The Borderers Read Online

MAR.

Thou art a Woman,

To bring perdition on the universe.

IDON.

Already I've been punished to the height

Of my offence.

Smiling affectionately.

I see you love me still,

The labours of my hand are still your joy;

Bethink you of the hour when on your shoulder

I hung this belt.

Pointing to the belt on which was suspended

Herbert's scrip.

MAR.

Mercy of Heaven!

Sinks.

IDON.

What ails you!

Distractedly.

MAR.

The scrip that held his food, and I forgot

To give it back again!

IDON.

What mean your words?

MAR.

I know not what I said – all may be well.

IDON.

That smile hath life in it!

MAR.

This road is perilous;

I will attend you to a Hut that stands

Near the wood's edge – rest there to-night, I pray you:

For me, I have business, as you heard, with Oswald,

But will return to you by break of day.

Exeunt.

Act IV.

Scene, A desolate prospect – a ridge of rocks – a Chapel on the summit of one – Moon behind the rocks – night stormy – irregular sound of a bell – Herbert enters exhausted.

HER.

That Chapel-bell in mercy seemed to guide me,

But now it mocks my steps; its fitful stroke

Can scarcely be the work of human hands.

Hear me, ye Men upon the cliffs, if such

There be who pray nightly before the Altar.

Oh that I had but strength to reach the place!

My Child – my Child – dark – dark – I faint – this wind –

These stifling blasts – God help me!

Enter Eldred.

ELD.

Better this bare rock,

Though it were tottering over a man's head,

Than a tight case of dungeon walls for shelter

From such rough dealing.

A moaning voice is heard.

Ha! what sound is that?

Trees creaking in the wind (but none are here)

Send forth such noises – and that weary bell!

Surely some evil Spirit abroad to-night

Is ringing it – 'twould stop a Saint in prayer,

And that – what is it? never was sound so like

A human groan. Ha! what is here? Poor Man –

Murdered! alas! speak – speak, I am your friend:

No answer – hush – lost wretch, he lifts his hand

And lays it to his heart –

Kneels to him.

I pray you speak!

What has befallen you?

HER feebly.

A stranger has done this,

And in the arms of a stranger I must die.

ELD.

Nay, think not so: come, let me raise you up:

Raises him.

This is a dismal place – well – that is well –

I was too fearful – take me for your guide

And your support – my hut is not far off.

Draws him gently off the stage.

Scene, A room in the Hostel – Marmaduke and Oswald.

MAR.

But for Idonea! – I have cause to think

That she is innocent.

OSW.

Leave that thought awhile

As one of those beliefs which in their hearts

Lovers lock up as pearls, though oft no better

Than feathers clinging to their points of passion.

This day's event has laid on me the duty

Of opening out my story; you must hear it,

And without further preface. – In my youth,

Except for that abatement which is paid

By envy as a tribute to desert,

I was the pleasure of all hearts, the darling

Of every tongue – as you are now. You've heard

That I embarked for Syria. On our voyage

Was hatched among the crew a foul Conspiracy

Against my honour, in the which our Captain

Was, I believed, prime Agent. The wind fell;

We lay becalmed week after week, until

The water of the vessel was exhausted;

I felt a double fever in my veins,

Yet rage suppressed itself; – to a deep stillness

Did my pride tame my pride; – for many days,

On a dead sea under a burning sky,

I brooded o'er my injuries, deserted

By man and nature; – if a breeze had blown,

It might have found its way into my heart,

And I had been – no matter – do you mark me?

MAR.

Quick – to the point – if any untold crime

Doth haunt your memory.

OSW.

Patience, hear me further! –

One day in silence did we drift at noon

By a bare rock, narrow, and white, and bare;

No food was there, no drink, no grass, no shade,

No tree, nor jutting eminence, nor form

Inanimate large as the body of man,

Nor any living thing whose lot of life

Might stretch beyond the measure of one moon.

To dig for water on the spot, the Captain

Landed with a small troop, myself being one:

There I reproached him with his treachery.

Imperious at all times, his temper rose;

He struck me; and that instant had I killed him,

And put an end to his insolence, but my Comrades

Rushed in between us: then did I insist

(All hated him, and I was stung to madness)

That we should leave him there, alive! – we did so.

MAR.

And he was famished?

OSW.

Naked was the spot;

Methinks I see it now – how in the sun

Its stony surface glittered like a shield;

And in that miserable place we left him,

Alone but for a swarm of minute creatures

Not one of which could help him while alive,

Or mourn him dead.

MAR.

A man by men cast off,

Left without burial! nay, not dead nor dying,

But standing, walking, stretching forth his arms,

In all things like ourselves but in the agony

With which he called for mercy; and – even so –

He was forsaken?

OSW.

There is a power in sounds:

The cries he uttered might have stopped the boat

That bore us through the water –

MAR.

You returned

Upon that dismal hearing – did you not?

OSW.

Some scoffed at him with hellish mockery,

And laughed so loud it seemed that the smooth sea

Did from some distant region echo us.

MAR.

We all are of one blood, our veins are filled

At the same poisonous fountain!

OSW.

'Twas an island

Only by sufferance of the winds and waves,

Which with their foam could cover it at will.

I know not how he perished; but the calm

The same dead calm, continued many days.

MAR.

But his own crime had brought on him this doom,

His wickedness prepared it; these expedients

Are terrible, yet ours is not the fault.

OSW.

The man was famished, and was innocent!

MAR.

Impossible!

OSW.

The man had never wronged me.

MAR.

Banish the thought, crush it, and be at peace.

His guilt was marked – these things could never be

Were there not eyes that see, and for good ends,

Where ours are baffled.

OSW.

I had been deceived.

MAR.

And from that hour the miserable man

No more was heard of?

OSW.

I had been betrayed.

MAR.

And he found no deliverance!

OSW.

The Crew

Gave me a hearty welcome; they had laid

The plot to rid themselves, at any cost,

Of a tyrannic Master whom they loathed.

Se we pursued our voyage: when we landed,

The tale was spread abroad; my power at once

Shrunk from me; plans and schemes, and lofty hopes –

All vanished. I gave way – do you attend?

MAR.

The Crew deceived you?

OSW.

Nay, command yourself.

MAR.

It is a dismal night – how the wind howls!

OSW.

I hid my head within a Convent, there

Lay passive as a dormouse in mid winter.

That was no life for me – I was o'erthrown,

But not destroyed.

MAR.

The proofs – you ought to have seen

The guilt – have touched it – felt it at your heart –

As I have done.

OSW.

A fresh tide of Crusaders

Drove by the place of my retreat: three nights

Did constant meditation dry my blood;

Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,

Through words and things, a dim and perilous way;

And, wheresoe'er I turned me, I beheld

A slavery compared to which the dungeon

And clanking chains are perfect liberty.

You understand me – I was comforted;

I saw that every possible shape of action

Might lead to good – I saw it and burst forth,

Thirsting for some of those exploits that fill

The earth for sure redemption of lost peace.

Marking Marmaduke's countenance.

Nay, you have had the worst. Ferocity

Subsided in a moment, like a wind

That drops down dead out of a sky it vexed.

And yet I had within me evermore

A salient spring of energy; I mounted

From action up to action with a mind

That never rested – without meat or drink

Have I lived many days – my sleep was bound

To purposes of reason – not a dream

But had a continuity and substance

That waking life had never power to give.

MAR.

O wretched Human-kind! – Until the mystery

Of all this world is solved, well may we envy

The worm, that, underneath a stone whose weight

Would crush the lion's paw with mortal anguish,

Doth lodge, and feed, and coil, and sleep, in safety.

Fell not the wrath of Heaven upon those traitors?

OSW.

Give not to them a thought. From Palestine

We marched to Syria: oft I left the Camp,

When all that multitude of hearts was still,

And followed on, through woods of gloomy cedar,

Into deep chasms troubled by roaring streams;

Or from the top of Lebanon surveyed

The moonlight desert, and the moonlight sea:

In these my lonely wanderings I perceived

What mighty objects do impress their forms

To elevate our intellectual being;

And felt, if aught on earth deserves a curse,

'Tis that worst principle of ill which dooms

A thing so great to perish self-consumed.

– So much for my remorse!

MAR.

Unhappy Man!

OSW.

When from these forms I turned to contemplate

The World's opinions and her usages,

I seemed a Being who had passed alone

Into a region of futurity,

Whose natural element was freedom –

MAR.

Stop –

I may not, cannot, follow thee.

OSW.

You must.

I had been nourished by the sickly food

Of popular applause. I now perceived

That we are praised, only as men in us

Do recognise some image of themselves,

An abject counterpart of what they are,

Or the empty thing that they would wish to be.

I felt that merit has no surer test

Than obloquy; that, if we wish to serve

The world in substance, not deceive by show,

We must become obnoxious to its hate,

Or fear disguised in simulated scorn.

MAR.

I pity, can forgive, you; but those wretches –

That monstrous perfidy!

OSW.

Keep down your wrath.

False Shame discarded, spurious Fame despised,

Twin sisters both of Ignorance, I found

Life stretched before me smooth as some broad way

Cleared for a monarch's progress. Priests might spin

Their veil, but not for me – 'twas in fit place

Among its kindred cobwebs. I had been,

And in that dream had left my native land,

One of Love's simple bondsmen – the soft chain

Was off for ever; and the men, from whom

This liberation came, you would destroy:

Join me in thanks for their blind services.

MAR.

'Tis a strange aching that, when we would curse

And cannot. – You have betrayed me – I have done –

I am content – I know that he is guiltless –

That both are guiltless, without spot or stain,

Mutually consecrated. Poor old Man!

And I had heart for this, because thou lovedst

Her who from very infancy had been

Light to thy path, warmth to thy blood! – Together

Turning to Oswald.

We propped his steps, he leaned upon us both.

OSW.

Ay, we are coupled by a chain of adamant;

Let us be fellow-labourers, then, to enlarge

Man's intellectual empire. We subsist

In slavery; all is slavery; we receive

Laws, but we ask not whence those laws have come;

We need an inward sting to goad us on.

MAR.

Have you betrayed me? Speak to that.

OSW.

The mask,

Which for a season I have stooped to wear,

Must be cast off. – Know then that I was urged,

(For other impulse let it pass) was driven,

To seek for sympathy, because I saw

In you a mirror of my youthful self;

I would have made us equal once again,

But that was a vain hope. You have struck home,

With a few drops of blood cut short the business;

Therein for ever you must yield to me.

But what is done will save you from the blank

Of living without knowledge that you live:

Now you are suffering – for the future day,

'Tis his who will command it. – Think of my story –

Herbert is innocent.

MAR in a faint voice, and doubtingly.

You do but echo

My own wild words?

OSW.

Young Man, the seed must lie

Hid in the earth, or there can be no harvest;

'Tis Nature's law. What I have done in darkness

I will avow before the face of day.

Herbert is innocent.