letter, Mary. Till I cough.

MARY.

"I have so much to tell you. Sometime during the evening or the night
come to the Dell by the spring under the willows. There I shall wait for
you. Come, Mary. Tomorrow morning I am going out into the world to win
happiness for you and for me. If you do not come, I know what you mean,
and you will never see me again."

SOPHY.

He intends to go? Out into the world? Forever, if you do not go? Then
everything would be lost!

MARY.

"You will never again see your Robert."

SOPHY (_coughs, just as the_ FORESTER _is turning away from the
window_).

From the Bible, Mary.

MARY.

"As he hath caused a blemish in a man, so it shall be done to him again.
Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger as for one of
your own country: for I am the Lord, your God."

FORESTER (_has become attentive; stops_).

What is that there about law?

MARY.

"Ye shall have one manner of law--"

FORESTER.

"Ye shall have one manner"--Where is that?

MARY.

Here, father. Up there at the left.

FORESTER.

Put a mark there where that begins, what you have read there about the
law. Do you see now that I am right? Even if I have to put up with
injustice? That my old heart here is no liar? "Ye shall have one manner
of law"--not a special one for officials of the State. At that time the
Law was still sound; then it did not live in dusty, moldy offices. It
was administered under the gates in the open air, as we read there. If I
had my way, the courts ought to have sessions in the forest; in the
forest man's heart remains sound; there one knows what is right and what
is wrong without Ifs and Buts. With their secret tricks they have put a
string of Ifs and Buts to it; in their dusty, moldy offices it has
become sick and blunt and withered, so that they can turn and twist it
as they like. And now what is right must be put in writing and have a
seal to it, otherwise it is not to be recognized as right. Now they have
deprived a man's word of all value and degraded it, since one is only
bound by what one has sworn to, what one has under seal and in writing.
Out of the good old right they have made a turn-coat, so that an old
man, whose honor was never sullied by the slightest blemish, must stand
as a rascal before men--because they in their offices have two rights
instead of one.

[_Sits down and drinks_.]

SOPHY.

The night is advancing further and further, and Andrew does not co