SCENE I.—Bruton's Lodgings. Bruton and his friend, a Justice of the Peace, are discovered in earnest conversation.

⁠And you decidedly say your suspicions rest not on Arden. ⁠Decidedly. There is not one trait in the character of the man that should raise in my mind the slightest suspicion; nor even any circumstance regarding him of any kind, his interest in the death of the deceased only excepted. ⁠Did you not hint at another person whom you do suspect? ⁠I know a man whose fortune Robinair has ruined, whose sister he has seduced and abandoned, and whom I believe to be capable of executing the fellest revenge; yet, as I have no actual evidence to support my suspicions, you must not receive them from me as any kind of information to be acted upon. It were hard, ​indeed, if the injuries he has received were alone made the cause of more injuries. ⁠What do you want? I am at present engaged. ⁠One of Mr. Robinair's servants is below, Sir; and a poor labouring man is along with him, who found a hat last night on the grass-plat near the house, just after the murder was committed. ⁠Show them up immediately.

⁠[Exit Servant.

⁠This will probably lead to the discovery. ⁠Yes; murder, the proverb says, is always found out. And, in truth, it is often discovered by circumstances that appear at the first wonderfully trifling and minute. ⁠When men commit such deeds, they do so in a state of mind which renders them incapable of perceiving what circumstances will excite or prevent suspicion; and they are as often detected from caution as from oversight. ​ ⁠True: the mind in that state may be cunning but it is a cunning which betrays oftener than conceals; like that of the poor cushat, which vainly tries to mislead a practised fowler by hovering over the bushes where her nest and her nestlings are not. ⁠Well, Morgan, what brings you and this good man here? ⁠This man. Sir, found a hat last night. ⁠Ay, please your honour, just as we were all setting off after the villain that killed that there gentleman. ⁠Tell us, my good friend, in what manner you found it. ⁠In no manner at all, please your honour. I only sees it on the grass, and I picks it up. ⁠Well, then, it was lying on the grass when you picked it up? ​ ⁠Yes, your honour; and I'll tell you all how it was, without either meddling or making with it; though I did think there was no great harm in carrying it home to my poor boy, who has been going about bare-headed for this fortnight past, like an ouzle, with its feathers on end. ⁠Well, well; where did you find it? ⁠Last night, your honour. ⁠I should call that when. ⁠You puzzle him, my good Sir. ⁠No matter.—(To Labourer.) When did you find it, then? ⁠Just there, too, please your honour. ⁠Don't question him so methodically; but let him tell his own story first. ⁠Thank your honour, that is just what I means to do as soon as I can get the end of it. For ​you see, Sirs, as soon as I heard the gun go off, and some one a-calling out "Murder!" I guessed as how some mischief was a-doing; so I runs into the garden in no time, and just before me, on the grass, near a thicket, on this hand of me——No, no; on the other hand of me,—a yard off, belike, (for I'll tell your honours exact how it was,) I sees a black thing lying on the ground, at my feet. ⁠And near the house? about a yard from it, you say? ⁠About a yard from the right or the left of me, I an't quite sure which; but, as I said, I took it for some black thing; but when I came close to it, I found it was a hat. ⁠Well, well; give us no more of thy story at present, but let us look at the hat. Is there a name in it? ⁠No, your honour; and so I thought no harm to take it home to my poor boy. (Shows the hat.) ⁠Good God! ​ ⁠What, Bruton, do you recognise it? ⁠I fear I do, ⁠It is the very same hat, Sir, that you gave in a present to young Mr. Arden, before he went last to school. I'll swear to it: I know it by the twisting of the band. ⁠This is a strong fact. Come with me, my good friends: your several evidences must be taken in a more formal manner. You seem much hurt, Bruton.

⁠I am so.—(Aside.) Is it possible that the wretched boy has sacrificed himself for his father? (To the Justice.) I'll follow you presently.

⁠Nay, you must go with me now: I must not leave you behind. My duty requires me not to lose sight of you.

⁠[Exeunt. ​

⁠Returned from the Court already? Is the trial over? ⁠Ay; thank God for it! and our master is a free man again. ⁠O, rare news! rare news! Let us run and tell everybody. Acquitted,—acquitted; not guilty? ⁠To be sure he is. How can a man be condemned when there is no evidence against him? ⁠I knew it would be so; I knew he would be acquitted: I knew he had no more done it than I had done it. And yet, for all that, all last night, through my sleep, there was such a ​howling of a last speech in my ears I could get no rest for the sound of it. ⁠Hold thy tongue, fool! I hate to hear the very name of it. Have I not told thee already, I'll give thee a good sound beating if thou ever speak one word of such things again.—Run and take the key of the back gate and open it. ⁠Why so? ⁠Your master is coming home by a private way to avoid the crowd, and will enter by the back gate. In the mean time I'll go and inform my young master of the good news; for he must be quite overcome with despondency, poor boy, else he would never have rested quietly at home all this time. It is so unlike his usual stirring spirits. ⁠Humphry, hark ye, Humphry! ⁠What sayest thou? ⁠Did they raise a great huzza when he was acquitted; and did Master make them a low bow, and all that? ​ ⁠Provoking fool! Run and open the back gate directly, or I'll make thee bow lower than thou hast a mind to.—He will be here in a few minutes.

⁠[Exeunt severally.

⁠I thought Edmond would have been here before me. What can make the child so still and inert at such a moment as this. My aunt need not have urged me to remain here to comfort him, I trow: he has kept himself out of the way of every body. ⁠Come near me, good Humphry; there is a thing I should have asked at thee sooner: did your Master know nothing of Robinair's death, till after he came into the Court? ​ ⁠No, not a whisper of it, till the witnesses on the side of the prosecution were called for. ⁠And how did he look when he heard it? ⁠So astonished, at first, that his face became pale with astonishment; and one would have believed it was a witness on his own side that was lost. But soon after, I warrant ye, there was a wonderful change in his behaviour. ⁠How so? ⁠Why, now, to make it clear to you, Ma'am; seeing him before he heard it, and seeing him afterwards, was, according to my notion, like seeing a man crossing over a river lately frozen, with his half-bended body, picking a step here, and picking a step there, while the ice is bending and cracking round him on every side, and then seeing him when he gets fairly to the shore, lifting up his head, looking round him again, and standing upright and firmly on his legs, like a pillar. ⁠And Mrs. Arden—how did she receive the news of his acquittal? It grieved me not to be ​with her; but she had beseeched me so earnestly to remain here with her son, that I was constrained to obey her. ⁠I thought so, Ma'am; for in truth she wanted a friend to be with her very much. ⁠Ah! I fear she did. How was it, Humphry? ⁠I carried her the news myself. Three steps brought me from the Court to the room where she waited; and had I been threescore and ten, I should not, I believe, have made more of them. ⁠And how did she receive it? ⁠O! fainted away like a corse. ⁠Indeed! O, that I had been with her! Did you tell her of Robinair's death, too? ⁠Yes, Ma'am, after she was somewhat recovered, I told her; but I had as lief have held my tongue. ⁠Why so, my good Humphry? ​ ⁠Truly, I thought she would have been glad on't, knowing so well that she disliked the man for drawing in her poor husband into so many ruinous courses; but, contrary wise, she looked terrified when she heard it, and has worn a face of a marvellous thoughtful, gloomy cast ever since.—But here comes the coach up the lane. (Listening.) They will be here in a trice. ⁠And Edmond not yet come down to receive them: how strange! I thought an arrow from the bow would not have been swifter than he to meet his father. Indeed I wondered much that he did not rouse himself to attend his mother this morning; but his remissness now is astonishing.—The carriage comes no nearer. ⁠No; it is not them. It has turned into another lane; and Mr. Edmond will be down stairs before they come. ⁠I hope so. Who would have thought such a brave, spirited boy would have been so deeply depressed with misfortune? ⁠I have my own notions about that. ​ ⁠Your own notions? ⁠Don't look frightened, Madam. I watched by him last night, after his return, and from his tossings and restlessness, and some strange words which he uttered, as if in a kind of agony, once or twice, I shrewdly suspect the poor boy was at a fortune-teller's, to enquire about his father's doom, and that he was frightened with some horrid sight or other. ⁠Think you so? ⁠I am almost sure of it. Those cursed hags make people run mad sometimes with the sights they raise up before them. ⁠I have heard of such things in the country, in days gone by, but now—— ⁠But the days of London wickedness never go by; and if they have unsettled the brain of that noble boy, burning at the stake is too good for them. ⁠Nay, you are savage. ​ ⁠Oh, Ma'am! had you heard what I heard! He gave one groan so deep and so terrible, that I started up and pulled the coverlet off him, to see whether there was not a man under it, so impossible it seemed that a boy should have strength to utter such a sound. ⁠And did you question him? ⁠I tried to do it, Ma'am; but whenever I began to speak, he looked so sternly at me that I dared not persist.—Blessed child! I never saw him look sternly on any one before. ⁠And had you no conversation with him at all the whole night? ⁠No, none. Whenever I said any thing, he covered up his face quickly with the bed-clothes, as if he were going to sleep; and so I could draw nothing from him, good or bad. ⁠There is something very strange in all this: I cannot understand it.—But, hark! there comes the carriage now. ​ ⁠Ay, it is it; I know the sound of it well. It is at hand—it stops. ⁠So, Madaline, you are the first to meet us.—Ha! here he is. ⁠My son! ⁠My father! ⁠Yes, Edmond, I will now, indeed, be thy father; and to be worthy of thee and of thine excellent mother, will be the business of my future life. Thy noble nature shall not be put to pain for me any more. I shall see thee virtuous and happy: that will be my portion in this world, and worth all that my folly and extravagance have deprived me of. ​ ⁠See me happy, father!—Oh, oh! be happy yourself, and think not of that. ⁠How so, boy? Shalt thou not be happy? ⁠Shalt thou not be happy with us, my son? Shall thy father and I, united as we may now be in sober domestic peace, not have the blessedness of seeing thee happy? ⁠Yes, mother; you shall see it: you shall see me happy. I shall look upon my father and you in your domestic peace, and feel a kind of fearful happiness. ⁠O! what words are these? ⁠Let us go into the house. I must be alone with thee, Edmond: I must strain thee to my yearning heart in privacy.

(As they are about to go into the house, a party of men hurst in upon them from the small gate, which has been left unlocked, and lay hold of Young Arden.)

⁠Stop, Sir; you are our prisoner: we take you ​into custody in the king's name. (Mrs. Arden shrieks, and is supported from falling by Madaline.) ⁠You must be mistaken, friends; you can have no warrant against a boy like this! ⁠Read there: it is our warrant against Edmond Arden, junior. ⁠O God! (Rushing upon the men.) Ye shall take my life before ye seize him! ⁠And mine too, before you touch a hair of his head! (Brandishing his stick, and rushing furiously upon the men, who keep hold of Young Arden.) ⁠Dare ye resist the king' s officers? (Drawing a hanger from his side.) ⁠Ay, or the devil's either! What care I for the flashing of your steel? ​ ⁠Oh! I am slain! Give over, dear father: fight no more for me, my brave Humphry. ⁠Slain! O! no, no, no! Thou art wounded, love, but not slain: Heaven will not suffer such cruelty.—Run, O run for assistance immediately! ⁠My dear, dear mother! nothing can save me. ⁠Say not so. No, no! thou wilt be saved. ⁠There is sure and speedy death in this wound: I feel it, and I am glad of it. Move me not from this spot; torment me not with any vain assistance, but let me quietly go where I ought to go—where I wish to go; for it is not meet that I should live. ⁠No, no! thou shalt live! I will breathe my soul into thee; I will encircle thee, and grow into thee with the warm life of a mother. Death shall not tear thee from me! ​ ⁠Alas! my own dear mother! wring not your hands so wildly. ⁠Wo is me! In the very blossom of thy youth! thou pride—thou flower of my bosom!

⁠How many mother's sons, not much older than me, die far distant on the ocean, on the field of battle, with many terrible wounds; and here I am beside you, mother, and shall look upon you, and keep hold of your hand till the last.—My father; where are you? Give me your hand. (Taking Arden's hand, and joining it with his wife's.) There, mother; I have earned him for you, and he will take care of you.—Will you not now be united in steady unbroken affection? This cheers me; this makes death almost pleasant to me.

⁠My boy! my noble sacrificed boy! this is agony. ⁠Say not so, father! Mourn for me, but let it not be with this bitter grief. I am not sorry to die. I have, I fear, offended my great and awful Father; but I have prayed to Him to punish and forgive me. This is my punishment, and ​I know by it that He has heard my prayer. O may He bless and pity you when I am gone!—But there is something I must say while I can speak. ⁠What is it, my love? ⁠The men that arrested me—let them come near. (To the men.) Be ye witnesses that with my dying breath I confess myself guilty of Robinair's death, and solemnly declare no creature but myself had any knowledge of it.—My strength goes fast; but this hand and this hand (pressing his father and mother's hands) are still warm in my grasp. Who else stands near who has loved me?—You, cousin, you have been very good to me; and, if I had strength, I would thank you. ⁠My dear, dear Edmond! I love not my own brother better than thee: how shall I bear to think of thy sad end! ⁠And Humphry too; where art thou? Give me thine honest hand. ⁠Oh, my dear young master! I would have laid down my life to save yours. ​ ⁠I know thou hast loved me well—better than I deserved. If I had lived to be a man, we should never have parted.—Wilt thou live with my father and mother when I am gone?—No, no! this is not right; I do not ask it. Thou wilt find some master who is able to reward thee as thou deservest. ⁠But I will live with them! ay, beg with them—starve with them. O, pardon me! it is not want of respect that makes me speak so.—Yes, I will serve them, for your sake, as I would serve no other master on earth, were he as rich as a prince. ⁠This comes over my heart! My eyes are dark now;—lay me back a little. (Groans.) Be not unhappy if I groan somewhat. The pain—— ⁠Alas, my dear love! art thou in great pain? ⁠No, mother; it is killing me now, but it is not very bad. Farewell, farewell!⁠ (Dies.) ​ ⁠Fool, fool, fool! vain, selfish, detestable fool! this is the end of thy vanity and extravagance; of thy contemptible ambition and thirst for distinction.—Thou art distinguished enough now,—the curse of Heaven is on this miserable head! (Beating his forehead, and striding across the Stage; while the Curtain drops.)