MARMADUKE Ay, what shall we encounter next?  This issue—­
              ’Twas nothing more than darkness deepening darkness,
              And weakness crowned with the impotence of death!—­
              Your pupil is, you see, an apt proficient.
         (ironically)
              Start not!—­Here is another face hard by;
              Come, let us take a peep at both together,
              And, with a voice at which the dead will quake,
              Resound the praise of your morality—­
              Of this too much.
     [Drawing OSWALD towards the Cottage—­stops short at the door.]
                  Men are there, millions, Oswald,
              Who with bare hands would have plucked out thy heart
              And flung it to the dogs:  but I am raised
              Above, or sunk below, all further sense
              Of provocation.  Leave me, with the weight
              Of that old Man’s forgiveness on thy heart,
              Pressing as heavily as it doth on mine. 
              Coward I have been; know, there lies not now
              Within the compass of a mortal thought,
              A deed that I would shrink from;—­but to endure,
              That is my destiny.  May it be thine: 
              Thy office, thy ambition, be henceforth
              To feed remorse, to welcome every sting
              Of penitential anguish, yea with tears. 
              When seas and continents shall lie between us—­
              The wider space the better—­we may find
              In such a course fit links of sympathy,
              An incommunicable rivalship
              Maintained, for peaceful ends beyond our view.
    [Confused voices—­several of the Band enter—­rush upon OSWALD and
    seize him.]

ONE OF THEM I would have dogged him to the jaws of hell—­

OSWALD Ha! is it so!—­That vagrant Hag!—­this comes
              Of having left a thing like her alive! [Aside.]

SEVERAL VOICES
              Despatch him!

OSWALD If I pass beneath a rock
              And shout, and, with the echo of my voice,
              Bring down a heap of rubbish, and it crush me,
              I die without dishonour.  Famished, starved,
              A Fool and Coward blended to my wish!
      [Smiles scornfully and exultingly at MARMADUKE.]

WALLACE ’Tis done! (Stabs him.)

ANOTHER OF THE BAND
                            The ruthless traitor!

MARMADUKE A rash deed!—­
              With that reproof I do resign a station
              Of which I have been proud.

WILFRED (approaching MARMADUKE)
             O my poor Master!