Chapter VII: Part 7

This nurse of Juliet’s was a talkative, easy-tempered old person, very fond of her nursling--of whom she had had charge since she was a baby--and good-natured after a fashion, but vulgar-minded, and very selfish if anything came to cross her own convenience. Juliet had coaxed her into sympathy about her present affairs, and Romeo, being a very handsome, open-handed young gentleman, the nurse for the moment was on their side, and consented to act as messenger between them. But her own aches and pains were at all times more important to the old woman than the concerns of anyone else; and even when returning from her mission to settle the time of the marriage, she was more occupied in recounting her own ailments than in relieving the anxiety of her young mistress to hear news of Romeo.

However, as long as things went well, she was willing to be amiable, and the young girl was at least not left entirely destitute of any confidant. But when trouble arose, the nurse’s shallow, selfish nature became apparent, and poor Juliet was soon to learn that she must rely solely on her own strength and judgment in the sorrows that overwhelmed her.

After the marriage Juliet returned home, and there presently the nurse joined her. She carried the ladder of cords she had gone to fetch, but she flung it down with a gesture of despair, and her face was the picture of woe.

“Ay me! What news? Why do you wring your hands?” exclaimed Juliet, a sudden chill of terror clouding the sunshine of her joy.

“Ah, well-a-day! he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!” wailed the nurse. “We are undone, lady--we are undone! Alack the day! He’s gone, he’s killed, he’s dead!”

Juliet thought, of course, that the nurse referred to Romeo, especially when she went on weeping and wailing and saying that she had seen him lying dead with her own eyes. Juliet’s heart was nearly broken at the dreadful news, when suddenly the stupid old woman, in her confused style began to lament:

“O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had! O courteous Tybalt! Honest gentleman! That ever I should live to see thee dead!”

“What do you mean?” said poor, bewildered Juliet. “Is Romeo slaughtered, and is Tybalt dead? My dear-loved cousin and my dearer lord?”

“Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished,” said the nurse. “Romeo that killed him, he is banished.”

Her words were plain enough now. Juliet shrank back in horror.

“Did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?”

“It did--it did. Alas the day, it did!”

Juliet’s first impulse was to heap reproaches on her newly made husband, who hid so vile a nature under so fair a seeming; but when the nurse chimed eagerly in, and said there was no trust, no faith, no honesty in man,--they were _all_ perjured, _all_ dissemblers, Juliet immediately changed her tone, and broke into an indignant defence of Romeo.

“Will you speak well of him that killed your cousin?” asked the nurse.

“Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?” cried Juliet. “Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name when I, thy three-hours wife, have wronged it?”

Worse, far worse to her, than her cousin’s death was the terrible news that Romeo was banished. “Tybalt is dead, and Romeo--banished!” The dreadful words kept ringing in her ears. “Romeo is banished! There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, in that word’s death; no words can fathom that woe,” she mourned.

Juliet bade the nurse carry away the ladder of cords, for it was of no use now. Romeo was exiled, she would never see him again; death, and not Romeo, would be her husband.

The old woman was melted to pity at the sight of Juliet’s misery.

“Go to your room,” she said soothingly. “I’ll find Romeo to comfort you. I know well where he is. Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night. I’ll go to him; he is hidden in Friar Laurence’s cell.”

“Oh, find him! Give this ring to my true knight,” cried Juliet, “and bid him come to take his last farewell.”

* * * * *

Forced to find a refuge after the death of Tybalt, Romeo had gone to the man who had always been a friend to him, and the good Friar Laurence had given him shelter in his cell. He then sallied forth to learn how matters were going, and presently returned with the news of the doom that the Prince had pronounced--Romeo was banished. Romeo was in despair when he heard the sentence. To him banishment seemed worse than death. In vain the Friar tried to comfort him, pointing out that the sentence was more merciful than what he had a right to expect. Romeo declared it was torture, and not mercy. Heaven was here where Juliet lived; and henceforth every cat and dog, and little mouse, and unworthy thing, might look at her, but he might not. Every creature was free, but he was banished. Was there no poison, no sharp knife, no sudden way of death, however mean, that might have killed him, that he must live on in torture, with that word “banished”?

The good Friar tried to reason with him, but for the moment Romeo was past all reason; he refused to listen to any words of counsel, and flung himself down on the ground in a perfect frenzy of grief.

At that moment there came a knocking at the outside door.

“Arise; someone is knocking. Good Romeo hide thyself,” entreated the Friar.

But Romeo refused to stir. The knocking came again, louder and more imperative.

“Hark how they knock!... Who’s there?... Romeo, arise; thou wilt be taken.... Stay awhile.... Stand up! Run to my study.... In a minute.... Heavens! what folly is this?... I come--I come!”

The Friar’s entreaties to Romeo were mixed with broken ejaculations to the person knocking outside, but as the headstrong young man refused to move from the spot where he had flung himself down on the floor of the cell, Friar Laurence dared no longer delay to open the door.

Happily the new-comer was only Juliet’s nurse, and no dangerous or inquisitive visitor. Romeo eagerly demanded news, and then, in a fresh passion of remorse at the misery he had brought on his dear lady, threatened madly to kill himself, and drew his sword.

The Friar stayed his hand, and now began sternly to rebuke him for his frantic behaviour and unmanly lack of all self-control. Then he pointed out that he had still many blessings left to him, though he chose sullenly to ignore them. Juliet still lived--he was happy in that; the law that might have condemned him to death had turned it into exile--he was happy in that; finally, the Friar bade him go to Juliet as had been arranged, and comfort her.

“But take care not to stay till the watch be set,” he counselled, “for then you cannot pass to Mantua, where you shall live till we can find a time to publish your marriage, reconcile your friends, beg pardon of the Prince, and call you back, with twenty hundred thousand times more joy than you went forth in lamentation.”

Romeo was greatly cheered by the brave words of the Friar, and the nurse hurried back to Juliet with the news that her husband would soon be with her.

Comfort and Counsel

The second parting of Romeo and Juliet at the balcony looking into Capulet’s orchard was very different from the first. Then, indeed, Romeo had reluctantly torn himself away; but, after all, they had another happier meeting to look forward to on the morrow. Now, all was gloom and uncertainty, and who knew when they would ever see each other again? The lark, the herald of the morning, that sang joyously high overhead,--the golden rays of dawn that pierced the eastern clouds,--only brought sadness to the hearts of the young husband and wife, for they told that the fatal hour of parting had come. Longing to keep Romeo with her, yet dreading the peril he ran if he delayed too long, Juliet one moment implored him to stay, and the next urged him to depart.

“Oh, now be gone; more light and light it grows,” she sighed at last; and Romeo echoed despairingly:

“More light and light; more dark and dark our woes!”

At this moment the nurse came hastily to warn Juliet that her mother was approaching, and now indeed Romeo must take his last farewell. As Juliet looked down to him from the balcony it seemed to her that Romeo’s face, in the gray light of dawn, looked pale as one in the bottom of a tomb, and even his cheering words that spoke of a future meeting failed to bring comfort to her breaking heart.

But she had no time to brood over this sorrow, for she was now called to face another and almost more terrible trial.

Lady Capulet had come to her daughter’s room at this unusual hour to bring news of great importance. The County Paris had renewed his suit to Juliet’s father. All was arranged; the marriage was fixed to take place in three days’ time, on the following Thursday. It did not occur to the parents that Juliet would have any voice in the matter; or, rather, Lady Capulet thought it would be joyful tidings to her, and would help to console her for the death of her cousin Tybalt. She was, therefore, somewhat astonished to find the way in which her news was received. In answer to her intelligence that early next Thursday the gallant, young, and noble gentleman, the County Paris, at Saint Peter’s Church, would happily make Juliet a joyful bride, her daughter exclaimed with fire:

“Now, by Saint Peter’s Church and Peter too, he shall not make me there a joyful bride!”

Juliet went on to say that she would not marry in this haste, and when she did marry it would be Romeo, their enemy, rather than Paris.

Then in came Capulet, her father, and, deaf to all Juliet’s pleadings, he swore in a furious rage that she _should_ marry Paris; and if she did not, she might beg, starve, die in the streets, for he would not own her as a daughter.

Juliet appealed to her mother, but Lady Capulet was really angry with her, or perhaps she did not dare to go against her husband; at any rate, she took his side in the matter, and harshly refused to listen to anything Juliet might say.

“Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee,” were her final cruel words, as she followed her husband from the room.

Cut to the heart, stunned with misery, Juliet turned to her last hope. Her old nurse was still beside her; she, at least, knew that what her parents demanded was impossible; she knew that Juliet could not marry Paris, for she was already married to Romeo. Perhaps she could suggest some way of escape.

“Comfort me, counsel me,” implored the distracted young girl. “What say’st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy? Some comfort, nurse.”

And this is the comfort and counsel the old nurse gave. Romeo was banished, she said; she would wager anything he would never dare to come back to challenge her, or, if he did, it would have to be by stealth. Then, since the case stood as it did, she thought the best thing would be for Juliet to marry the County Paris. Oh, he was a lovely gentleman! Romeo was nothing to him! Indeed, she thought Juliet very happy in her second match, for it far excelled her first; or, if it did not, her first was dead, or he might just as well be dead as living, when banished from Juliet.

So spoke the selfish, base-minded old woman. Juliet looked at her fixedly.

“Do you speak this from your heart?” she asked solemnly.

“And from my soul too,” returned the old woman, “or evil befall them.”

“Amen!” said Juliet.

“What?”

“Well, you have comforted me marvellous much,” said Juliet, speaking with strange calm. “Go in, and tell my lady that, having displeased my father, I have gone to Friar Laurence’s cell to make confession and to be absolved.”

“Marry I will, and this is wisely done,” said the old nurse, pottering away to fulfil her errand.

Then, for a moment, Juliet’s self-restraint gave way.

“Oh, most wicked fiend!” she cried, in just indignation. “Is it more sin to wish me to be thus forsworn, or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue with which she has praised him as above compare so many thousand times! Go, counsellor; thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain. I will go to the Friar to ask his remedy. If everything else fail, I have power myself to die.”

The good Friar did not fail the young girl in her need, as the old nurse had done. But the way of escape he suggested was such a terrible one that none but the bravest and most faithful heart could ever have consented to it. Juliet’s position, however, was so desperate, and she was so determined to be true to Romeo, that she would have died rather than have married Paris; and now she declared she was ready to go down to the gates of death itself if only she might live a true wife to Romeo.

Seeing her resolution, Friar Laurence went on to describe his plan. The marriage was to take place two days hence, on the Thursday. On the Wednesday night Juliet, when she went to bed, was to drink off the contents of a phial, which the Friar would give her. This was a very strong sleeping draught, which would make her lie exactly like dead, pale as ashes, stiff and cold, for forty-two hours, after which she would awaken as if from a pleasant sleep. On the Thursday morning, when they came to rouse her for the marriage, they would find her apparently dead, and then--according to the custom of the country--in her best robes, uncovered on the bier, she would be borne to the ancient vault of the Capulets.

In the meantime, before she awoke, news would be sent to Romeo to tell him everything. He would come back to Verona, and he and Friar Laurence would watch beside Juliet in the vault until she awoke, and that very same night Romeo should convey her away to Mantua.

This was the desperate plan which the Friar suggested, and which Juliet’s love for her husband gave her strength to accept and carry out. With unflinching courage she seized the little phial, while Friar Laurence went immediately to despatch a speedy messenger to Mantua with letters to Romeo.

All through the night before the marriage there was bustle and stir in the household of the Capulets. Great preparations were being made for the festivities, and Capulet himself was up all night, urging forward the servants, and hurrying them here and there about their different tasks. As the moments sped by, he became more and more excited, and when the musicians arrived to serenade the bride on her wedding morning, he shouted to the nurse to go and waken Juliet at once, and get her dressed.

“Hie, make haste!” he said. “I’ll go and chat with Paris. Make haste, make haste! The bridegroom, he is come already! Make haste, I say!”

So the nurse went to Juliet’s chamber....

How calm and restful was everything here! What a contrast to the rush and noisy confusion outside the closed door! Not a sound broke the stillness, not a rustle of movement showed that any living creature was an inmate of the room. Behind those drawn curtains the bride slept well.

But she must rouse herself now; the time for slumber is past. She must shake off the heaviness from her dreaming eyes; she must leave this peaceful haven of her childhood; her happy girlish days are over and done with. The wedding feast is set, the guests are assembling, the bridegroom is waiting. Wake, Juliet, awaken!...

Shout, nurse, wail for sorrow, and wring your hands. Call louder, the bride does not hear you. Weep, mother, for the child whom you turned from when living; mourn, father, for the daughter you rejected and disowned.

There in her bridal robes lies the bride upon her bed, pale as ashes, stiff and cold. The snowy whiteness of her wedding raiment is not more white than her face; her closed eyes smile back no greeting to the rising sun. The little phial has done its work. Here at the door stands the bridegroom, but to the mourners in that desolate chamber it seems that a mightier than he has stepped before him and claimed the bride, and the name of that bridegroom is Death.

The Palace of Dim Night

Friar Laurence had done his best for the young lovers, and he carried out his scheme with speed and vigilance. But an unfortunate accident prevented the letters he wrote to Romeo ever reaching their destination. The friar to whom he entrusted them went to find a brother friar of their order to go with him. This man was occupied in visiting the sick; the plague was then raging in Verona, and the searchers of the town, finding Friar John and his companion, and suspecting they were both in a house where the pestilence was, sealed up the doors, and refused to let them forth. Thus Friar John never got to Mantua at all, and he was even unable to forward the letter to Romeo or to return it to Friar Laurence, so fearful was everyone of infection.

On his release, two days later, he hurried back to the cell of Friar Laurence, and the latter learnt with dismay how his plan had failed. There was now only one thing to be done: he must go to the vault alone, to be there when Juliet awakened, for in three hours’ time the power of the sleeping potion would be exhausted.

Though Friar Laurence’s message never got to Romeo, other tidings of sadder import reached him. When Romeo had started for Mantua, he left his servant, Balthasar, to follow him later with all news. Balthasar, of course, like all Verona, had heard of the tragedy at the Capulets’ house, and never doubted of the truth of Juliet’s death. At the moment he reached Mantua, it happened that Romeo was in the highest spirits; an unaccustomed lightness of heart seemed that day to have taken possession of him. As he strolled through the streets of Mantua just before Balthasar’s arrival, Romeo was musing happily over a dream of good omen that he had had the night before.

“My dream foretells some joyful news at hand,” he thought.“ I dreamt my lady came and found me dead--strange dream that gives a dead man leave to think!--and breathed such life with kisses on my lips that I revived, and was an emperor. Ah me! how sweet is love itself, when but love’s shadows are so rich in joy!”

At that moment Balthasar appeared, just as he had come off his journey. Romeo’s heart leapt up anew at the sight of him.

“News from Verona!” he cried. “How now, Balthasar? Do you not bring me letters from the Friar? How doth my lady? Is my father well? How fares my Juliet? I ask that again, for nothing can be ill if she be well.”

Balthasar bowed his head, and spoke sadly and solemnly.

“Then she is well, and nothing can be ill. Her body sleeps in Capulet’s monument, and her immortal part with angels lives. I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault, and took post at once to tell it you. Oh, pardon me for bringing this ill news, since you left it for my office, sir.”

Stunned by the blow. Romeo made no loud outcry; those who are stricken to the heart have no power to bewail their misery.

“Is it even so? Then I defy you, stars!” was all he said, when he heard the fatal tidings. The boyish turbulence, the violent outpourings of grief, the noisy despair that had followed his former woes found no voice in his present calamity. His was the calmness of one who knows that for him all hope is over. “You know my lodging; get me ink and paper,” he said to Balthasar. “And hire post-horses. I will hence to-night.”

“I do beseech you, sir, have patience,” said the serving-man. “Your looks are wild and pale, and import some misadventure.”

“Tush! You are deceived,” said Romeo. “Leave me, and do the thing I bid you do. Have you no letters to me from the Friar?”

“No, my good lord.”

“No matter. Get you gone, and hire those horses. I’ll be with you directly.”

Romeo’s resolution was taken. Juliet was dead. Well, he would die too. Now for the means. Then Romeo remembered that near the very spot where he was standing dwelt an old apothecary--a meagre wretch, wasted with misery and famine, whose sordid little shop contained a few musty odds and ends of rubbish, thinly scattered to make up a show. Noting this penury when he had first seen him, Romeo had said to himself: “Now, if a man needed a poison whose sale would be instant death in Mantua, here lives a caitiff wretch who would sell it him.” That thought had only been the forerunner of his present need, and now he found that, won over by the handsome bribe offered, the starving apothecary could indeed supply him with a fatal drug of deadly power.

* * * * *

The hour of awakening had not yet come, and Juliet still slept peacefully in her strange abode of death.

To the churchyard at night came the gallant County Paris, to lay flowers at the tomb of the young bride who had been so untimely snatched away. His little page kept watch at a distance, while Paris laid the flowers with loving words at the door of the tomb.

“Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew,--
O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones;--
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
Or, wanting that, with tears distilled by moans;
The obsequies that I for thee will keep
Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.”

Warned by a whistle from the page, Paris retired into the shadow, as other footsteps were heard approaching. Romeo, accompanied by Balthasar, bearing a torch and some tools for opening the vault, now came near, and Paris could hear the instructions Romeo gave his servant.

“Give me the mattock and the wrenching iron. Hold, take this letter. Early in the morning see you deliver it to my lord and father. Give me the light. I charge you on your life, whatever you hear or see, stand quite aloof, and do not interrupt me in what I am doing. The reason I descend into this abode of death is partly to behold my lady’s face, but chiefly to take from her dead finger a precious ring. Therefore, hence, begone! But if you jealously return to pry into what I further intend to do, by heaven, I will tear you joint from joint!”

“I will begone, sir, and not trouble you,” replied Balthasar; but, all the same, he intended to hide himself somewhere near, for he feared the looks of Romeo, and doubted his intention.

When the serving-man had retired, Romeo took up the tools, and began to wrench open the door of the tomb. But now Paris came forward to interfere.

“This is that banished, haughty Montague,” he said to himself, “who murdered my love’s cousin, out of grief for whom it is supposed she died. Now he has come here to do some villainous shame to the dead bodies. I will seize him. Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague! Can vengeance be pursued further than death? Villain, I seize thee! Obey, and go with me, for thou must die.”

“I must indeed, and therefore came I hither,” said Romeo. “Good, gentle youth, do not tempt a desperate man. Fly hence and leave me; think on those who are dead. I beseech thee, youth, do not put another sin on my head by urging me to fury. Oh, begone! By heaven, I love thee better than myself. Stay not; begone!”

“I defy all thy entreaties,” cried Paris hotly, “and seize thee here for a felon.”

“Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!” said Romeo, compelled to draw in self-defence.

They fought, and Paris was wounded.

“Oh, I am slain!” he moaned. “If thou be merciful, open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.”

“In faith, I will. Let me see this face,” said Romeo, and he took up the torch to look at the dead man. “Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris! What was it my man said when my troubled soul paid no heed to him as we rode hither? I think he told me Paris should have married Juliet. Said he not so? Or did I dream it so? Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet, to think it was so?--Oh, give me thy hand, one writ with me in sour misfortune’s book! I’ll bury thee in a triumphant grave.”

Taking up the dead body of the gallant youth, Romeo laid it gently inside the tomb. Then all other thoughts faded from his mind, for there, uncovered on the bier, clad in her wedding-robes, radiant in all her beauty, lay the young wife from whom he had only parted a few days before.

“O my love! my wife!” he sighed. “Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.... Ah, dear Juliet! why art thou yet so fair?... I will stay here with thee, and never from this palace of dim night depart again. Oh, here will I set up my everlasting rest, and shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh! Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace!... Here’s to my love! O true apothecary, thy drugs are quick! Thus with a kiss I die.”

* * * * *

At the further end of the churchyard, Friar Laurence, with a lantern, crowbar, and spade, was picking his way through the crowded ranks of graves, when he stumbled across a friend. This was Balthasar, who told him that Romeo had gone to the Capulets’ vault, but from fear of his master, did not dare accompany the Friar there. Dreading some fresh misfortune, Friar Laurence hurried onwards. At the entrance to the vault he was horrified to see fresh stains of blood, and on entering it he found, to his dismay, Romeo lying there beside the bier of Juliet, and Paris newly slain. But there was no time to spare for lament or wonder; Juliet was awakening.

“O comforting Friar, where is my lord?” she asked, opening her sweet eyes, and glancing about a little fearfully at her dreary surroundings. “I remember well where I should be, and there I am. Where is my Romeo?”

At this moment a noise was heard outside. Paris’s little page had warned the night-watchmen of Verona, and they were now approaching. Friar Laurence implored Juliet to leave the place at once. A greater power than theirs had thwarted their plans; her husband lay dead beside her, and Paris, too, was slain. The Friar said he would place Juliet in safety among a sisterhood of holy nuns, only let her come at once; he dared stay no longer.

“Go, get thee hence, for I will not go,” replied Juliet firmly; and seeing it was useless to attempt to argue with her, Friar Laurence slipped away.

Left alone, for one brief terrified moment Juliet glanced around her, but when her gaze fell on her dead husband all doubt and hesitation fled for ever.

“What’s here? A cup, closed in my true love’s hand?” she said, bending over him tenderly. “Poison, I see, has been his untimely end. O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me to follow thee? I will kiss thy lips; haply some poison yet hangs on them.” She leant forward and kissed him, and in the same moment caught sight of the dagger in Romeo’s belt. “Thy lips are warm.”

“Lead, boy! Which way?” said the voice of a watchman outside.

“Yea, noise! Then I’ll be brief,” said Juliet, snatching the dagger. “O happy dagger, this is thy sheath; there rest and let me die!” And she fell back dead on Romeo’s body.

* * * * *

When the watchmen, followed by the Prince of Verona and the parents of the ill-fated lovers, entered the vault, there was nothing to be done. All was over now--the joy and the sorrow, the hatred and the strife. Revenge was silenced; henceforth the voice of dissension was mute. In the presence of those unseeing witnesses the bitter enemies were reconciled.

In this “palace of dim night,” this dark abode of death, nothing was left now but peace and the abiding memory of undying love.

Macbeth

The Weird Sisters

Witchcraft is now a thing of the past, as far as England is concerned, unless there still lingers in some very remote corners a belief in the power for evil of some poor old body, whose only claim for such distinction is, perhaps, her loneliness and ugliness. But in ancient days, and even into the last century, such a belief was a very usual thing. “Wise women,” as they were often called, who pretended they had the power of foretelling the future, were by no means uncommon, and even learned people and those in high positions were not ashamed to consult them with regard to coming events. In Scotland this belief lingered much longer than in England, and even to this day, in remote parts of the Highlands, there are some who claim they have the gift of “second sight”--that is, that they can see in advance events that will happen several years hence.

The time when the present story occurred was hundreds of years ago, in the year 1039, before William the Conqueror had come to Britain, and when England and Scotland were entirely separate kingdoms.

The throne of Scotland was then occupied by a King called Duncan. The country at all times was much at the mercy of Northern invaders, and just at that period it was suffering from the inroads of the Norwegian hosts, who, secretly aided by the traitor Thane of Cawdor, had obtained a footing in the eastern county of Fife. But their brief victory was changed to defeat by the valour of the Scotch Generals, Macbeth and Banquo. Sweyn, King of Norway, was forced to sue for a truce, and had even to pay a fine of ten thousand dollars to obtain leave to bury his men who had fallen in the fight.

News was brought to King Duncan of the victory that had been gained by the valour of Macbeth, and, pronouncing the doom of instant death on the traitor Thane of Cawdor, he ordered that his title should be bestowed as a reward on Macbeth.

* * * * *

It was a wild night, on a desolate heath near Forres. The setting sun, low down on the horizon, cast a blood-red glow over the withered bracken and a group of blasted fir-trees. The thunder rolled overhead, the wind howled in long moaning gusts, the lightning flashed in jagged streaks. But to the three strange figures that approached from different quarters, and met in the centre of this lonely heath, such wild weather was of no import, or, rather, it suited well with their grim and sinister mood. Children of the night, their deeds were those of darkness. The wholesome sunlight and the breath of day made them shrink and cower in secret lurking-places, but when midnight veiled the sky they stole out to their unholy revels, or on the wings of the tempest they rode forth, bringing death or disaster to all who crossed their track.

“Where hast thou been, sister?” asked the first witch.

And the second replied: “Killing swine.”

“Sister, where thou?” asked the third witch.

“A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap, and munched, and munched, and munched,” said the first witch. “‘Give me,’ quoth I. ‘Aroint thee, witch!’ the pampered creature cried. Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master of the _Tiger_; but in a sieve I’ll thither sail, and, like a rat without a tail, I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do,” ended the witch spitefully.

“I’ll give thee a wind,” said the second witch.

“Thou art kind.”

“And I another,” said the third witch.

“I myself have all the other,” continued the first witch, gloating over the revenge she intended to take on the husband of the woman who had repulsed her, and she continued in a sort of chant:

“And the very ports they blow,
All the quarters that they know
In the shipman’s card.
I will drain him dry as hay;
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid:
Weary seven-nights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost.
Look what I have.”

“Show me, show me!” cried the second witch eagerly.

“Here I have a pilot’s thumb,
Wrecked as homeward he did come.”

At this moment across the heath came the roll of a drum and the tramp of marching feet.

“A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come!” cried the third witch.

Then the three fearsome creatures, linking hands, solemnly performed a wild dance, waving their skinny arms in strange gestures, and uttering a discordant wail:

“The weird sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about;
Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
And thrice again to make up nine.
Peace! The charm’s wound up.”

Macbeth and Banquo, marching across the heath on their way home, after the campaign with the Norwegians, were startled at the sight of these three uncanny figures barring their path.

“What are these, so withered and so wild in their attire, that look not like the inhabitants of earth, and yet are on it?” said Banquo. “Are you alive? Or are you anything that man may question?”

“Speak, if you can; what are you?” said Macbeth.

And the three witches answered by saluting him, each in turn:

“All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!”

“All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!”

“All hail, Macbeth! Thou shalt be King hereafter.”

“Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear things that do sound so fair?” said Banquo, for Macbeth stood as if rapt in a dream, amazed at what he heard.

Then Banquo asked the witches, if indeed they could look into the future, to say something to him, who neither begged nor feared their favours nor their hate.

The witches thereupon replied:

“Hail!” “Hail!” “Hail!”

“Lesser than Macbeth and greater!”

“Not so happy, yet much happier!”

“Thou shalt beget Kings, though thou be none. So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!”

“Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!”

Macbeth would fain have questioned these mysterious creatures further, but not a word more would they speak. By the death of a relative, he was certainly Thane of Glamis, but, as far as he knew, the Thane of Cawdor lived, an honourable gentleman, for Macbeth had not yet heard of his treachery, and how his title was forfeited. And to be King stood not within the prospect of belief, no more than to be Thane of Cawdor. But when Macbeth again charged the witches to speak, they vanished, seeming almost to melt like bubbles into the misty twilight from which they had emerged.

The two victorious generals stood and looked at each other, mute for awhile with awe and wonder. They had fought with armed hosts on the field of battle, but here was a mystery which might amaze the stoutest heart. The poison was already beginning to work. Deeply ambitious at heart, though lacking in resolution to cut his way ruthlessly to the highest goal, the witches’ words had found a ready welcome in Macbeth’s secret desires. But not yet could he openly avow them.

“Your children shall be Kings,” he said to Banquo; and back came the answer which perhaps he was longing to hear:

“You shall be King!”

“And Thane of Cawdor, too, went it not so?” he asked, with a half-assumed air of incredulity.

“To the self-same tune and words,” said Banquo.

The mysterious greeting of the witches now received strange confirmation, for messengers arrived from King Duncan, bringing news that the Thane of Cawdor had been condemned to death for treason, and that his title and estate were conferred on Macbeth. Such an instant proof of the witches’ powers of divination could not fail to fill Macbeth’s mind with strange imaginings.

“Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor!” he murmured to himself. “The greatest is behind.” Then he spoke to Banquo apart: “Do you not hope your children shall be Kings, when those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me promised no less to them?”

But Banquo’s nature was less easily carried away than Macbeth’s. He warned him that it was dangerous to put any trust in doers of evil; often to win people to their harm they would tell truth in trifles, in order to betray them in matters of the deepest consequence.

Macbeth scarcely paid any attention to what Banquo said. His thoughts were fixed now on one idea. The witches had foretold truly that he should be Thane of Cawdor when there seemed no likelihood of such an event taking place. Why, then, should they not have spoken equal truth when they foretold a higher honour?

A dreadful idea was already beginning to take shape in Macbeth’s mind. At first he shrank from it in horror, but again and again it came back with renewed force. At last he tried resolutely to thrust it from him.

“If chance will have me King, why, chance may crown me, without my stir,” he said to himself. Then, with the feeling that he would leave events to work out as fate chose, he added: “Come what come may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day.”

But even yet he could not put the matter from him, and determine to think no more about it, as a wise man would have done. He wanted to reflect over what had passed, and discuss it again with Banquo.

“Let us go to the King,” he said to Banquo; for the messengers had come to summon him to Duncan, in order to receive his thanks for the victory. “We will think over what has chanced, and later on, having in the meanwhile pondered it, let us speak our hearts freely to each other.”

“Very gladly,” agreed Banquo.

“Till then, enough,” said Macbeth. “Come, friends;” and away he went with Banquo and the other lords to receive his new honours from the King’s hands.

At the Castle of Macbeth

King Duncan received Macbeth and Banquo most graciously, and at the same time as he conferred the new dignity on Macbeth he took the opportunity of announcing that his own eldest son, Malcolm, should succeed himself as King of Scotland, and should be named hereafter Prince of Cumberland. In those days of strife and bloodshed it was by no means an assured fact that the crown should descend peaceably from father to son. When the rightful heir was young or feeble, some more powerful relative often stepped forward and seized the sceptre for himself. Macbeth’s wife was a near kinswoman of the King--according to some of the old chroniclers, she had even a better claim to the throne than Duncan himself. Macbeth may have been hoping that after the King’s death, if it came about by natural means, the crown might pass to himself. But this public proclamation of the young Prince as the heir was an obstacle in his path which would prove a stumbling-block to his ambition, unless he overleaped it. Once more, stronger than ever, rose the evil suggestion in his mind. He knew well the dark deed to which it was leading, but he was already almost determined to go through with it, cost what it might.

Macbeth’s character was well understood by his wife. He wished to be great, was not without ambition, but his nature was not yet sufficiently hardened to snatch what he wanted by the shortest way. The great things he wanted he would have been glad to get by rightful means; he did not wish to play falsely, but he was quite content to win wrongly. Accustomed to rely on the stern judgment of his wife, he now wrote to her a full account of the meeting with the witches, and left the matter to her firmer will to puzzle out.

If there were any hesitation in Macbeth’s mind, there was none at all in Lady Macbeth’s. Her husband was already Thane of Glamis and Thane of Cawdor; well, he should reach the highest honour prophesied. So resolved was she on this point, and so swift was her mind to plot evil, that when a messenger arrived to say that King Duncan was then on his way to the castle, and would be there that night, she almost betrayed the treason in her heart by the startled exclamation, “Thou art mad to say it!” It seemed as though fate itself were delivering the unsuspecting victim straight into her hands.

“The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements,” she muttered to herself; and with terrible decision she began to stifle all thoughts of womanly weakness or pity, and to nerve herself with unflinching cruelty for the deed that lay before her.

A few minutes in advance of the King came Macbeth, and was received with the warmest greeting from his wife.

“My dearest love,” he said, “Duncan comes here to-night.”

“And when goes hence?” asked Lady Macbeth, in a voice of dreadful import.

“To-morrow--as he purposes,” faltered Macbeth, avoiding his wife’s direct gaze.

“Oh, never shall sun that morrow see!” cried Lady Macbeth. “Your face, my Thane, is as a book, where men may read strange matters. To beguile the time, look like the time; bear welcome in your hand, your eye, your tongue; look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it. He who is coming must be provided for, and you shall put this night’s great business into my despatch.”

“We will speak further,” said Macbeth, still irresolute.

“Only look up clear,” said Lady Macbeth; “to alter favour ever is to fear. Leave all the rest to me.”

The counsel Lady Macbeth gave her husband she was quite ready to carry out herself. King Duncan was welcomed with smiling courtesy, and the gentle old King was charmed by the grace and kind attention of his hostess.

The castle itself was pleasantly situated; the air was fresh and sweet, and so mild that the guests of summer, the temple-haunting martins, built in every nook and coign of vantage. In truth, everything around seemed to breathe peace and innocent security.

But the hearts of the master and mistress of this castle were far from the loyalty they paraded to their royal guest, though the unbending will of Lady Macbeth was lacking to her husband. Torn with conflicting thoughts, he stole away from the chamber where King Duncan was supping, in order to ponder alone over the problem whether or not he should commit this crime. There were many reasons that cried out against it. First, Macbeth was the kinsman and subject of Duncan, both strong reasons against the deed. Then, he was the host of Duncan, and as such should have barred the door against his murderer, not borne the knife himself. Duncan had shown himself so meek in his high office that all his virtues would plead in his behalf, and fill the land with horror and pity at his fate. Macbeth had no spur to urge him onward except his vaulting ambition, which might overleap its aim and fail, after all.

Missing her husband from the supper-room, Lady Macbeth followed him into the deserted hall, and when he said to her, “We will proceed no further in this business,” she overwhelmed him with the bitterest contempt. She taunted him with his pitiful lack of resolution, and derided him for his cowardly want of valour--“Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’ like the poor cat in the adage,” as she expressed it. When Macbeth suggested that they might fail, she laughed the idea to scorn. “We fail!” she cried. “But screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail.” Then she sketched out the plan of how they might proceed. When Duncan was asleep, she would drug with wine the two soldiers who kept watch at his door, and what then would prevent her and her husband doing anything they liked to the unguarded King? And, finally, what would prevent their laying the blame on the two drowsy officers, who would thus bear the guilt of the murder?

Fired with admiration for his wife’s undaunted courage, Macbeth made no further demur, and the murder of their guest, the King, was agreed on.

* * * * *

That night was dark and wild, one of the roughest that had ever been known. The moon went down at twelve o’clock, and after that all was black, not a star visible. The wind moaned and wailed round the turrets of the castle, chimneys were blown down, strange screams were heard, which seemed to foretell coming woe; the owl, the fatal bellman of death, shrieked the livelong night.

The inmates of the castle were disturbed and uneasy; it was late before they sought their rooms, for there was feasting and revelry because of the King’s arrival; and, then, to many of them, sleep was impossible, because of the raging of the storm outside. But of what was happening in their midst they had no suspicion.

At the appointed hour, Macbeth, trembling with terror at his own deed, crept into Duncan’s room, and killed the King. He looked so calm and peaceful as he lay there wrapt in slumber that sudden remorse filled the heart of the murderer, and he stood fixed in horror, gazing at what he had done. In a neighbouring room two of the King’s followers stirred and called out in their sleep. One laughed, and one cried “Murder!” so that they woke each other; and Macbeth stood and heard them. But with a muttered prayer they turned again to sleep, and presently Macbeth recovered sufficiently to creep back to his wife to tell her that the deed was done.

But though he had nerved himself to strike the blow, all Macbeth’s courage again ebbed away. He shuddered with horror when he looked at the blood on his hands, and it was all his wife could do to rouse him from the sort of stupor that seemed to have seized him.

“These deeds must not be thought of in this way; it will make us mad,” she said, when Macbeth was telling her what had happened in the chamber of the King.

“Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!’” continued Macbeth, still in the same dazed fashion: “‘Macbeth doth murder sleep’--the innocent sleep, balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, chief nourisher in life’s feast----”

“What do you mean?” interrupted his wife.

“Still it cried ‘Sleep no more!’ to all the house; ‘Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more.’”

“Who was it that thus cried?” said Lady Macbeth impatiently. “Why, worthy Thane, you weaken your strength by thinking so foolishly of things. Go, get some water, and wash this witness from your hands. Why did you bring these daggers from the place? They must lie there.--And smear the sleepy grooms with blood.”

“I’ll go no more,” said Macbeth. “I am afraid to think what I have done; look on it again I dare not.”

“Infirm of purpose! Give _me_ the daggers!” cried Lady Macbeth contemptuously. “The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures; ’tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil.” And, seizing the daggers from her husband’s nerveless grasp, she carried them back into King Duncan’s room, and placed them in the hands of the drowsy attendants, to make it appear as if it were they who had murdered the King.

Before Lady Macbeth could rejoin her husband, there came a knocking at the outer gate, and she hurried him away to put on night apparel, in order to divert suspicion from themselves if they were summoned.

The new-comer was a Scotch lord called Macduff, whom the King had appointed to call on him early in the morning. He was admitted into Duncan’s room, when, of course, the crime was at once discovered. All was now horror and confusion. Macbeth feigned as much dismay as everyone else showed. The whole castle was aroused; the alarum bell pealed out. Macduff shouted for Banquo, and for the two young Princes, Malcolm and Donalbain. Lady Macbeth came running in, as if just disturbed from sleep.

Fearing what the two grooms might say when they recovered from their drugged sleep, Macbeth took the opportunity in the uproar to slay them both, pretending that he was carried away by the fury of the moment at seeing the evidence of their villainy, the daggers in their hands.

But the suspicions of the two young Princes were aroused; they dreaded that the treachery begun was not yet ended, and they felt no safety in their present abode. So when Macbeth summoned a meeting in the hall of the castle to decide what was to be the future course of action, they secretly stole away, for better security resolving to separate, Malcolm, the elder son, going to England, and Donalbain, the younger, to Ireland.

The Guest at the Banquet

Macbeth had all his promised honours now--King, Cawdor, Glamis--everything that the weird women had prophesied. But Macbeth was not satisfied. There was one danger ever present in his path. Banquo, his ancient comrade in arms, distrusted Macbeth; he suspected him of playing most foully to win his present high honours. Macbeth, for his part, feared Banquo, because of his noble nature, valour, and wisdom in judgment. Outwardly he treated him with flattering civility, but inwardly he was resolved to rid himself of this dangerous companion. It was nothing to be King unless he could reign in safety. Moreover, when the weird sisters gave the name of King to Macbeth, they had, prophet-like, hailed Banquo father to a line of Kings. They placed a fruitless crown on Macbeth’s head, and a barren sceptre in his grip, if no son of his succeeded. If this were so, it was for Banquo’s children he had defiled his mind and murdered the good King Duncan--only for them! Macbeth resolved to go a step further in the path of crime, and to kill both Banquo and his young son Fleance.

There was to be a great feast one night at the palace. Banquo was especially invited to be present, both by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, and he promised to be back in time for the banquet, though he had to ride out that afternoon on a matter of business. Macbeth inquired if he had to ride far, and Banquo answered that it would take all the time between then and supper--possibly he might even have to borrow an hour or two from the darkness, unless his horse went very well.

“Fail not our feast,” said Macbeth.

“My lord, I will not,” said Banquo.

“We hear our cruel cousins are bestowed in England and Ireland, not confessing their murder of their father,” continued Macbeth, who now pretended to believe that King Duncan’s own sons had killed him. “But more of that to-morrow. Hie you to horse! Adieu till you return at night.”

Then, in a voice of feigned carelessness, he asked Banquo if Fleance were going with him that afternoon.

Banquo replied that he was, and that they ought to start at once, and with a few final words of civil farewell Macbeth at last let him depart.

Directly he had gone, Macbeth gave an order to an attendant, and two men of grim and sinister aspect were secretly ushered into his presence. These were two murderers whom he had hired to assassinate Banquo. When he had got their consent to the cruel deed, Macbeth told them that within the next hour he would instruct them where to plant themselves, and let them know the exact hour, for the deed must be done that night, and at some distance from the palace. He also gave them strict injunctions that the work was to be done thoroughly, and that the young boy Fleance was to be slain with his father, for his absence was just as material to Macbeth as was Banquo’s.

The murderers promised to obey his directions, and he dismissed them.

If Macbeth were troubled in mind and ill at ease, his wife was no happier. She had reached the height of her ambition: her husband was King of Scotland. But the royal crown that glittered on her brow brought no charm with it to soothe the restless trouble at her heart.