MASTER. Unnatural, flinty, more than barbarous: The Scythians or the marble hearted fates Could not have acted more remorseless deeds In their relentless natures, then these of thine: Was this the answer I long waited on, The satisfaction for thy prisoned brother?
HUSBAND. Why, he can have no more on's then our skins, And some of em want but fleaing.
1 GENTLEMAN. Great sins have made him imprudent.
MASTER. H'as shed so much blood that he cannot blush.
2 GENTLEMAN. Away with him, bear him a long to the Justices; A gentleman of worship dwells at hand; There shall his deeds be blazed.
HUSBAND. Why, all the better. My glory tis to have my action known: I grieve for nothing, but I mist of one.
MASTER. There's little of a father in that grief: Bear him away.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IX. A room in the house of a Magistrate.
[Enter a knight with two or three Gentlemen.]
KNIGHT. Endangered so his wife? murdered his children?
1 GENTLEMAN. So the Cry comes.
Knight. I am sorry I ere knew him, That ever he took life and natural being From such an honoured stock, and faira descent; Til this black minute without stain or blemish.
1 GENTLEMAN. Here come the men.
[Enter the master of the college and the rest, with the prisoner.]
KNIGHT. The serpent of his house! I'm sorry For this time that I am in place of justice.
MASTER. Please you, Sir.
KNIGHT. Do not repeat it twice I know too much, Would it had ne'er been thought on: Sir, I bleed for you.
1 GENTLEMAN. Your fathers sorrows are alive in me: What made you shew such monstrous cruelty?
HUSBAND. In a word, Sir, I have consumd all, played away long acre, and I thought it the charitablest deed I could do to cussen beggery and knock my house oth head.
KNIGHT. Oh, in a cooler blood you will repent it.
HUSBAND. I repent now, that ones left unkild, My brat at nurse. Oh, I would full fain have weand him.
KNIGHT. Well, I do not think but in to morrows judgement, The terror will sit closer to your soul, When the dread thought of death remembers you; To further which, take this sad voice from me: Never was act played more unnaturally.
HUSBAND. Thank you, Sir.
KNIGHT. Go, lead him to the Jail: Where justice claims all, there must pity fail.
HUSBAND. Come, come, away with me.
[Exit prisoner.]
MASTER. Sir, you deserve the worship of your place. Would all did so: in you the law is grace.
KNIGHT. It is my wish it should be so.--Ruinous man, The desolation of his house, the blot Upon his predecessors honord name! That man is nearest shame that is past shame.
[Exit.]
SCENE X. Before Calverly Hall.
[Enter Husband with the officers, The Master and gentlemen, as going by his house.]
HUSBAND. I am right against my house, seat of my Ancestors: I hear my wife's alive; but much endangered. Let me intreat to speak with her, before the prison gripe me.
[Enter his wife, brought in a chair.]
GENTLEMAN. See here she comes of her self.
WIFE. Oh my sweet Husband, my dear distressed husband, Now in the hands of unrelenting laws! My greatest sorrow, my extremest bleeding, Now my soul bleeds.
HUSBAND. How now? kind to me? did I not wound thee, left thee for dead?
WIFE. Tut, far greater wounds did my breast feel: Unkindness strikes a deeper wound than steel; You have been still unkind to me.
HUSBAND. Faith, and so I think I have: I did my murthers roughly, out of hand, Desperate and sudden, but thou hast deviz'd A fine way now to kill me, thou hast given mine eyes Seven wounds a piece; now glides the devil from me, Departs at every joint, heaves up my nails. Oh catch him new torments, that were near invented, Bind him one thousand more, you blessed Angels, In that pit bottomless; let him not rise To make men act unnatural tragedies, To spread into a father, and in fury, Makes him his childrens executioners: Murder his wife, his servants, and who not? For that man's dark, where heaven is quite forgot.
WIFE. Oh my repentant husband.