Scene I
Brodie (solus). My head! my head! It’s the sickness of the grave. And those bells go on... go on!... inexorable as death and judgment. [There they go; the trumpets of respectability, sounding encouragement to the world to do and spare not, and not to be found out. Found out! And to those who are they toll as when a man goes to the gallows.] Turn where I will are pitfalls hell-deep. Mary and her dowry; Jean and her child—my child; the dirty scoundrel Moore; my uncle and his trust; perhaps the man from Bow Street. Debt, vice, cruelty, dishonour, crime; the whole canting, lying, double-dealing, beastly business! ‘My son the Deacon—Deacon of the Wrights!’ My thoughts sicken at it. [Oh the Deacon, the Deacon! Where’s a hat for the Deacon? where’s a hat for the Deacon’s headache? (searching). This place is a piggery. To be respectable and not to find one’s hat.)