curse me--or rather, do curse me--damn me--damn my
soul--damn my soul--ha! what am I saying?--who brought me to this? Who?
why who but the black and damnable parsons--ay, the parsons and their
d--d heretical church! However, I'll have my revenge, for hell is lined
with them--paved with them--circled with them; and there I'll find
them in burning squads to welcome me--ha! ha! ha! Welcome, Proctor!
Tithe-Proctor! God's Perdition! what a name! what a character?
Tithe-Proctor!--that is rogue, oppressor, scourge, murderer!--and all
for what? For a dead, lazy, gross, overgrown heresy! Ay, lazy parsons
that I brought myself to this for, to perdition for! But then I was
proud too--oh, it was a great thing to creep up from poverty and cunning
to broadcloth and top-boots, to saddle horse, then a jaunting-car, to
shake hands with the great parsons, who despised me all the while and
made me their tool and scapegoat! Oh, yes, and to have my sons able
to hunt in red coats and top-boots, and my daughters to ride on
side-saddles--how do you do, gintlemen?--ladies, your most obedient!
but, where are we?--what is this? Is this the light of hell, and these
the devils with their black faces? And yet, I did intend to repent and
to be merciful to the poor; and now here comes damnation! and why? have
I not murdered you all?--where am I?--who am I? I am not Matthew Purcel,
the Tithe-Proctor, I hope--make that clear, and I'll give you--or
could it be a dream?--no, no, it is real, a real fact; and the gulf of
damnation yawns for me! Ha!--well--come, then, let us die like men;
give me the blunderbuss; now, down with the villains--down with the
villains!"

His family had been standing between the shelter of two windows, almost
transfixed into stone with horror at the blasphemous agonies under
which his frantic spirit was raging and writhing. The truth is, that
the frightful certainty of death to himself and his family, in such an
unprepared state, together with the rapid glance of his ill-spent life,
joined to his exertion and the suffocating heat of the room, had,
all combined, induced what may be well termed this insane paroxysm of
despair and guilt.

On seizing the blunderbuss, he rushed, now distinctly visible in the
light, and forgetful that the multitude were on the watch for him, over
towards one of the unprotected windows, where he was followed by his
son John, for the purpose of being dragged out of danger. He had just
discharged the bl