University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

—Exterior of Arnold's Cottage.
Arnold disoovered at a Table beneath the projecting caves.
Arn.
(Rises,)
Well, well! ingrate Berne may play the craven;
Another Laupen yet may come, and swords be
Wanting. Uri, Schwytz, Lucerne, and Underwalden—
We need not Berne! but let her from her hills
Behold the conflict, and blush to think no sword
Of her's is there to aid the cause of Freedom.
But when, oh! when will Switzerland be roused
And bid us tread these mountains free
As our great fathers left them.

Enter Eberhard, 2 E. L. H. hastily—he seizes Arnold's arm and looks wildly at him.
Eber.
Is yon blue arch the heavens? Is this the earth
We stand on? Look I the thing called man?
Or have I dream'd of such a world, or now
Talk but the thoughts of one who sleeps aloud?
Shake me Arnold! Shake this torpor from me,
That I may wake to consciousness.

Arn.
My friend
This wildness—

Eber.
I am changed then! you see it?
'Tis a reality, and now we'll talk of vengeance;
You have a daughter Bertha?

Arn.
What of her?

Eber.
You love her?

Arn,
As my hopes—What then? Speak man!
Nor let me read your looks into my death!

Eber.
If Austrian lust should rob you of her?

Arn.
They dare not—by Heaven they dare not!
A miracle would save her! Th'insensate
Avalanche would be endued with reason,
And desolate the world to save my child
From such a living hell—'Tis impossible!

Eber.
Thus did I deem, until my only child
Became a damning proof that it was possible.
This morn I stood beside my Chalet's door,
Lost in a vision of our expected peace,
Peopling the vale beneath me with the free,
When one wild cry broke through my waking dream:
'Twas my Antoine's voice; though now so fraught
With mad distress, none but a parent's ear
Had traced her wonted sound in that exclaim.
Age from my limbs its iron grasp relax'd,
And gave me back the vigour of my youth:
Another moment found me by my child.
Her eyes were tearless—her deep agony
Had dried their fountains up; but they were fixed
In such a look of madness and despair,
That my blood curdled in my veins from fear.
I gazed around, not knowing what I sought,
When down the steep I saw the stranger who was
At her wedding. Not he who slew the vulture.
I strove to call for help—my tongue refused
Its office—My limbs seem'd chang'd to marble
I felt as one who, on a drifting wreck,
Watches the lessening sail of lone a bark
Which could have rescued him.
A deep groan from
My child brought me again to reason; anon
She seem'd to burst from some absorbing trance
That had been all of horror in her hand
She claps'd this jewel. The truth flashed on me!
Yes, Arnold she, that a few days past
Thou blest in innocence as William's wife,
The spoiler hath destroy'd.

Arn.
And Bertha?

Eber.
May be the next for immolation!

Arn.
The next! not gone, then! Praise, praise Heaven, praise!
Oh, selfish nature how gladly do we snatch
The cup of grief from lips we love the most,
Nor care whose hand receives the draught from ours!

Eber.
Do not rejoice Arnold, 'till thou hast dug a cave
In some far mountain's side, and there thy child
Inhum'd, and piled another mountain on her tomb,
Until corruption has consumed her form.
Nought else can save her. Virtue's no safeguard;
More peril than she's fair; mine was pure as lovely.
How have I trembled when disease has marr'd
A while her infant cheek, lest its rude touch
Should leave a trace behind. It had been kindness
To have sear'd it o'er with burning irons,
Though her cries benumb'd her parent's ear for ever.

Arn
Nay cheer thee, man, nor bend thus to thy grief,
For if we weigh our blessings with our ills,
How much we all are debtors for some good.

Eber.
But picture thy loved child the thing she is,
And what mine has become—oh, it is misery!

Arn.
No more, no more! I feel its full extent,
Though I have strove to hide mine own from thee
Beneath the mockery of a seeming patience.
I dare not think upon the desolated hopes
Of my poor William, for it would madden me.
We will to Stantz, brother, with this wrong;
And if these forms of men have hearts within
Of human mould or substance, we'll be avenged
By their own meted justice. If not, no man
In Switzerland but is a sharer
In this our cause; and on each hill shall blaze
The funeral pyre of Austria's tyranny.

[Exeunt R. H.