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would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

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would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

endeavoured

How many times the word 'endeavoured' appears in the text?

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

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would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

disreputable

How many times the word 'disreputable' appears in the text?

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

bunce

How many times the word 'bunce' appears in the text?

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

your

How many times the word 'your' appears in the text?

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

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would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

bulletin

How many times the word 'bulletin' appears in the text?

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

girls

How many times the word 'girls' appears in the text?

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

sophie

How many times the word 'sophie' appears in the text?

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

angry

How many times the word 'angry' appears in the text?

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

quickly

How many times the word 'quickly' appears in the text?

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

schoolmaster

How many times the word 'schoolmaster' appears in the text?

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

against

How many times the word 'against' appears in the text?

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

till

How many times the word 'till' appears in the text?

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

forgotten

How many times the word 'forgotten' appears in the text?

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

promises

How many times the word 'promises' appears in the text?

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

connexion

How many times the word 'connexion' appears in the text?

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

don't

How many times the word 'don't' appears in the text?

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady Scroope. "There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family." Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper. "My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly. That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope. The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary. "She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily. "Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?" "No;--I am not married." "I know that you will not condescend to an untruth." "If so, my word must be sufficient." But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured to be very good to you." "I do know that he has,--been very good to me." "Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and suffering." "You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what more you want of me." "Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?" "Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid." "If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your name and family from a disreputable connexion." "I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends." "You do know people of the name of O'Hara?" "Of course I do." "And there is a--young lady?" "I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to consult Lady Mary Quin." "You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say another word." "I will not pledge myself to anything for the future." "You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill." "Nor will I." "But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear." "I do not know that I have forgotten anything." Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle has a right to expect that you will answer that question." "I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such questions shall be asked me." In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless, almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission! That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral, entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon. Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara! Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a rat! There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle is very ill," she murmured. "I was so sorry to hear it." "We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has told us that we may hope." "I am so glad to find that it is so." "I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much you are to him." "I don't know why you should say so." "You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the Irish young lady." "Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it." "He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that." "It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy chambers of Scroope Manor. He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff, ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately, been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room, away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her. His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here." "Nor I you!" "Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her." "What do you think of my uncle's state?" "He is better; but he is very weak." "You see him?" "Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come." "Of course I came." "He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him." Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took himself to bed. CHAPTER X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME. On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a fortnight were a very long time indeed. "A fortnight!" said the Earl. "We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope. "Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said the Earl in a low moaning voice. "My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor. Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so, what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it, Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of paper by the window. "Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it." The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara. DEAREST KATE, I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations. My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart. Your own F. N. There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry. She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses. It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it. She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the freedom of perfect intimacy. "Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara. "He says that his uncle is better." "Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be back?" "Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--" "Says what, dear?" "When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy." "And where shall I go?" "Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always." "No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not want me." "Dear mother. I shall want you always." "He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him, Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he were false to you--" "He is not false. Why should you think him false?" "I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you, I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up on high. It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named. "That's what I call a good novel." Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game. The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day instead of riding about with the steward. He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle, and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind, indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides, had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to the girl he loved. Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby. As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property, that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much, surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love? His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him.

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would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

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would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

under

How many times the word 'under' appears in the text?

would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

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would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

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How many times the word 'enlightenment' appears in the text?

would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

use

How many times the word 'use' appears in the text?

would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

conceit

How many times the word 'conceit' appears in the text?

would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

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would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

cousin

How many times the word 'cousin' appears in the text?

would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

transgress'd

How many times the word 'transgress'd' appears in the text?

would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

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would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

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would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

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would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

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would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

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How many times the word 'person' appears in the text?

would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

juvenal

How many times the word 'juvenal' appears in the text?

would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

sell

How many times the word 'sell' appears in the text?

would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

begged

How many times the word 'begged' appears in the text?

would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

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would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

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would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. > ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They

invitation

How many times the word 'invitation' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

thee

How many times the word 'thee' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

grinded

How many times the word 'grinded' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

court

How many times the word 'court' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

tours

How many times the word 'tours' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

jennets

How many times the word 'jennets' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

living

How many times the word 'living' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

actors

How many times the word 'actors' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

wave

How many times the word 'wave' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

antiquity

How many times the word 'antiquity' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

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wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

left

How many times the word 'left' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

hold

How many times the word 'hold' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

madness

How many times the word 'madness' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

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wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

vows

How many times the word 'vows' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

descend

How many times the word 'descend' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

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wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

men

How many times the word 'men' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

pay

How many times the word 'pay' appears in the text?

wrongs to me? CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul. ONAELIA Blessed penitence! CARDINAL Has turned his eyes into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous passions. ONAELIA God-like justice! CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you. ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall. CARDINAL Will marry you. ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist? When? When? CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but bastard issue to his crown. Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement? ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived. Enter King. CARDINAL You need not: here is the King. KING Leave us. Exit Cardinal. ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first. KING 'Tis granted, do. But stay, what mean these emblems of distress? My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral? ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself. This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time. This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head. Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence. KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture? ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions. KING And wished it had been I. ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name. And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows. ONAELIA And will you swear to this? KING By this I swear. [Takes up Bible.] ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book! KING Why then, by this. [Takes up crucifix.] ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers. Are you resolved? OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it. KING And will keep it. Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery. ONAELIA Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes. This your indenture, held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold, Into your hands I redeliver it. Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow. [Onaelia passes the document to the King.] KING 'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it? Now to your beads and crucifix again. ONAELIA Defend me heaven! KING Pray there may come Embassadors from France Their followers are good customers. ONAELIA Save me from madness! KING 'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress. ONAELIA You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. KING Away bold strumpet! ONAELIA Are there eyes in heaven to see this? KING Call and try, here's a whore's curse To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse. Exit King, Enter Cornego. CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam! ONAELIA Ha! Where is the King, thou slave? [Clutches Cornego.] CORNEGO Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man. ONAELIA Thou treacherous caitiff , where is the King? CORNEGO He's gone, but not so far as you are. ONAELIA Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements, And grind me into powder CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too. ONAELIA Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin? Let it fall, now let it fall upon me! CORNEGO No, there has been too much fallen upon you already. ONAELIA Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he is embracing his new leman , Til want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths bawds to his perjury. CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already. ONAELIA I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all. CORNEGO No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me. Here comes your Uncle. Enter Medina. ONAELIA Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle? MEDINA More horrors yet? ONAELIA 'Twas never full till now, And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned. MEDINA Instruct me in the cause. ONAELIA The King, the contract! Exit Onaelia. CORNEGO That's cud enough for you to chew upon. Exit Cornego. MEDINA What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract. The mischief I divine which proving true, Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate: A black deed must a black deed expiate. Exit Medina. ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons. BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes , these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! Save thee illustrious Don. Enter Don Rodrigo. Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier? RODRIGO No BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! Enter Cockadillio. Signor, is the King at leisure? COCKADILLO To do what? BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak. COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way. BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir? COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber. BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray. COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal. BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod ! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds. COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon. Exit Cockadillio. BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman? Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio. KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him? ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors. BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays. KING On to the battle. BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw , these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce , and here our sconces lay seventeen moons on the cold earth. KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle. BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels , muskets, culverin and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. KING So. BALTHAZAR To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici. KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine. BALTHAZAR Only your love. KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword. Onaelia knocks loudly at the door. ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. KING What woman's voice is that? ALL Medina's niece. KING Bar out that fiend. ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. KING Keep her from following me. A guard. ALANZO They are ready, sir. KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me. BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you. KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded. Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain]. BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned. BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home? KING What kingdom? BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour. KING Wherein? BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now. KING Ha, ha, ha! BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss. KING Any more? BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. KING Nay, spit thy venom. BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis , no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must. KING No more. BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces. KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou. BALTHAZAR I care not. KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now? Enter [guards and attendants] drawn. ALL In danger, Sir? KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow. BALTHAZAR So, die! Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco. KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers. [Exit attendant who returns with light.] CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes. KING Art frantic? CARDINAL You are so, Sir. KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit. CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience - KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond? ALL Our hands are to it. DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes? KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak. CARDINAL Dear Sir! KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire. [Burns contract.] Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury? CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out. KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound? CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it. KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn. Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain. DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy. ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies. Enter Medina. MEDINA Where's the King? DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning. MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened. ALBA He tore it not, but burned it. MEDINA Openly! DAENIA And heaven with us to witness. MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom. ALBA Meet and consult. MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs. Exeunt. ACT 2 SCENE 2 Enter Onaelia from one way, Cornego another. CORNEGO Madam, there's a bear without to speak with you ONAELIA A bear? CORNEGO It's a man all hair, and that's as bad. ONAELIA Who is it? CORNEGO 'Tis one Master Captain Balthazar. ONAELIA I do not know that Balthazar. CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him. ONAELIA Let him come in. Enter Balthazar. CORNEGO Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir. BALTHAZAR A soldier's good wish bless you lady. ONAELIA Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me, So many bad ones blast me. BALTHAZAR Do you not know me? ONAELIA I scarce know myself. BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you. ONAELIA I am bandied too much up and down already. CORNEGO Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier. BALTHAZAR I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me? ONAELIA I have been laden with such weights of wrong That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego. CORNEGO Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together, Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon. Exit Cornego. BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured? ONAELIA Oh, I would Crown him With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life. BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him? ONAELIA There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed? ONAELIA One step to human bliss is sweet revenge. BALTHAZAR Stay. What made you love him? ONAELIA His most goodly shape Married to royal virtues of his mind. BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It's a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one, and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. 'Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster. ONAELIA Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee. Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour To stand up like a brazen wall to guard Thy king and country, and would'st thou ruin both? BALTHAZAR You spur me on to it. ONAELIA True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him who I once loved too well: For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I'd rather Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I'll play Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee If thou but prickest his finger. BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil's part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King's blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds. ONAELIA Art thou not counterfeit? BALTHAZAR Now by my scars I am not. ONAELIA I'll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee To be an often visitant. BALTHAZAR Your servant, Yet must I be a stone upon a hill, For thou I do no good, I'll not lie still. Exeunt. ACT THREE SCENE ONE Enter Malateste and the Queen. MALATESTE When first you came from Florence, would the world Had with a universal dire eclipse Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day, That you to Spain had never found the way, Here to be lost forever. QUEEN We from one climate Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine To raise up ponderous mischief to the height, And then thy hands, the executioners. A true Italian spirit is a ball Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent. Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent. And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste, Why from the presence did you single me Into this gallery? MALATESTE To show you Madam, The picture of yourself, but so defaced, And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet A sword to arm the poorest Florentine In your just wrongs. QUEEN As how? Let's see that picture. MALATESTE Here 'tis then: time is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage And the King's pre-contract. QUEEN So, and what followed? MALATESTE Whether it were a question moved by chance, Or spitefully of purpose, I being there, And your own Countryman, I cannot tell. But when much tossing had bandied both the King And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets. In conclusion, the Father Jesuits, To whose subtle music every ear there Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence Of this opinion - oh pardon me If I must speak their language. QUEEN Say on. MALATESTE That the most Catholic king in marrying you, Keeps you but as his whore. QUEEN Are we their themes? MALATESTE And that Medina's niece, Onaelia, Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown, And whatsoever children you shall bear, To be but bastards in the highest degree, As being begotten in adultery. QUEEN We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste! What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm Back in their faces who thus shoot at me? MALATESTE If I were fit to be your councillor, Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child. The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies, May though it not be so, get you with child With swearing that 'tis true. QUEEN Say 'tis believed, Or that it so doth prove? MALATESTE The joy thereof, Together with these earthquakes, which will shake All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit, So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence. All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames; And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers, Speak loud for your most safe delivery. QUEEN What fruits grow out of these? MALATESTE These; you must stick, As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers, Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering. QUEEN So. MALATESTE 'Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse Is hereby made of any faction That shall combine against you, which the King seeing, If then he will not rouse him like a dragon To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot And her base bastard hence, either by death, Or in some traps of state ensnare them both, Let his own ruins crush him. QUEEN This goes to trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to call up war. ACT THREE SCENE TWO Enter Cornego and Onaelia. CORNEGO Here's a parcel of man's flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you. ONAELIA Is't not some executioner? CORNEGO I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters. ONAELIA Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prithee bid him welcome. CORNEGO He says he is a poet. ONAELIA Then bid him better welcome. Belike he's come to write my epitaph, Some scurvy thing I'll warrant. Welcome Sir. Enter Poet. POET Madam, my love presents this book unto you. ONAELIA To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me: [Onaelia reads book.] To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou should'st have writ to the most wronged Lady. The title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine honour's torn. CORNEGO Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet. ONAELIA What does it treat of? POET Of the solemn triumphs Set forth at coronation of the Queen. ONAELIA Hissing, the poet's whirlwind, blast thy lines! Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs? POET 'Las Madam! ONAELIA When her funerals are past, Crown thou a dedication to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse. Cornego, burn this idol. CORNGO Your book shall come to light, Sir. Exit Cornego [with book.] ONAELIA I have read legends of disastrous dames; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel? POET I dare mix gall and poison with my ink. ONAELIA Do it then for me. POET And every line must be A whip to draw blood. ONAELIA Better. POET And to dare The stab from

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you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

collapsed

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you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

fails

How many times the word 'fails' appears in the text?

you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

death

How many times the word 'death' appears in the text?

you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

head

How many times the word 'head' appears in the text?

you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

done

How many times the word 'done' appears in the text?

you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

mean

How many times the word 'mean' appears in the text?

you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

closes

How many times the word 'closes' appears in the text?

you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

feelings

How many times the word 'feelings' appears in the text?

you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

doing

How many times the word 'doing' appears in the text?

you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

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you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

ears

How many times the word 'ears' appears in the text?

you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

surrender

How many times the word 'surrender' appears in the text?

you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

starters

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you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

couple

How many times the word 'couple' appears in the text?

you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

killed

How many times the word 'killed' appears in the text?

you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

degree

How many times the word 'degree' appears in the text?

you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

sleep

How many times the word 'sleep' appears in the text?

you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

mistakes

How many times the word 'mistakes' appears in the text?

you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

seat

How many times the word 'seat' appears in the text?

you back out on the other side. It's the only way you can become whole again. Sage looks Trevor dead in the eye. SAGE (CONT'D) Are you ready? TREVOR I surrender... Trevor closes his eyes A MONTAGE of Sage dimming the lights so that the room is nice and dark... placing needles into Trevor's body... his shoulders... his chest... his neck... his legs... his face... Trevor finally opens his eyes to find... ... he's completely naked on Sage's table! And she's making love to his body, which is now filled with needles! TREVOR (CONT'D) Wait... what the hell is this... SAGE (whispering) Surrender yourself... surrender yourself... (CONTINUED) 68. CONTINUED: (2) She holds up a small chunk of ice and begins rubbing it on Trevor's chest. He catches his breath at the cold and begins to shiver. INT. CAR - DAY Trevor wakes up shivering. He is in the passenger seat, head resting against a baby blanket. A hand touches his... ... Kirsty's. TREVOR Kirsty... Kirsty? KIRSTY It's okay it was just a nightmare that's all. Trevor looks at Kirsty. She is breathtakingly beautiful. TREVOR You're alive... KIRSTY Yes. Now go back to sleep. You're driving the rest of the way to gramma's remember? Trevor looks in the back and for the first time sees an INFANT GIRL sleeping in a car seat behind him. KIRSTY (CONT'D) Trevor I've decided we have got to agree on a name before we reach my mother's. This poor kid's going to be starting preschool as student x if we don't make up our minds. So, I've been thinking, what about Daisy? TREVOR (looking at the baby) It's perfect. KIRSTY Well that was easy all of a sudden. Trevor looks back at Kirsty. TREVOR Kirsty... I'm glad you're alive. THE SIREN FROM AN APPROACHING AMBULANCE GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER, piercing Trevor's ears. (CONTINUED) 69. CONTINUED: Trevor winces in pain and blocks his ears from the noise. Kirsty looks at him, puzzled. He can only read her lips: "Honey what's wrong? Honey?" INT. AMBULANCE - NIGHT Trevor's eye rivet open again. A PARAMEDIC is snapping his fingers in front of them. Another paramedic is readying a hypodermic. PARAMEDIC Can you hear me? Just nod. Trevor nods. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Do you know where you are? TREVOR Ambulance. PARAMEDIC We're just gonna take some blood here. The other paramedic sticks a needle in Trevor's arm. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) You know what day it is? Trevor shakes his head. The paramedic holds up two fingers. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Okay how many fingers am I holding up? TREVOR Two. PARAMEDIC Can you follow them? Paramedic moves his hand left to right. Trevor keeps his eyes on it. PARAMEDIC (CONT'D) Perfect. Hey you remember what happened back there? TREVOR You mean... when the car went off the bridge? PARAMEDIC (laughing) Wow you are out of it. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 70. CONTINUED: PARAMEDIC (cont'd) No it was nothing that extreme. You were riding on the bus and just collapsed onto the floor. Out cold. Remember being on a bus now? TREVOR No... maybe... I don't know. PARAMEDIC It's cool. Here we are. The ambulance comes to a stop. INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT A couple of orderlies wheel Trevor into the exact room he's been coming to this whole time. The orderlies EXIT and who should ENTER but Dr. Ambrose... and the ANGULAR NURSE who readied him for the brain surgery at the beginning. DR. AMBROSE Hello I'm Dr... TREVOR Ambrose. I know. DR. AMBROSE Have we met? TREVOR I've been in here before. DR. AMBROSE Take no offense Trevor. I see many patients a day and have an awful memory. TREVOR Join the club. Ambrose holds a penlight up to each of Trevor's eyes and nods. DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Right. Trevor you just had a seizure brought on by a severe migraine. Things could be much worse. In the next few days you need to take plenty of aspirin, stay out of the sun and make sure you've had at least eight glasses of water by the time you go to bed at night. Trevor just stares at Dr. Ambrose. (CONTINUED) 71. CONTINUED: DR. AMBROSE (CONT'D) Why don't you relax for the next couple of hours? Barring any relapses you should be able to go home after that. TREVOR Where's Allison? Dr. Ambrose looks a little confused. DR. AMBROSE Who's Allison? TREVOR Allison Dormere. Your intern. Ambrose looks at the nurse, who shrugs, then back at Trevor. DR. AMBROSE Uh we have no intern by that name here Mr. Gooding. Listen I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you meantime relax try not to move around too much. Ambrose pats Trevor's shoulder congenially and WALKS OUT. NURSE There there Trevor. Get some sleep. Trevor tenses when the nurse smiles. NURSE (CONT'D) If you need anything give myself or any of the nurses a call okay? We're- TREVOR Don't tell me. We're all here for you Trevor' right? Go ahead say it! You know you want to! The nurse looks taken aback. NURSE What the hell are you talking about...? Trevor suddenly jumps up yanking electrodes and IV tubes from his body. The nurse is back to normal and very disconcerted. NURSE (CONT'D) Trevor! Mr. Gooding lay back down- Trevor runs out of the woman mowing the woman down in his tracks. 72. INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT Trevor rushes down the halls of the hospital nearly knocking down Dr. Ambrose. DR. AMBROSE Hey! Trevor races as fast as his feet can carry him easily losing Dr. Ambrose. INT. OTHER WING - NIGHT Trevor runs down a corridor through another doorway and into another wing of the hospital entirely. He arrives at the door to Allison's office and throws it open. It's actually a janitor's closet. EXT. HOSPITAL ROOF - NIGHT Dressed in janitorial garb, Trevor bursts open the stairwell door and comes out on the roof. An OLD MAN in a johnnie is sitting in one of the chairs not too far away. An oxygen tube trails from his nose to an oxygen tank at his feet. OLD MAN (wheezing) Okay ya caught me. He brings a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. OLD MAN (CONT'D) Least let me finish will ya? Got one puff left. TREVOR I don't work here. OLD MAN Music to my ears. The old man lights a fresh cigarette with the one he's just finished. Trevor turns to go back and THERE'S ALLISON standing in the doorway. ALLISON Trevor. I heard you were looking for me. Is everything all right? (CONTINUED) 73. CONTINUED: TREVOR Allison! Am I glad to see you! (changing his tone) No... everything's not right. Not at all. ALLISON Come here. Allison holds him. The old smoker turns and watches with curiosity. TREVOR Allison I think I did some very, very bad things. I mean very bad. ALLISON Trevor things like this happen to people who experience temporary memory loss. Everybody does things they regret. You just couldn't remember doing these things and now you are so it's a shock to the system. I'm telling you. You will never get better if you keep blaming yourself for your wife's death. TREVOR Maybe I wasn't responsible for the car accident... The old man calls out to Trevor wheezily. OLD MAN Hey buddy! TREVOR (ignoring him) ... but I'm starting to think I was... I was going to... OLD MAN Hey buddy! Trevor turns to the old man. TREVOR What do you want?! OLD MAN (wheezing) Who the hell are you talking to? Trevor turns and Allison is gone. Vanished into thin air. 74. INT. BUS - NIGHT Trevor sits at the front of an empty bus rubbing his head. He stares at the spot where the creepy old lady knitting the baby's bootie used to sit. He looks under the seat. There is nothing there. The HYDRAULICS HISS as the bus comes to a stop. BUS DRIVER This is it mister. Trevor gets up and hurries off giving the driver a cursory glance. The driver doesn't look at Trevor as he speaks. BUS DRIVER (CONT'D) Have a good night now. Trevor EXITS the bus. EXT. BUS STOP - NIGHT Trevor steps out of the bus and faces the ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. He ascends the steps. INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT Trevor sits in the booth across from the tiny screen, behind which is a VERY TIRED PRIEST who is still in his pajamas. TREVOR I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not even Catholic. I just had to tell somebody. It's like, ever since my wife died I don't know what I've actually done or what I've imagined. But I do know if one tenth of what's happening to me is reality... I've done some really awful things in my life. Things that I've... I guess I've blocked out... PRIEST What things do you think you've done? TREVOR Wow. Let's see. So many sins so little time. For starters I was responsible for the death my wife who by the way was carrying my unborn child. That was so I could collect her eight million dollar estate. I think I killed several women I was having mindless sex with behind her back. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 75. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) But I did those murders just for the hell of it. Finally... I think I made some kind of deal with the devil and now he's come to collect my soul. Only he's decided to mess with my head first. How many Hail Marys do you recommend for that one father? PRIEST Trevor I'm sure you killed no one. You are very distraught over your wife's death and rightfully so. You did the right thing by confessing to me here tonight. And you should keep praying for the wisdom that will set your soul at ease. That being said, you are still in a highly emotional state right now. It might do you some good to get some professional help. Confess to them the way you confessed to me. In time you'll probably find that the real killer has already been caught. Or better yet... that these murders never happened at all. TREVOR But I saw these women. I saw their mutilated bodies. I saw their ghosts. I just know it happened I can feel it... PRIEST All you've got is the here and the now Trevor. That's all anyone really has. Maybe this will make things easier to understand. A man goes to sleep every night and has recurring dream that he's a butterfly. In time he begins to wonder if he might actually be a butterfly who dreams he's a man. And at the end of the day does it even matter? All these events you're describing. How can you be sure any of them really happened? TREVOR But that's what I need. To be sure... to be absolutely sure... PRIEST Shh. It's okay son. There is but one truth. One thing you can be absolutely sure of. And that thing is this: The priest moves closer to the screen. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: (2) PRIEST (CONT'D) WE'RE ALL HERE FOR YOU TREVOR. The Priest begins to chuckle ominously. Resisting the urge to scream Trevor bolts out of the confessional... INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Trevor rushes out of the confessional. THE CATHEDRAL BELL begins to CLANG. Eardrums getting battered by the RINGING Trevor blocks his ears and rushes toward the exit- -coming face to face with a gargoyle blocking his path. PINHEAD. Though he speaks softly his voice is heard easily over the bell. PINHEAD Still in the dark I see? TREVOR Who are you? PINHEAD Poor Trevor. TREVOR This game is over do you hear me? PINHEAD I hear everything. And soon you will know everything. More than you ever wanted I can guarantee that. But I want you to think for a minute first. Think about all you've seen. All the clues you've been given. Pinhead opens his cloak revealing the darkness within. To Trevor's shock his sucked right into this void inside Pinhead. INT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH, BULLPEN - NIGHT Trevor is thrust into the interior of his office building. Everyone's gone for the day. The only light is coming in from streetlights outside. Trevor races past the cubicles running out into a hallway. He looks down one end then the other... where he sees an office light is on. He cautiously approaches the office. He looks inside. 77. INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - DAY Gwen's hacked up body is strewn about the office. Her arms are atop the filing cabinet. Legs under her desk. Ass on the copier. Trevor hears someone coming. He looks down the hall to see A FLASHLIGHT BEAM TURN THE CORNER, blinding him. It's bearer begins running toward Trevor. Trevor bolts the other direction heading for the exit. He pushes the door open and slams it behind him only he's not still outside yet... INT. TAWNY'S APARTMENT, BEDROOM - NIGHT Tawny lies on the bed, dead, tongue sticking out of her neck, ribcage violated. Trevor hears someone coming toward the bedroom can see the flashlight beam jittering as its bearer approaches. Trevor rushes toward the window, opens it and leaps out onto the fire escape. EXT. APT. BUILDING - NIGHT Trevor's about to climb down the fire escape when he is bathed in the flashlight's beam from inside. Trevor looks down and sees a garbage dumpster full of trash bags below. He jumps. Trevor sails down three stories and lands in the dumpster. He climbs out and runs to the street as fast as he can. He races down the sidewalk trying to get his bearings at the same time. Hearing footsteps from behind Trevor turns to see: The Stranger in the Window not half a block behind Trevor, keeping Trevor's pace. Then... Trevor stops. And turns. The Stranger stops as well. This has never happened before. Trevor shouts down the empty street. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHO ARE YOU! His voice echoes off the darkened buildings. The Stranger stands there. Trevor begins walking toward him, blood in his eyes. The Stranger backs away. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: Trevor bolts into a run and the Stranger takes off running the other way. The stranger darts into an alley. INT. ALLEY - NIGHT Trevor runs into the alley, seeing no signs of the stranger. The end of the alley is pitch black. TREVOR WHERE'S MY WIFE?! Trevor hears something at the end of the alley. He grabs a broken bottle out of a garbage can and heads toward the darkness. Trevor's teeth are bared now. TREVOR (CONT'D) WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Something GLISTENS in the dark just before the razor sharp edge of a switchblade touches his left jugular. Trevor freezes. OUT OF THE SHADOWS comes... BRET. TREVOR (CONT'D) Bret... what the fuck...? BRET Tonight was supposed to be the night, Trevor. Remember? I couldn't believe you went through five dart games and didn't even joke about it. TREVOR Bret. What the hell is going on? BRET We were gonna be millionaires you said. Nobody'd suspect a thing. I had never even met her. No connection. Then you went and had that fucking car accident. TREVOR Bret you are making no sense whatsoever. BRET I followed her Trevor. I got to know her life. And what a boring one it was. Six a.m. gym, nine a.m. trendy coffee shop, noon bookstore, one soap operas, four o'clock news, five wait for Trevor to come home. And wait and wait and wait. Nine o'clock get ready for bed. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BRET (cont'd) Ten o'clock fall asleep in front of the TV. She did that every day I followed her. Every single day. While you were out fucking your concubines. Every day I felt more and more bad for her, man. And hated you more and more. Trevor is absolutely speechless. BRET (CONT'D) Then I find out you're having nooners with my GWEN. That was all I could take. I didn't want to kill your wife anymore. I wanted to kill you. Even before that little accident I decided to do it on the day we'd set aside for her. Bret presses the blade against Trevor's neck a little harder, drawing a rivulet of blood. BRET (CONT'D) But now that ain't gonna happen either. I fell in love with Kirsty Trevor. The day she died it was like my soul had been ripped from my body. Not just because I lost someone I loved. It's because the child inside her... was mine. Bret then puts the knife to his neck. TREVOR No! Bret drags the knife across his own jugulars slicing them open. Blood pours out of his smiling mouth. Then something really weird happens. Cuts begin to open up all over Bret's face and his hands. Blood pouring to the ground in buckets. Bret lifelessly falls into the pool of blood... Before he can process what's just happened, Trevor hears a NOISE behind him and turns to see... several of those slithering sewer monsters coming toward him, surrounding him. And behind them, SEVERAL SILHOUETTED FIGURES walking slowly toward him. We don't need three guesses to figure out who they are... CENOBITES. Panicking Trevor reaches down and grabs the knife out of Bret's hand and readies himself for the inevitable attack when- -the BLINDING LIGHT FROM A POLICE car illuminates the alley. First Trevor notices the sewer monsters are gone. (CONTINUED) 80. CONTINUED: (2) Then the figures we thought were Cenobites are actually LANGE and several police officers. Lange looks disappointed. LANGE Okay Trevor. Put the knife down. Trevor does so. TWO COPS rush up to Trevor and one swings his baton down just over Trevor's eye- CRACK! LIGHTS OUT. INT. POLICE CRUISER - NIGHT Trevor's nose has been bleeding. His eye is black and blue his lip cut. Trevor looks out the window. The streets are deserted, foreign. Trevor looks at the rear view mirror. The cop staring back at him averts his gaze. Trevor thinks he sees something crawl into the cop's eye. Lange sits next to the cop, staring back at Trevor. He takes out his antihistamine and sprays some up his nose. INT. POLICE STATION LOBBY - NIGHT The doors burst open and the two cops, Lange escorts Trevor IN. The lobby is entirely deserted. Trevor looks around. There are cups of coffee sitting on desks, jackets thrown over backs of chairs. Signs of a recently bustling workplace that has vacated. INT. CHECK-IN - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor up to a counter, finger print him, sit him in a chair. One of them sits at a computer terminal. Despite being indoors both cops keep their sunglasses on. COP#1 Full name? TREVOR Trevor Alan Gooding. COP#1 Age? TREVOR Thirty one. (beat) (MORE) (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: TREVOR (cont'd) Don't you guys ever take your sunglasses off? smaSH CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hurry Trevor down a dank corridor toward a line up room. Trevor sneaks a peek inside one of the rooms. INSIDE THE DOORWAY: TWO DETECTIVES have some HAPLESS SOUL strapped to some odd looking electrical contraption. HAPLESS SOUL I told you I don't know! DETECTIVE#1 Wrong answer! Detective#1 hits a button and a shock races through the Hapless Soul's body. Just then the other detective notices Trevor looking in and SLAMS the door shut. The trio comes to the line up room. INT. LINE UP ANTEROOM - NIGHT Trevor is shoved into the cramped booth-like room with four other strange looking MEN who all stare at him. Silence for a moment then: A LOUD BUZZ is heard and the door on the other side of room opens. COP#1 Single file. Trevor follows the other men. The MAN just ahead of Trevor turns to him. MAN We're all here for you Trevor. COP#1 NO TALKING! INT. LINE UP ROOM - NIGHT Trevor walks IN with the rest of the gentlemen. Hugging the nearest wall they go up a small set of stairs onto a stage. Trevor hears Lange's VOICE overhead. LANGE'S VOICE Stop and face the mirror! (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The five men do as they're told, facing a large two-way mirror on the opposite wall. An awkward moment. LANGE'S VOICE (CONT'D) Thank you! The door to the room opens again and Trevor turns, leading the other men back through the anteroom. INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT The cops hustle Trevor out into the hallway. The next door down opens and out come two more detectives and... TAWNY'S BOYFRIEND, the brute, looking fit to be tied. He sees Trevor and fills with rage. BRUTE I hope they fry your ass mutherfucker! He lunges at Trevor. It takes the detectives he's with and two more cops to keep him from pummeling Trevor. As Trevor's lead away the brute begins to sob uncontrollably. BRUTE (CONT'D) (to Trevor) YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!! COP#1 Got quite a fan club don't you, hotshot? INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT Trevor sits at a tape recorder. Lange sits across from him. TREVOR For the last time. I honestly don't know how any of them died... Lange stands, squirting antihistamine in his nose. He nods at Trevor and WALKS OUT. No sooner has the door closed when it opens again and Givens walks IN. Givens gets right in Trevor's face. GIVENS Now I want you to tell me what you remember happening- in your own words- exactly the way you told Detective Lange. But this time I want you to make one small adjustment. TREVOR What's that? (CONTINUED) 83. CONTINUED: Givens whirls around revealing Lange's face on the back of his head! LANGE DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME! Trevor thinks a moment. He is absolutely numb. He smiles a little insanely. TREVOR I did it. I killed them all. I confess. INT. POLICE STATION HALLWAY - NIGHT Still handcuffed Trevor is escorted toward the detention area by the cops in the sunglasses. He's silently praying he'll wake up from this one somehow. No such luck. Trevor and the cops round a corner and there's Lange running up to them. LANGE (to the cops) Quick detour through the morgue boys. Lange leads them to a set of elevators. TREVOR Morgue...? LANGE That's right Trevor. The timing was impeccable wasn't it? It's been eight months two weeks and three days but we finally found the body. Just need you to ID it for us. TREVOR Where was it? LANGE (CONT'D) That's the weird part. It just magically turned up in the river less than thirty yards from where the car had landed. Like somebody put it there while we weren't looking. The elevator doors open and they get in. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT It's a long ride down. Nobody speaks. Trevor looks at the cops in the sunglasses. One of them takes his pair off. His eye sockets are empty. We can see brain. (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: The cop cleans his shades then his mouth smiles at Trevor before he puts the sunglasses back on. Finally the doors open. Lange unlocks Trevor's handcuffs and the cops push him out the door into a dark corridor. INT. DARK CORRIDOR - NIGHT Trevor looks back to see Lange and the cops staring back at him. LANGE Just keep walking Trevor. You can't miss it. One of the cops waves bye-bye to him. And with that the elevator doors shut. Trevor turns around and faces the long corridor. He begins his hike towards its end where an ominous set of double doors awaits. He arrives at them and pushes them open. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT As soon as the doors open fluorescent lights flicker overhead illuminating two walls of metal drawers and between them: a large slab of marble upon which rests a human form covered with a sheet. Trevor ENTERS. He makes his way toward the body and stares at it. A low WHEEZING noise coming from a dark corner just beyond the slab distracts him. Trevor looks and freezes when he sees: THE GOAT laying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's still breathing. One of the goat's slatted eyes is staring at Trevor as if begging for mercy. A STRANGE RIPPING NOISE is heard. The goat MEWLS in pain then its eye rolls up. Dead. The animal's body begins to quiver as a tiny wound on its back widens spitting out streams of blood. Trevor begins to back away as the wound stretches open, giving birth to a rising form... PINHEAD. He rises completely from the goat, stepping out of the wound. He is red with blood for a second. Then his skin and robe absorb the blood like a sponge. Pinhead approaches Trevor blocking him from the body on the slab. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: PINHEAD How is our little student doing? Has he learned his lesson yet? TREVOR I don't know who you are or what you want. I just want to know what's under that sheet... PINHEAD Use your mind for something other than numbers dear Trevor. Think about people for a change. People other than yourself. Like the women you slept with behind your wife's back. You were always so confident you had covered your tracks. Always confident your wife actually believed your fervent denials? Part of you must have known she would find out. flaSH BACK: INT. GWEN'S OFFICE - NIGHT Gwen has Trevor on her desk riding him like a hobby horse. Rain pounds against her window. EXT. CUBIC ROUTE ACTUARIAL RESEARCH - NIGHT Kirsty sits inside the car looking up at the window, eyes narrowing. PINHEAD (O.S.) Jealousy arouses a spouse's fury. And no mercy will be shown when that revenge is given. INT. TREVOR'S APT. - NIGHT Rubbing the baby that's growing inside her, Kirsty sits in front of the TV watching Trevor having yet another romantic rendezvous with TAWNY. THE TV SCREEN DISSOLVES to Trevor in bed with yet another woman... and another... and another... BACK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT That fatal BELL begins to TOLL. With each peel the walls of the morgue shakes. It's walls begin to rumble and crack. (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: PINHEAD Even a mind as narcissistic as yours must have wondered: What unspeakable acts was your wife committing behind YOUR back? EXT. WOODS - NIGHT LOW ANGLE UP AT: Kirsty, Trevor's lovely wife, raising a rock above her. KIRSTY (to camera) Goodbye you miserable sonofabitch! And SLAMMING a rock down on us. bacK TO: INT. MORGUE - NIGHT TREVOR What's under that sheet...? PINHEAD You probably don't remember the night we played. Your first year as husband and wife. flASH BACK: INT. TREVOR'S APT., BEDROOM - NIGHT Trevor and a very pregnant Kirsty sit on their bed, passing the cube back and forth. Trevor's the one with the magic touch. The cube begins to open in his hands. Kirsty's eyes light up as she watches... PINHEAD (V.O.) It must have seemed like we were uninvited guests crashing your little celebration. ON the walls as shadows begin to flail in pain and panic. OFF SCREEN SCREAMS are heard as blood begins to shower the walls of the bedroom. PINHEAD (V.O.) But someone was expecting us Trevor. And everything went according to plan. baCK TO: 87. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD We were about to come for Kirsty. When we were offered a deal. We don't usually consider bargains but this one was too good to pass up. A tribute to the resourcefulness of a parent hellbent on protecting its spawn. The deal we were offered was this: three more souls in exchange for the life of the unborn child inside Kirsty. The three souls had already been picked out. Needless to say we were very impressed. The lights dim. Drawers behind Pinhead begin to open. We see Gwen's body, Tawny's, Sage's, Bonnie's. PINHEAD (CONT'D) Two of your favorite companions, most supple and delicious as you already know. And the man you had at one time conspired to kill Kirsty with. Until you found out she was with child. smASH CUT TO: QUICK IMAGES of Gwen, Tawny, and Bret being rent to pieces by the Cenobites, SCREAMING in vain. INT. MORGUE - NIGHT PINHEAD (CONT'D) They were all real screamers too. We had a blast. And there was one more. You've seen many things you wished you hadn't. Many nightmares from which you never awoke. They were all clues in our little puzzle. Can you guess now Trevor? Can you guess the fifth soul chosen for us to torment in this little agreement? The lights flicker overhead, reddening with each strobe. Hundreds of those little sewer monsters come slithering out of the cracks in the walls, racing toward Trevor. He doesn't care. TREVOR WHAT'S UNDER THE SHEET? (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: PINHEAD (smiling) Welcome to the worst nightmare of them all, Trevor. Reality. Pinhead grabs the sheet and whips it back. Trevor's jaw drops in disbelief. IT'S TREVOR'S BODY. It is blue, bloated and mutilated. The corpse's skull has a massive crack in it. TREVOR (CONT'D) No... no... flASH BACK: INT. LANGE'S OFFICE - DAY Kirsty sits across from Lange, who slides the cube across the desk towards her. LANGE Open this and your problem will disappear forever. And no one will ever suspect you. INT. CAR - DAY Kirsty drives. Trevor sits in the passenger seat, in the same position we saw him in during his last flashback. Only now it is clear the reason his head is resting on the baby blanket is to keep his brains from spilling out his split open skull. ON KIRSTY'S HAND holding his. It is now covered with blood. KIRSTY Shhh it's okay. EXT. BRIDGE - DAY The car goes off the bridge landing in the water. Kirsty's head breaks the surface. She watches the car sink into the river. baCK TO: INT. MORGUE Trevor stares at his own dead body in utter disbelief. The sewer monsters begin crawling up his

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you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

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you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

unreserved

How many times the word 'unreserved' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

acceptance

How many times the word 'acceptance' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

lamplighters

How many times the word 'lamplighters' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

sunlight

How many times the word 'sunlight' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

sealed

How many times the word 'sealed' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

late

How many times the word 'late' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

fortune

How many times the word 'fortune' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

suspect

How many times the word 'suspect' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

wish

How many times the word 'wish' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

began

How many times the word 'began' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

jordan

How many times the word 'jordan' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

if

How many times the word 'if' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

kin

How many times the word 'kin' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

undertake

How many times the word 'undertake' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

death

How many times the word 'death' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

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you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

hiring

How many times the word 'hiring' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

employment

How many times the word 'employment' appears in the text?

you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you." I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. "Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor." "No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone." "I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact. "Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!" "Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!" II THE YEARS ROLL BY As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards! As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:-- "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, "Geoffrey and Jordan. "Horace L. Holly, Esq." I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me. "I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good." Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history really begins. III THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my S vres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. "Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak." "Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative." Job touched his head, not having a hat on. "Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box." He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else. "Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age. "Now for it," I said, inserting the second key. Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey. "_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._" I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. [plate 1] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size Greatest length of the original 10 inches Greatest breadth 7 inches Weight 1lb 5 oz [plate 2] FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS One 1/2 size "Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition _scarab us_, marked thus:-- [sketch omitted] symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife." "That is all," I said. "Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:-- "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year." "So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so." "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that

apiece

How many times the word 'apiece' appears in the text?