Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/414

 as when, toward nightfall, the dweller upon a soft inland stream sees the freshet's discolored water come down, thick with the fruits of gentle husbandry and the quenched hearths of homesteads, with piteous wrecks of innocence clinging round them.

Soon after those shrill cries, as of a string too tightly drawn, have escaped from her, the King arrives at the castle. Contrast the dry color of her language when, as hostess, she welcomes him: we are surprised at its constrained and measured politeness. Her soul seems to have collapsed into the dullest prose:—

"Your servants ever Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt, To make their audit at your highness' pleasure, Still to return your own."

It is the talk of a book-keeper to his employer. Has something bereft the fine woman of her tact? No, the fineness of the woman fell instinctively into a protective tone. Her consciousness has been so acutely set to the key of crime that she knows the least touch will sound it. The secret is torture to the mind, but must be borne; as a guilty man, who overhears the pursuit drawing close to his cramped and insupportable place of concealment, turns rigid with stifled groans. So, when Duncan says,—

"See, see! our honor'd hostess! The love that follows us sometime is our trouble, Which still we thank as love." "Fair and noble hostess, We are your guest to-night,"—

the courtesy, so mild and royal, is a threat that comes