AN: I hope you are all enjoying it so far. Sorry it took so long to get this latest bit up, but I've been busy. Anyway, please review! Tell me what ya like and don't like, so I can make it better!
Act II
Scene I - In David's kitchen, Blink enters, preceded by Snipeshooter
Blink: How goes the night, boy?
Snipeshooter: The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.
Blink: And she goesdown at twelve.
Snipeshooter: I take 't, 'tis later.
Blink: Hold, take my stick. - There's husbandry in heaven;
Their candles are all out: - Take thee that too. -
A heavy sumons lies like lead upon me,
And yet I would not sleep: - merciful powers,
Restrain me in the cursed thought that nature
Gives way to in repose! - Give me my stick.
Who's there?
Enter David
David: A friend.
Blink: What, not yet at rest? Jack's a-bed:
He hat been in unusual pleasure, and
Sent forth great largess to your officers:
This diamond he greets your sister withal,
By the name of most kind hostess; and sut up
In measureless content.
David: Being unprepared,
Our will became the servant to defect;
Which else should free have wrought.
Blink: All's well.
I dreamt last night of the three weird newsies:
To you they have show'd some truth.
David: I think not of them:
Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,
We would spend it in some words upon that business,
If you would grant the time.
Blink: At your leisure.
David: If you shall cleave to my consent, - when
'tis
It shall make honor for you.
Blink: So I lose none
In seeking to augment it, but still keep
My bosom franchised, and allegiance clear,
I shall be counselled.
David: Good repose the while!
Blink: Thanks sir; the like to you!
Exit Snipeshooter and Blink, enter Les
David: Go bid thy sister, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.
Exit Les
David: Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee: -
I have not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. - There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. - Now o'er the one-half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hectate's offerings; and wither'd murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
Towards his design moves like a ghost.
A bell rings
David: I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not Jack, for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
Enter Sarah
Sarah: That which hat made them drunk hath made me
bold:
What hath quench'd thme hath given me fire. - Hark! - Peace!
It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern'st good-night. He is about it:
The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms
Do mock thier charge with snores: I have drugg'd their possets,
That death and nature do conend about them,
Whether they live or die.
David [within]: Who's there? - What, ho!
Sarah: Alack! I am afraid they have awak'd,
And 'tis not done: - the attempt, and not the deed,
Confounds us. - Hark! - I laid thier daggers ready;
He could not miss them. - Had he not been my date
I had done't. - My brother!
Enter David
David: I have done the deed. - Didst thou not hear a noise?
Sarah: I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak?
David: When?
Sarah: Now.
David: As I descended?
Sarah: Ay.
David: Hark! Is Les in his room?
Sarah: Ay, but fast asleep.
David: This is a sorry sight.
Looks at his hands.
Sarah: A foolish thought to say a sorry sight.
David: There's one did laugh in his sleep, and one cried
Murder!
That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them:
But they did say their prayers:
One cried, God bless us! and, Amen, the other;
As they might have seen me with these scab's hands,
Listening thier fear, I could not say, Amen,
When they did say, God bless us.
Sarah: Consider it not so deeply.
David: But wherefore could not I pronounce, Amen?
I had most need of blessing, and Amen
Stuck in my throat.
Sarah: These deeds must not be thought
After these ways; or it will make us mad.
David: I thought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no
more!
David does murder sleep! - the innocent sleep;
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
Sarah: What do you mean?
David: Still it cried, Sleep no more! to all the
house:
Mouth hath murder'd sleep: and therefore Brain
Shall sleep no more, - David shall sleep no more!
Sarah: You do unbend your noble strength to think
So brainsickly of things. - Go get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.
Why did you bring these dagger from the place?
They must lie there: go carry them; and smear
The sleepy boys with blood.
David: I'll go no more:
I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on it again I dare not.
Sarah: Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the
dead
Are but pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I'll gild the faces of the newsies withal,
For it must seem their guilt.
Sarah leaves. Knocking within
David: Whence is that knocking?
How is it with me, when every noise appals me?
What hands are here? Ha! they pluck out mine eyes!
Will all great neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Enter Sarah
Sarah: My hands are of your color; but I shame
To wear a heart so white.
Knocking within
Sarah: I hear a knocking athe the south entry;
Retire we to our chamber.
A little water clears us of this deed:
How easy it is then! Hark!
More knocking: Get on your bedclothes
Lest occasion call us, and show us to be watchers
Be not lost so poorly in your thoughts.
David: To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself
More knocking.
David: Wake Jack with they knocking! I would thou couldst!
Racetrack and Specs enter David's home, Race goes to find Jack, while Specs meets David in the kitchen. Then Race returns.
Race: O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart
Cannot conceive nor name thee!
David, Specs: What's the matter?
Race: Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
The life of the building.
Specs: Mean you the Cowboy?
David: Approach the room, and destroy your sight
With a new Gorgon; do not bid me speak,
See, then speak yourselves
Exit Specs and David
Race: Awake! Awake! Sound the alarm-bell. Murder and
treason!
Blink and Les! Boots! Awake! Shake off this downy sleep, death's
counterfeit,
And look on death itself. Up, up and see
The great doom's image! Boots! Blink!
As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites,
To countenance this horror!
Bell rings, enter Sarah
Sarah: What's the business,
That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house? Speak, speak!
Race: 'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:
The repetition, in a woman's ear,
Would murder as it fell.
Enter Blink.
Race: O Blink! Blink! Jack's been killed!
Sarah: My god! In our house!
Blink: Too cruel anywhere. Race, I prithee contradict thyself, and say it is not so.
Enter David and Specs
David: Had I but died an hour before this chance.
I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant,
There's nothing serious in mortality:
All is but toys: renown and grace is dead:
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
Enter Boots and Les.
Les: What happened?
David: You are, and do not know't:
The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
Is stopped: the bery source of it is stopped.
Race: Jack's dead, murdered. It seemed that those
In his room did it. Their hands and faces were all badged with blood
So were their daggers, which, unwiped we found
Upon thier pillows:
They star'd and were distracted; no man's life
Was to be trusted with them.
Sarah: Help me!
Race: Look to her!
Sarah is carried out.
David: Let's put on manly readiness,
And meet in the hall together.
Exit all but Boots and Les
Boots: What will you do? Let's not consort with them:
To show unfelt sorrow is an office
Which the false man does easy. I'll to Brooklyn.
Les: I must stay with my brother,
I am too cute and sweet to be hurt.
And I have no claim over the leadership.
Boots: This murderous shaft that's shot
Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way
Is to avoid the aim. Therefore to horse:
And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,
But shift away: there's warrant in that theft
Which steals itself, when there's no mercy left.
