The Borderers Read Online

MAR.

A later meeting, Oswald,

Would have been better timed.

OSW.

Alone, I see;

You have done your duty. I had hopes, which now

I feel that you will justify.

MAR.

I had fears,

From which I have freed myself – but 'tis my wish

To be alone, and therefore we must part.

OSW.

Nay, then – I am mistaken. There's a weakness

About you still; you talk of solitude –

I am your friend.

MAR.

What need of this assurance

At any time? and why given now?

OSW.

Because

You are now in truth my Master; you have taught me

What there is not another living man

Had strength to teach; – and therefore gratitude

Is bold, and would relieve itself by praise.

MAR.

Wherefore press this on me?

OSW.

Because I feel

That you have shown, and by a signal instance,

How they who would be just must seek the rule

By diving for it into their own bosoms.

To-day you have thrown off a tyranny

That lives but in the torpid acquiescence

Of our emasculated souls, the tyranny

Of the world's masters, with the musty rules

By which they uphold their craft from age to age:

You have obeyed the only law that sense

Submits to recognize; the immediate law,

From the clear light of circumstances, flashed

Upon an independent Intellect.

Henceforth new prospects open on your path;

Your faculties should grow with the demand;

I still will be your friend, will cleave to you

Through good and evil, obloquy and scorn,

Oft as they dare to follow on your steps.

MAR.

I would be left alone.

OSW exultingly.

I know your motives!

I am not of the world's presumptuous judges,

Who damn where they can neither see nor feel,

With a hard-hearted ignorance; your struggles

I witness'd, and now hail your victory.

MAR.

Spare me awhile that greeting.

OSW.

It may be

That some there are, squeamish half-thinking cowards,

Who will turn pale upon you, call you murderer,

And you will walk in solitude among them.

A mighty evil for a strong-built mind! –

Join twenty tapers of unequal height

And light them joined, and you will see the less

How 'twill burn down the taller; and they all

Shall prey upon the tallest. Solitude! –

The Eagle lives in Solitude!

MAR.

Even so,

The Sparrow so on the house-top, and I,

The weakest of God's creatures, stand resolved

To abide the issue of my act, alone.

OSW.

Now would you? and for ever? – My young Friend,

As time advances either we become

The prey or masters of our own past deeds.

Fellowship we must have, willing or no;

And if good Angels fail, slack in their duty,

Substitutes, turn our faces where we may,

Are still forthcoming; some which, though they bear

Ill names, can render no ill services,

In recompense for what themselves required.

So meet extremes in this mysterious world,

And opposites thus melt into each other.

MAR.

Time, since Man first drew breath, has never moved

With such a weight upon his wings as now;

But they will soon be lightened.

OSW.

Ay, look up –

Cast round you your mind's eye, and you will learn

Fortitude is the child of Enterprise:

Great actions move our admiration, chiefly

Because they carry in themselves an earnest

That we can suffer greatly.

MAR.

Very true.

OSW.

Action is transitory – a step, a blow,

The motion of a muscle – this way or that –

'Tis done, and in the after-vacancy

We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed:

Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark,

And shares the nature of infinity.

MAR.

Truth – and I feel it.

OSW.

What! if you had bid

Eternal farewell to unmingled joy

And the light dancing of the thoughtless heart;

It is the toy of fools, and little fit

For such a world as this. The wise abjure

All thoughts whose idle composition lives

In the entire forgetfulness of pain.

– I see I have disturbed you.

MAR.

By no means.

OSW.

Compassion! – pity! – pride can do without them;

And what if you should never know them more! –

He is a puny soul who, feeling pain,

Finds ease because another feels it too.

If e'er I open out this heart of mine

It shall be for a nobler end – to teach

And not to purchase puling sympathy.

– Nay, you are pale.

MAR.

It may be so.

OSW.

Remorse –

It cannot live with thought; think on, think on,

And it will die. What! in this universe,

Where the least things control the greatest, where

The faintest breath that breathes can move a world;

What! feel remorse, where, if a cat had sneezed,

A leaf had fallen, the thing had never been

Whose very shadow gnaws us to the vitals.

MAR.

Now, whither are you wandering? That a man,

So used to suit his language to the time,

Should thus so widely differ from himself –

It is most strange.

OSW.

Murder! – what's in the word! –

I have no cases by me ready made

To fit all deeds. Carry him to the Camp! –

A shallow project; – you of late have seen

More deeply, taught us that the institutes

Of Nature, by a cunning usurpation

Banished from human intercourse, exist

Only in our relations to the brutes

That make the fields their dwelling. If a snake

Crawl from beneath our feet we do not ask

A license to destroy him: our good governors

Hedge in the life of every pest and plague

That bears the shape of man; and for what purpose,

But to protect themselves from extirpation? –

This flimsy barrier you have overleaped.

MAR.

My Office is fulfilled – the Man is now

Delivered to the Judge of all things.

OSW.

Dead!

MAR.

I have borne my burthen to its destined end.

OSW.

This instant we'll return to our Companions –

Oh how I long to see their faces again!

Enter Idonea with Pilgrims who continue their journey.

IDON after some time.

What, Marmaduke! now thou art mine for ever.

And Oswald, too!

To Marmaduke.

On will we to my Father

With the glad tidings which this day hath brought;

We'll go together, and, such proof received

Of his own rights restored, his gratitude

To God above will make him feel for ours.

OSW.

I interrupt you?

IDON.

Think not so.

MAR.

Idonea,

That I should ever live to see this moment!

IDON.

Forgive me. – Oswald knows it all – he knows,

Each word of that unhappy letter fell

As a blood-drop from my heart.

OSW.

'Twas even so.

MAR.

I have much to say, but for whose ear? – not thine.

IDON.

Ill can I bear that look – Plead for me, Oswald!

You are my Father's Friend.

To Marmaduke

Alas, you know not,

And never can you know, how much he loved me.

Twice had he been to me a father, twice

Had given me breath, and was I not to be

His daughter, once his daughter? could I withstand

His pleading face, and feel his clasping arms,

And hear his prayer that I would not forsake him

In his old age –

Hides her face.

MAR.

Patience – Heaven grant me patience! –

She weeps, she weeps – my brain shall burn for hours

Ere I can shed a tear.

IDON.

I was a woman;

And, balancing the hopes that are the dearest

To womankind with duty to my Father,

I yielded up those precious hopes, which nought

On earth could else have wrested from me; – if erring,

Oh let me be forgiven!

MAR.

I do forgive thee.

IDON.

But take me to your arms – this breast, alas!

It throbs, and you have a heart that does not feel it.

MAR exultingly.

She is innocent.

He embraces her.

OSW aside.

Were I a Moralist

I should make wondrous revolution here;

It were a quaint experiment to show

The beauty of truth –

Addressing them

I see I interrupt you;

I shall have business with you, Marmaduke;

Follow me to the Hostel.

Exit Oswald.

IDON.

Marmaduke,

This is a happy day. My Father soon

Shall sun himself before his native doors;

The lame, the hungry, will be welcome there.

No more shall he complain of wasted strength,

Of thoughts that fail, and a decaying heart;

His good works will be balm and life to him.

MAR.

This is most strange! – I know not what it was,

But there was something which most plainly said

That thou wert innocent.

IDON.

How innocent! –

Oh heavens! you've been deceived.