set drunkards by the ears, They'd nothing but their torches to fight with, And when those lights were out--
_Bor._ Then darkness did Protect the execution of the work Both from prevention and discovery.
_D'Am._ Here was a murder bravely carried through The eye of observation, unobserved.
_Bor._ And those that saw the passage of it made The instruments, yet knew not what they did.
_D'Am._ That power of rule philosophers ascribe To him they call the Supreme of the stars Making their influences governors Of sublunary creatures, when themselves Are senseless of their operations. What! [_Thunder and lightning._ Dost start at thunder? Credit my belief 'Tis a mere effect of Nature--an exhalation hot And dry involved within a watery vapour I' the middle region of the air; whose coldness, Congealing that thick moisture to a cloud, The angry exhalation, shut within A prison of contrary quality, Strives to be free and with the violent Eruption through the grossness of that cloud, Makes this noise we hear.
_Bor._ 'Tis a fearful noise.
_D'Am._ 'Tis a brave noise, and methinks Graces our accomplished project as A peal of ordnance does a triumph. It speaks Encouragement. Now Nature shows thee how It favoured our performance, to forbear This noise when we set forth, because it should Not terrify my brother's going home, Which would have dashed our purpose,--to forbear This lightning in our passage lest it should Ha' warned him o' the pitfall. Then propitious Nature winked At our proceedings: now it doth express How that forbearance favoured our success.
_Bor._ You have confirmed me. For it follows well That Nature, since herself decay doth hate, Should favour those that strengthen their estate.
_D'Am._ Our next endeavour is, since on the false Report that Charlemont is dead depends The fabric of the work, to credit that With all the countenance we can.
_Bor._ Faith, sir, Even let his own inheritance, whereof You have dispossessed him, countenance the act. Spare so much out of that to give him a Solemnity of funeral. 'Twill quit The cost, and make your apprehension of His death appear more confident and true.
_D'Am._ I'll take thy counsel. Now farewell, black Night; Thou beauteous mistress of a murderer. To honour thee that hast accomplished all I'll wear thy colours at his funeral. [_Exeunt._