A Series of Plays in which it is attempted to delineate The Stronger Passions of the Mind, Volume Three/The Dream Act 2
ACT II.
SCENE I.—A burying Vault, almost totally dark; the Monuments and Grave-stones being seen very dimly by the Light of a single Torch, stuck by the side of a deep open Grave, in which a Sexton is discovered, standing leaning on his Mattock, and Morand, above Ground, turning up, with his sheathed Sword, the loose Earth about the Mouth of the Grave.
Mor. There is neither scull nor bone amongst this earth: the ground must have been newly broken up, when that coffin was let down into it.
Sex. So one should think; but the earth here has the quality of consuming whatever is put into it in a marvellous short time.
Mor. Aye; the flesh and more consumable parts of a body; but hath it grinders in its jaws like your carnivorous animal, to cransh up bones and all? I have seen bones on an old field of battle, some hundred years after the action, lying whitened and hard in the sun.
Sex. Well, an't be new ground, I'll warrant ye somebody has paid money enough for such a good tenement as this: I could not wish my own father a better.
Mor. (looking down.) The coffin is of an uncommon size: there must be a leaden one within it, I should think.
Sex. I doubt that: it is only a clumsy shell that has been put together in haste; and I'll be hanged if he who made it ever made another before it. Now it would pine me with vexation to think I should be laid in such a bungled piece of workmanship as this.
Mor. Aye; it is well for those who shall bury thee, Sexton, that thou wilt not be a looker-on at thine own funeral.Put together in haste, sayest thou! How long may it be since this coffin was laid in the ground?
Sex. By my fay, now, I cannot tell; though many a grave I have dug in this vault, instead of the lay-brothers, who are mighty apt to take a cholic or shortness of breath, or the like, when any thing of hard labour falls to their share. (After pausing.) Ha! now I have it. When I went over the mountain some ten years ago to visit my father-in-law, Baldwick, the stranger, who died the other day, after living so long as a hermit amongst the rocks, came here; and it was shrewdly suspected he had leave from our late Prior, for a good sum of money, to bury a body privately in this vault. I was a fool not to think of it before. This, I'll be sworn for it, is the place.
Enter the Prior, Osterloo, Jerome, Paul, Benedict, and other Monks, with the Peasant carrying light before them. They enter by an arched door at the bottom of the stage, and walk on to the front, when every one, but Osterloo, crowds eagerly to the grave, looking down into it.
Prior. (to Sexton.) What hast thou found, friend?
Sex. A coffin an't please you, and of a size, too, that might almost contain a giant.
Omnes. (Osterloo excepted.) The inscription is there an inscription on it?
Sex. No, no! They who put these planks together had no time for inscriptions.
Omnes. (as before.) Break it open:—break it open.
(They crowd more eagerly about the grave, when, after a pause, the Sexton is heard wrenching open the lid of the coffin.)
Omnes. (as before.) What is there in it? What hast thou found, Sexton?
Sex. An entire skeleton, and of no common size.
Ost. (in a quick hollow voice.) Is it entire?
Sex. (after a pause.) No, the right hand is wanting, and there is not a loose bone in the coffin.(Ost. shudders and steps back.)
Jer. (to Prior, after a pause.) Will you not speak to him, Father? His countenance is changed, and his whole frame seems moved by some sudden convulsion.
(The Prior remains silent.)
How is this? You are also changed, reverend Father. Shall I speak to him?
Prior. Speak thou to him.
Jer. (to Osterloo.) What is the matter with you, General? Has some sudden malady seized you?
Ost. (to Jerome.) Let me be alone with you, holy Prior; let me be alone with you instantly.
Jer. (pointing.) This is the Prior.—He would be alone with you, Father: he would make his confession to you.
Prior. I dare not hear him alone: there must be witnesses. Let him come with me to my apartment.
Jer. (to Osterloo, as they leave the grave.)
Let me conduct you, Count.
(After walking from it some paces.)
Ost. Not this way—not this way, I pray you.
Jer. What is it you would avoid?
Ost. Turn aside, I pray you; I cannot cross over this.
Jer. Is it the grave you mean? We have left it behind us.
Ost. Is it not there? It yawns across our path, directly before us.
Jer. Indeed, my Lord, it is some paces behind.
Ost. There is delusion in my sight then; lead me as thou wilt.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II.
The private Apartment of the Prior; enter Benedict, looking round as he enters.
Ben. Not yet come; aye, penitence is not very swift of foot.
(Speaking to himself as he walks up and down.)
Miserable man!—brave, goodly creature!—but alas, alas! most subdued; most miserable; and, I fear, most guilty!
Enter Jerome.
Jerome here!—Dost thou know, Brother, that the Prior is coming here immediately to confess the penitent?
Jer. Yes, Brother; but I am no intruder; for he has summoned me to attend the confession as well as thyself.
Ben. Methinks some other person of our order, unconcerned with the dreaming part of this business, would have been a less suspicious witness.
Jer. Suspicious! Am I more concerned in this than any other member of our community? Heaven appoints its own agents as it listeth: the stones of these walls might have declared its awful will as well as the dreams of a poor friar.
Ben. True, brother Jerome; could they listen to confessions as he does, and hold reveries upon them afterwards.
Jer. What dost thou mean with thy reveries and confessions? Did not Paul see the terrible vision as well as I?
Ben. If thou hadst not revealed thy dream to him, he would have slept sound enough, or, at worst, have but flown over the pinnacles with his old mate the horned serpent, as usual: and had the hermit Baldwick never made his deathbed confession to thee, thou wouldst never have had such a dream to reveal.
Jer. Thinkest thou so? Then what brought Osterloo and his troops so unexpectedly by this route? With all thy heretical dislike to miraculous interposition, how wilt thou account for this?
Ben. If thou hadst no secret intelligence of Osterloo's route, to set thy fancy a working on the story the hermit confessed to thee, I never wore cowl on my head.
Jer. Those, indeed, who hear thee speak so lightly of mysterious and holy things, will scarcely believe thou ever didst.—But hush! the Prior comes with his penitent; let us have no altercation now.
Enter Prior and Osterloo.
Prior. (after a pause, in which he seems agitated.)
Now, Count Osterloo, we are ready to hear your confession. To myself and these pious Monks; men appointed by our holy religion to search into the crimes of the penitent, unburthen your heart of its terrible secret; and God grant you afterwards, if it be his righteous will, repentance and mercy.
Ost. (making a sign, as if unable to speak, then uttering rapidly.) Presently, presently.
Jer. Don't hurry him, reverend Father; he cannot speak.
Ben. Take breath awhile, noble Osterloo, and speak to us when you can.
Ost. I thank you.
Ben. He is much agitated, (to Osterloo.) Lean upon me, my Lord.
Prior. (to Benedict.) Nay, you exceed in this, (to Osterloo.) Recollect yourself, General, and try to be more composed, You seem better now; endeavour to unburden your mind of its fatal secret; to have it labouring within your breast is protracting a state of misery.
Ost. (feebly.) I have voice now.
Jer. (to Osterloo.) Give to Heaven, then, as you ought—
Ben. Hush, brother Jerome! no exhortations now! let him speak it as he can. (to Osterloo.) We attend you most anxiously.
Ost. (after struggling for utterance.)
I slew him.
Prior. The man whose bones have now been discovered?
Ost. The same: I slew him.
Jer. In the field, Count?
Ost. No, no! many a man's blood has been on my hands there:—this is on my heart.
Prior. It is then premeditated murder you have committed.
Ost. (hastily.) Call it so, call it so.
Jer. (to Osterloo, after a pause.) And is this all? Will you not proceed to tell us the circumstances attending it?
Ost. Oh! they were terrible!— But they are all in my mind as the indistinct horrors of a frenzied imagination.
(After a short pause.)
I did it in a narrow pass on St. Gothard, in the stormy twilight of a winter day.
Prior. You murdered him there?
Ost. I felt him dead under my grasp; but I looked at him no more after the last desperate thrust that I gave him. I hurried to a distance from the spot; when a servant, who was with me, seized with a sudden remorse, begged leave to return and remove the body, that, if possible, he might bury it in consecrated ground, as an atonement for the part he had taken in the terrible deed.I gave him leave, with means to procure his desire:—I waited for him three days, concealed in the mountains;—but I neither saw him, nor heard of him again.
Ben. But what tempted a brave man like Osterloo to commit such a horrible act?
Ost. The torments of jealousy stung me to it. (Hiding his face with his hands, and then uncovering it.) I loved her, and was beloved:He came,—a noble stranger
Jer. Aye, if he was in his mortal state, as I in my dream beheld him, he was indeed most noble.
Ost. (waving his hand impatiently.)
Well, well! he did come, then, and she loved me no more.With arts and enchantments he besotted her.Even from her own lips I received
(Tossing up his arms violently, and then covering his face as before.)
But what is all this to you? Maimed as he was, having lost his right arm in a battle with the Turks, I could not defy him to the field.After passing two nights in all the tossing agony of a damned spirit, I followed him on his journey 'cross the mountains.—On the twilight of the second day, I laid wait for him in a narrow pass; and as soon as his gigantic form darkened the path before meI have told you all.
Prior. (eagerly.) You have not told his name.
Ost. Did I not say Montera? He was a noble Hungarian.
Prior. (much agitated.) He was so!— He was so. He was noble and beloved.
Jer. (aside to Prior.) What is the matter with you, reverend Father? Was he your Friend?
Prior. (aside to Jerome.) Speak not to me now, but question the murderer as ye will.
Ben. (overhearing the Prior.)
He is indeed a murderer, reverend Father, but he is our penitent.
Prior. Go to! what are names?—Ask him what questions you will, and finish the confession quickly.
Ben. (to Osterloo.) But have you never till now confessed this crime; nor in the course of so many years reflected on its dreadful turpitude?
Ost. The active and adventurous life of a soldier is most adverse to reflection: but often, in the stillness of midnight, the remembrance of this terrible deed has come powerfully upon me; till morning returned, and the noise of the camp began, and the fortunes of the day were before me.
Prior. (in a severe voice.)
Thou hast indeed been too long permitted to remain in this hardened state. But Heaven, sooner or later, will visit the man of blood with its terrours. Sooner or later, he shall feel that he stands upon an awful brink; and short is the step which engulphs him in that world, where the murdered and the murderer meet again, in the tremendous presence of Him who is the Lord and Giver of life.
Ost. You believe then in such severe retribution?
Prior. I believe in it as in my own existence.
Ost. (turning to Jerome and Benedict.)
And you, good Fathers, you believe in this?
Ben. Nature teaches this, as well as revelation: we must believe it.
Jer. Some presumptuous minds, dazzled with the sunshine of prosperity, have dared to doubt; but to us in the sober shade of life, visited too as we have now been by visions preternatural and awful, it is a thing of certainty rather than of faith.
Ost. That such things are, it makes the brain confused and giddy.—These are tremendous thoughts!
(Leans his back against the wall, and gazes fixedly on the ground.)
Prior. Let us leave him to the bitterness of his thoughts. We now must deliberate with the brethren on what is to be done. There must be no delay; the night advances fast. Conduct him to another apartment. I must assemble a council of the whole order.
Jer. (to Osterloo.) We must lead you to another apartment, Count, while we consider what is to be done.
Ost. (roused.) Aye, the expiation, you mean: let it be severe, if atonement in this world may be made.
(Turning to Prior as Jerome leads him off.)
Let your expiation be severe, holy Father; a slight penance matches not with such a crime as mine.
Prior. Be well assured it shall be what it ought.
Ost. (turning again, and catching hold of the Prior's robe.) I regard not bodily pain. In battle once, with the head of a broken arrow in my thigh, I led on the charge, and sustained all the exertions of a well-fought field, till night closed upon our victory. Let your penance be severe, my reverend Father; I have been long acquainted with pain.
[Exeunt Osterloo and Jerome.
Ben. You seem greatly moved, Father; but it is not with pity for the wretched. You would not destroy such a man as this, though his crime is the crime of blood?
Prior. He shall die: ere another sun dawn on these walls, he shall die.
Ben. Oh, say not so! Think of some other expiation.
Prior. I would think of another, were there any other more dreadful to him than death.
Ben. He is your penitent.
Prior. He is the murderer of my brother.
Ben. Then Heaven have mercy on him, if he must find none here!Montero was your brother?
Prior. My only brother. It were tedious to tell thee now, how I was separated from him after the happy days of our youth.I saw him no more; yet he was still the dearest object of my thoughts. After escaping death in many a battle, he was slain, as it was conjectured, by banditti, in travelling across the mountains. His body was never discovered. Ah! little did I think it was lying so near me!
Ben. It is indeed piteous, and you must needs feel it as a brother: but consider the danger we run, should we lay violent hands on an Imperial General, with his enraged soldiers, within a few hours' march of our walls.
Prior. I can think of nothing but revenge. Speak to me no more. I must assemble the whole order immediately.
[Exeunt.
SCENE III.
Another Apartment. Enter Osterloo, as from a small Recess at the bottom of the Stage, pacing backwards and forwards several times in an agitated manner; then advancing slowly to the front, where he stands musing and muttering to himself for some moments, before he speaks aloud.
Ost. That this smothered horrour should burst upon me at last! And there be really such things as the darkened fancy imageth to itself, when the busy day is stilled. An unseen world surrounds us: spirits and powers, and the invisible dead, hover near us; while we in unconscious security—Oh! I have slept upon a fearful brink! Every sword that threatened my head in battle, had power in its edge to send me to a terrible account.—I have slept upon a fearful brink.Am I truly awake? (Rubbing his eyes, then grasping several parts of his body, first with one hand and then with the other.) Yes, yes! it is so!—I am keenly and terribly awake.
(Paces rapidly up and down, and then stopping short.)
Can there be virtue in penances suffered by the body to do away offences of the soul? If there be—O if there be! let them runnel my body with stripes, and swaith me round in one continued girth of wounds! Any thing that can be endured here is mercy compared to the dreadful abiding of what may be hereafter.
Enter Wovelreid behind, followed by Soldiers, who range themselves at the bottom of the stage. Osterloo, turning round, runs up to him eagerly.
Ha! my dear Albert, returned to me again, with all my noble fellows at thy back.Pardon me, I mistook you for one of my Captains.
Wov. I am the Prior's Captain.
Ost. And those men too?
Wov. They are the Prior's soldiers, who have been ordered from distant quarters to repair to the monastery immediately.
Ost. In such haste!
Wov. Aye, in truth: we received our orders after sun-set, and have marched two good leagues since.
Ost. What may this mean?
Wov. Faith, I know not. My duty is to obey the Prior, and pray to our good saint; and whether I am commanded to surprise the stronghold of an enemy, or protect an execution, it is the same thing to me.
Ost. An execution! can aught of this nature be intended?
Wov. You turn pale, Sir: wearing the garb of a soldier, you have surely seen blood ere now.
Ost. I have seen too much blood.
Enter Prior, Jerome, Paul, and Monks, walking in order; the Prior holding a paper in his hand.
Prior (with solemnity.) Count Osterloo, Lieutenant-General of our liege Lord the Emperor, authorized by this deed, which is subscribed by all the brethren of our Holy Order here present, I pronounce to you our solemn decision, that the crime of murder, as, by the mysterious voice of Heaven, and your own confession, your crime is proved to be, can only be expiated by death: you are therefore warned to prepare yourself to die this night. Before day-break you must be with the inhabitants of another world, where may the great Maker of us all deal with you in mercy!
(Osterloo staggers back from the spot where he stood, and remains silent.)
Prior. It is a sentence, Count, pronounced against you from necessity, to save the lives of our whole community, which you yourself have promised to submit to; have you any thing to say in reply to it?
Ost. Nothing: my thoughts are gone from me in the darkness of astonishment.
Prior. We are compelled to be thus hasty and severe: ere day-break you must die.
Ost. Ere day-break! not even the light of another sun to one so ill prepared for the awful and tremendous state into which you would thrust him! this is inhuman! it is horrible!
Prior. He was as ill prepared for it, who, with still shorter warning, was thrust into that awful state in the narrow pass of St. Gothard.
Ost. The guilt of murder was not on his soul.—Nay, nay, holy Prior, consider this horrible extremity: let the pain of the executioner's stroke be twenty-fold upon me; but thrust me not forth to that state from which my soul recoils with unutterable horror!Never but once, to save the life of a friend, did I bend the knee to mortal man in humble supplication. I am a soldier; in many battles I have bled for the service of my country: I am a noble soldier, and I was a proud one; yet do I thus—contemn not my extremity—my knee is on the ground.
Prior. Urge me no further. It must not be; no respite can be granted.
Then subdue as you may, stern priest, the strength of a desperate man.
Wov. What a noble fellow this would be to defend a narrow breach, though he shrinks with such abhorrence from a scaffold. It is a piteous thing to see him so beset.
Prior. (to Wovelreid.) What sayest thou, fool?
Wov. Nay, it is no business of mine, my Lord, I confess. Shall we conduct him to the prison chamber?
Prior. Do so; and see that he retain no concealed arms about him.
Wov. I obey, my Lord: every thing shall be made secure.
(Exit Osterloo, guarded by Wovelreid and Soldiers; and at the same time enter Benedict, by the opposite side, who stands looking after him piteously.)
Prior. (sternly to Benedict.) What brings thee here? Dost thou repent having refused to concur with us in an act that preserves the community?
Ben. Say rather, reverend Father, an act that revenges your brother's death, which the laws of the empire should revenge.
Prior. A supernatural visitation of heaven hath commanded us to punish it.What! dost thou shake thy head? Thou art of a doubting and dangerous spirit; and beware lest, sooner or later, the tempter do not lure thee into heresy. If reason cannot subdue thee, authority shall.Return again to thy cell; let me hear of this no more.
Ben. I will, reverend Father. But, for the love of our holy saint, bethink you, ere it be too late, that though we may be saved from the pestilence by this bloody sacrifice, what will rescue our throats from the swords of Osterloo's soldiers when they shall return, as they have threatened, to demand from us their General?
Prior. Give thyself no concern about this. My own bands are already called in, and a messenger has been dispatched to the Abbess Matilda; her troops, in defence of the church, will face the best soldiers of the empire.But why lose we time in unprofitable contentions? Go, my sons, (speaking to other Monks.) the night advances fast, and we have much to do ere morning.
(Knocking heard without.)
Ha! who knocks at this untimely hour? Can the soldiers be indeed returned upon us?—Run to the gate, but open it to none.
(Exeunt several Monks in haste, and presently re-enter with a Lay-Brother.)
Lay-B. Please ye, reverend Father; the Marchioness has sent a messenger from the castle, beseeching you to send a confessor immediately to confess one of her women, who was taken ill yesterday, and is now at the point of death.
Prior. I'm glad it is only this.—What is the matter with the penitent?
Lay-B. I know not, please you: the messenger only said, she was taken ill yesterday.
Prior. (shaking his head.) Aye, this malady has got there also.—I cannot send one of the brothers to bring infection immediately amongst us.What is to be done? Leonora is a most noble Lady; and the family have been great benefactors to our order.—I must send somebody to her. But he must stop well his nostrils with spicery, and leave his upper garment behind him, when he quits the infected apartment. Jerome, wilt thou go? Thou art the favorite confessor with all the women at the castle.
Jer. Nay, Father; I must attend on our prisoner here, who has most need of ghostly assistance.
Prior. (to another Monk.) Go thou, Anselmo; thou hast given comfort to many a dying penitent.
Monk. I thank you, Father, for the preference; but Paul is the best of us all for administering comfort to the dying; and there is a sickness come over my heart o' the sudden, that makes me unfit for the office.
Prior. (to Paul.) Thou wilt go then, my good son.
Paul. I beseech you, don't send me, reverend Father; I ne'er escaped contagion in my life, where malady or fever were to be had.
Prior. Who will go then?
(A deep silence.)
Ben. What! has no one faith enough in the protection of St. Maurice, even purchased, as it is about to be, by the shedding of human blood, to venture upon this dangerous duty? I will go then, Father, though I am sometimes of a doubting spirit.
Prior. Go, and St. Maurice protect thee!
[Exit Ben.
Let him go; it is well that we get rid of him for the night, should they happily detain him so long at the castle.— He is a troublesome, close-searching, self-willed fellow. He hath no zeal for the order. Were a miser to bequeath his possessions to our monastery, he would assist the disappointed heir himself to find out a flaw in the deed.—But retire to your cells, my sons, and employ yourselves in prayer and devotion, till the great bell warn you to attend the execution.
[Exeunt.
SCENE III.
An Apartment in the Castle. Enter Leonora and Agnes, speaking as they enter.
Ag. But she is asleep now; and is so much and so suddenly better, that the confessor, when he comes, will be dissatisfied, I fear, that we have called him from his cell at such an unreasonable hour.
Leo. Let him come, nevertheless; don't send to prevent him.
Ag. He will be unwilling to be detained, for they are engaged in no common matters tonight at the monastery. Count Osterloo, as I told you before, is doing voluntary penance at the shrine of St. Maurice to stop the progress of this terrible malady.
Leo. I remember thou did'st.
Ag. Ah, Marchioness! you would not say so thus faintly, had you seen him march through the pass with his soldiers. He is the bravest and most graceful man, though somewhat advanced in years, that I ever beheld.—Ah, had you but seen him!
Leo. I have seen him, Agnes.
Ag. And I spoke of him all the while, yet you did not tell me this before! Ah, my noble Mistress and Friend! the complexion of your cheek is altered; you have indeed seen him, and you have not seen him with indifference.
Leo. Think as thou wilt about this. He was the friend and fellow-soldier of my Lord, when we first married; though before my marriage I had never seen him.
Ag. Friend! Your Lord was then in the decline of life; there must have been great disparity in their friendship.
Leo. They were friends, however; for the Marquis liked society younger than himself; and I, who had been hurried into an unequal marriage, before I could judge for myself, was sometimes foolish enough to compare them together. Ag. Aye, that was natural enough. (Eagerly.) And what happened then?
Leo. (offended.) What happened then! (drawing herself up proudly.) Nothing happened then, but subduing the foolish fancy of a girl, which was afterwards amply repaid by the self-approbation and dignity of a woman.
Ag. Pardon me, Madam; I ought to have supposed all this. But you have been long a widow, and Osterloo is still unmarried; what prevented you when free?
Leo. I was ignorant what the real state of his sentiments had been in regard to me. But had this been otherwise; received, as I was, into the family of my Lord, the undowried daughter of a petty nobleman; and left as I now am, by his confiding love, the sole guardian of his children and their fortunes; I could never think of supporting a second lord on the wealth entrusted to me by the first, to the injury of his children. As nothing, therefore, has ever happened in consequence of this weakness of my youth, nothing ever shall.
Ag. This is noble.
Leo. It is right.But here comes the father Confessor.
Enter Benedict.
You are welcome, good Father! yet I am almost ashamed to see you for our sick person has become suddenly well again, and is now in a deep sleep. I fear I shall appear to you capricious and inconsiderate in calling you up at so late an hour.
Ben. Be not uneasy, Lady, upon this account: I am glad to have an occasion for being absent from the monastery for some hours, if you will permit me to remain here so long.
Leo. What mean you, Father Benedict? Your countenance is solemn and sorrowful: what is going on at the monastery? (He shakes his head.) Ha! will they be severe with him in a voluntary penance, submitted to for the good of the order?—What is the nature of the penance? It is to continue, I am told, but one night.
Ben. It will, indeed, soon be over.
Leo. And will he be gone on the morrow?
Ben. His spirit will, but his body remains with us for ever.
Leo. (uttering a shriek.) Death, dost thou mean?—O horror! horror! Is this the expiation? Oh most horrible, most unjust!
Ben. Indeed I consider it as such. Though guilty, by his own confession, of murder, committed, many years since, under the frenzy of passion; it belongs not to us to inflict the punishment of death upon a guilty soul, taken so suddenly and unprepared for its doom.
Leo. Murder! didst thou say murder? Oh Osterloo, Osterloo! hast thou been so barbarous? and art thou in this terrible state?—Must thou thus end thy days, and so near me too!
Ben. You seem greatly moved, noble Leonora: would you could do something more for him than lament.
Leo. (catching hold of him eagerly.)
Can I do any thing? Speak, Father: O tell me how! I will do any thing and every thing.Alas, alas! my vassals are but few, and cannot be assembled immediately.
Ben. Force were useless. Your vassals, if they were assembled, would not be persuaded to attack the sacred walls of a monastery.
Leo. I did indeed rave foolishly: but what else can be done?—Take these jewels and every thing of value in the castle, if they will bribe those who guard him, to let him escape.—Think of it.—O think well of it, good Benedict!
Ag. I have heard that there is a secret passage, leading from the prison-chamber of the monastery under its walls, and opening to the free country at the bottom of the rocks.
Ben. By every holy saint, so there is! and the most sordid of our brothers is entrusted with the key of it. But who will be his conductor? None but a Monk of the Order may pass the soldiers who guard him; and the Monk who should do it, must fly from his country for ever, and break his sacred vows. I can oppose the weak fears and injustice of my brethren, for misfortunes and disgust of the world, not superstitious veneration for monastic sanctity, has covered my head with a cowl; but this I cannot do.
Ag. There is the dress of a Monk of your Order in the old wardrobe of the castle, if some person were disguised in it.
Leo. Thanks to thee! thanks to thee, my happy Agnes! I will be that person.—I will put on the disguise.Good Father! your face gives consent to this.
Ben. If there be time; but I left them preparing for the execution.
Leo. There is, there is!—Come with me to the wardrobe, and we'll set out for the monastery forthwith.—Come, come! a few moments will carry us there.
[Exit hastily, followed by Ag. and Ben.
SCENE IV.
A Wood near the Castle; the Stage quite dark: Enter Two Servants with Torches.
1st Ser. This must surely be the entry to the path, where my Lady ordered us to wait for those same Monks.
2d Ser. Yes; I know it well, for yonder is the postern. It is the nearest path to the monastery, but narrow and difficult. The night is cold: I hope they will not keep us long waiting.
1st Ser. I heard the sound of travellers coming up the eastern avenue, and they may linger belike; for Monks are marvellously fond of great people and of strangers; at least the good Fathers of our monastery are.
2d Ser. Aye, in their late Prior's time they lived like lords themselves; and they are not very humble at present.—But there's light from the postern: here they come.
Enter Benedict, Leonora disguised like a Monk, and Agnes with a Peasant's cloak thrown over her.
Leo. (speaking as she enters.) It is well thought of, good Benedict. Go thou before me to gain brother Baldwin, in the first place; and I'll wait without on the spot we have agreed upon, until I hear the signal.
Ben. Thou comprehendest me completely, Brother; so God speed us both!
(To 1st Ser.)
Torch-man, go thou with me. This is the right path, I trust?
1st Ser. Fear not, Father; I know it. well.
[Exit Ben. and 1st Ser.
Ag. Fear not: Benedict has described it so minutely, I cannot fail to discover it.
Leo. What steps are those behind us? Some body following us from the castle?
Enter 3d Servant in haste.
3d Ser. There are travellers arrived at the gate, and desire to be admitted for the night.
Leo. In an evil hour they come. Return, dear Agnes, and receive them. Benighted strangers, no doubt. Excuse my absence any how: go quickly.
Ag. And leave you to proceed alone?
Leo. Care not for me: there is an energy within me now, that bids defiance to fear.
(Beckons to 2d Servant, who goes out before her with the torch, and Exit.)
Ag. (muttering to herself, as she turns to the castle.) The evil spirit hath brought travellers to us at this moment: but I'll send them to their chambers right quickly, and join her at the secret passage, notwithstanding.
[Exeunt.