MASON.
Hence with your gold,—your universal charm,
And remedy for ill! When you have torn
Fathers from children, husbands from their wives,
And scattered woe and wail throughout the land,
You think with gold to compensate for all.
Hence! Till we saw you, we were happy men;
With you came misery and dark despair.
BERTHA (to the Taskmaster, who has returned).
Lives he?
[Taskmaster shakes his head.]
Ill-omened towers, with curses built,
And doomed with curses to be tenanted!
[Exit.]
SCENE IV.
The House of Walter Furst. Walter Furst and Arnold von Melchthal enter simultaneously at different sides.
MELCH.
Good Walter Furst.
FURST.
If we should be surprised!
Stay where you are. We are beset with spies.
MELCH.
Have you no news for me from Unterwald?
What of my father? 'Tis not to be borne,
Thus to be pent up like a felon here!
What have I done so heinous that I must
Skulk here in hiding, like a murderer?
I only laid my staff across the fists
Of the pert varlet, when before my eyes,
By order of the governor, he tried
To drive away my handsome team of oxen.