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--the sweet name of child is not for me--never for me the soul-thrilling glance of her I love--never, never the bosom friend's embrace--(starting back wildly)--surrounded by murderers--hemmed in by hissing vipers-- riveted to vice with iron fetters--whirling headlong on the frail reed of sin to the gulf of perdition--amid the blooming flowers of a glad world, a howling Abaddon! SCHWARZ (to the others). How strange! I never saw him thus before. CHARLES (with melancholy). Oh, that I might return again to my mother's womb. That I might be born a beggar! I should desire no more,--no more, oh heaven!--but that I might be like one of those poor laborers! Oh, I would toil till the blood streamed down my temples--to buy myself the luxury of one guiltless slumber--the blessedness of a single tear. GRIMM (to the others). A little patience--the paroxysm is nearly over. CHARLES. There was a time when my tears flowed so freely. Oh, those days of peace! Dear home of my fathers--ye verdant halcyon vales! O all ye Elysian scenes of my childhood!--will you never return?--will your delicious breezes never cool my burning bosom? Mourn with me, Nature, mourn! They will never return! never will their delicious breezes cool my burning bosom! They are gone! gone! irrevocably gone! Enter SCHWEITZER with water in his hat. SCHWEITZER (offering him water in his hat). Drink, captain; here is plenty of water, and cold as ice. SCHWARZ. You are bleeding! What have you been doing? SCHWEITZER. A bit of a freak, you fool, which had well-nigh cost me two legs and a neck. As I was frolicking along the steep sandbanks of the river, plump, in a moment, the whole concern slid from under me, and I after it, some ten fathoms deep;--there I lay, and, as I was recovering my five senses, lo and behold, the most sparkling water in the gravel! Not so much amiss this time, said I to myself, for the caper I have cut. The captain will be sure to relish a drink. CHARLES (returns him the hat and wipes his face). But you are covered with mud, Schweitzer, and we can't see the scar which the Bohemian horseman marked on your forehead--your water was good, Schweitzer--and those scars become you well. SCHWEITZER. Bah! There's room for a score or two more yet. CHARLES. Yes, boys--it was a hot day's work--and only one man lost. Poor Roller! he died a noble death. A marble monument would be erected to his memory had he died in any other cause than
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