For three long moons I have moaned my pitiful tale to
these flinty walls--but all my answer was an empty echo, that seemed to
mock my wailings. Therefore, if thou art a man, and hast a human
heart--

CHARLES. That appeal might move even wild beasts to pity.

OLD MOOR. I lay upon a sick bed, and had scarcely begun to recover a
little strength, after a dangerous illness, when a man was brought to
me, who pretended that my first-born had fallen in battle. He brought a
sword stained with his blood, and his last farewell--and said that my
curse had driven him into battle, and death, and despair.

CHARLES (turning away in violent agitation). The light breaks in upon
me!

OLD MOOR. Hear me on! I fainted at the dreadful news. They must have
thought me dead; for, when I recovered my senses, I was already in my
coffin, shrouded like a corpse. I scratched against the lid. It was
opened--'twas in the dead of night--my son Francis stood before me--
"What!" said he, with a tremendous voice, "wilt thou then live forever?"
--and with this he slammed-to the lid of the coffin. The thunder of
these words bereft me of my senses; when I awoke again, I felt that the
coffin was in motion, and being borne on wheels. At last it was opened
--I found myself at the entrance of this dungeon--my son stood before
me, and the man, too, who had brought me the bloody sword from Charles.
I fell at my son's feet, and ten times I embraced his knees, and wept,
and conjured, and supplicated, but the supplications of a father reached
not his flinty heart. "Down with the old carcass!" said he, with a
voice of thunder, "he has lived too long;"--and I was thrust down
without mercy, and my son Francis closed the door upon Me.

CHARLES. Impossible!--impossible! Your memory or senses deceive you.

OLD MOOR. Oh, that it were so! But hear me on, and restrain your rage!
There I lay for twenty hours, and not a soul cared for my misery. No
human footstep treads this solitary wild, for 'tis commonly believed
that the ghosts of my ancestors drag clanking chains through these
ruins, and chant their funeral dirge at the hour of midnight. At last
I heard the door creak again on its hinges; this man opened it, and
brought me bread and water. He told me that I had been condemned to die
of hunger, and that his life was in danger should it be discovered that
he fed me. Thus has my miserable existence been till now sustained--but
the unceasing cold--the foul air of my filt