You carry on at such a pace, sir, there's no keeping up with you. Pull up, that I may ask you a very simple question. On his arrival at his castle, Macbeth finds his wife reading a letter from her amiable spouse, about the Weird Sisters. Pray, when was that letter written?
NORTH.
At what hour precisely? That I can't say. It must, however, have been written before Macbeth had been presented to the King—for there is no allusion in it to the King's intention to visit their Castle. I believe it to have been written about an hour or so after the prophecy of the Weirds—either in some place of refreshment by the roadside—or in such a Tent as this—kept ready for the General in the King's Camp at Forres. He despatched it by a Gilly—a fast one like your Cornwall Clipper—and then tumbled in.
BULLER.
When did she receive it?
NORTH.
Early next morning.
BULLER.
How could that be, since she is reading it, as her husband steps in, well on, as I take it, in the afternoon?
NORTH.