SCENE X. Before Calverly Hall.
[Enter Husband with the officers, The Master and gentlemen, as going by his house.]
HUSBAND. I am right against my house, seat of my Ancestors: I hear my wife’s alive; but much endangered. Let me intreat to speak with her, before the prison gripe me.
[Enter his wife, brought in a chair.]
GENTLEMAN.
See here she comes of her self.
WIFE.
Oh my sweet Husband, my dear distressed husband,
Now in the hands of unrelenting laws!
My greatest sorrow, my extremest bleeding,
Now my soul bleeds.
HUSBAND.
How now? kind to me? did I not wound thee, left thee for dead?
WIFE.
Tut, far greater wounds did my breast feel:
Unkindness strikes a deeper wound than steel;
You have been still unkind to me.
HUSBAND.
Faith, and so I think I have:
I did my murthers roughly, out of hand,
Desperate and sudden, but thou hast deviz’d
A fine way now to kill me, thou hast given mine eyes
Seven wounds a piece; now glides the devil from me,
Departs at every joint, heaves up my nails.
Oh catch him new torments, that were near invented,
Bind him one thousand more, you blessed Angels,
In that pit bottomless; let him not rise
To make men act unnatural tragedies,
To spread into a father, and in fury,
Makes him his childrens executioners:
Murder his wife, his servants, and who not?
For that man’s dark, where heaven is quite forgot.
WIFE.
Oh my repentant husband.
HUSBAND.
My dear soul, whom I too much have wrongd,
For death I die, and for this have I longd.
WIFE.
Thou sholdst not (be assurde) for these faults die,
I ft he law could forgive as soon as I.
HUSBAND.
What sight is yonder?
[Children laid out.]
WIFE.
Oh, our two bleeding boys
Laid forth upon the thresholds.
HUSBAND.
Here’s weight enough to make a heart-string crack.
Oh, were it lawful that your pretty souls
Might look from heaven into your fathers eyes,
Then should you see the penitent glasses melt,
And both your murthers shoot upon my cheeks;
But you are playing in the Angels laps,
And will not look on me,
Who void of grace, kild you in beggery.
Oh that I might my wishes now attain,
I should then wish you living were again,
Though I did beg with you, which thing I feard:
Oh, twas the enemy my eyes so bleard.
Oh, would you could pray heaven me to forgive,
That will unto my end repentant live.
WIFE.
It makes me e’en forget all other sorrows
And live apart with this.
OFFICER.
Come will you go?
HUSBAND.
I’ll kiss the blood I spilt and then I go:
My soul is bloodied, well may my lips be so.
Farewell, dear wife, now thou and I must part,
I of thy wrongs repent me with my heart.
WIFE.
Oh stay, thou shalt not go.
HUSBAND.
That’s but in vain, you see it must be so.
Farewell, ye bloody ashes of my boys!
My punishments are their eternal joys.
Let every father look into my deeds,
And then their heirs may prosper, while mine bleeds.
WIFE.
More wretched am I now in this distress,
[Exeunt Husband with holberds.]
Then former sorrows made me.
MASTER.
Oh kind wife,
Be comforted. One joy is yet unmurdered:
You have a boy at nurse; your joy’s in him.
WIFE.
Dearer then all is my poor husbands life:
Heaven give my body strength, which yet is faint
With much expence of blood, and I will kneel,
Sue for his life, number up all my friends,
To plead for pardon for my dear husbands life.
MASTER.
Was it in man to wound so kind a creature?
I’ll ever praise a woman for thy sake.
I must return with grief; my answer’s set:
I shall bring news ways heavier then the debt.—
Two brothers: one in bond lies overthrown,
This on a deadlier execution.