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JOHN (musing).

No:-Men will say I fear'd him, if I kill'd him.
Live still, and be a traitor in thy wish,
But never act thy thought, being a coward.
That vengeance, which thy soul shall nightly thirst for,
And this disgrace I've done you cry aloud for,
Still have the will without the power to execute.
So now I leave you,

Feeling a sweet security. No doubt

My secret shall remain a virgin for you!-
[Goes out, smiling in scorn.
LOVEL (rising).

For once you are mistaken in your man.
The deed you wot of shall forthwith be done.
A bird let loose, a secret out of hand,
Returns not back. Why, then 't is baby policy
To menace him who hath it in his keeping.
I will go look for Gray;

Then, northward ho! such tricks as we shall play
Have not been seen, I think, in merry Sherwood,
Since the days of Robin Hood that archer good.

ACT IV.
SCENE I.

An Apartment in Woodvil Hall.

JOHN WOODVIL (alone).

A weight of wine lies heavy on my head,
The unconcocted follies of last night.
Now all those jovial fancies, and bright hopes,
Children of wine, go off like dreams.
This sick vertigo here

Preacheth of temperance, no sermon better.
These black thoughts, and dull melancholy,
That stick like burs to the brain, will they ne'er
leave me?

Some men are full of choler, when they are drunk;
Some brawl of matter foreign to themselves;
And some, the most resolved fools of all,
Have told their dearest secrets in their cups.

SCENE II.

The Forest.

SIR WALTER, SIMON, LOVEL, GRAY.

LOVEL.

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Come, Sir, you had best surrender fairly. We know you, Sir.

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Father, why do you cover your face with your hands? Why do you fetch your breath so hard? See, villains, his heart is burst! O villains, he cannot speak. One of you run for some water: quickly, ye knaves; will ye have your throats cut? [They both slink off] How is it with you, Sir Walter? Look up, Sir, the villains are gone, He hears me not, and this deep disgrace of treachery in his son hath touched him even to the death. O most distuned and distempered world, where sons talk their aged fathers into their graves! Garrulous and diseased world, and still empty, rotten and hollow talking world, where good men decay, states turn round in an endless mutability, and still for the worse: nothing is at a stay. nothing abides but vanity, chaotic vanity.-Brother, adieu!

There lies the parent stock which gave us life,
Which I will see consign'd with tears to earth.
Leave thou the solemn funeral rites to me,

Sir, we are sorry we cannot return your French Grief and a true remorse abide with thee. salutation.

[Bears in the body

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And what should Margaret do in the forest?
O ill-starr'd John!

O Woodvil, man enfeoffed to despair!

Take thy farewell of peace.

O never look again to see good days,
Or close thy lids in comfortable nights,
Or ever think a happy thought again,
If what I have heard be true.-
Forsaken of the world must Woodvil live,
If he did tell these men.

No tongue must speak to him, no tongue of man
Salute him, when he wakes up in a morning;
Or bid "good night" to John. Who seeks to live
In amity with thee, must for thy sake
Abide the world's reproach. What then?
Shall Margaret join the clamors of the world,
Against her friend? O undiscerning world,
That cannot from misfortune separate guilt,
No, not in thought! O never, never, John.
Prepared to share the fortunes of her friend
For better or for worse, thy Margaret comes,
To pour into thy wounds a healing love,
And wake the memory of an ancient friendship.
And pardon me, thou spirit of Sir Walter,
Who, in compassion to the wretched living,
Have but few tears to waste upon the dead.

SCENE IV.
Woodvil Hall.

SANDFORD, MARGARET (as from a journey).

SANDFORD.

The violence of the sudden mischance hath so

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As of an assured friend, whom in the forgetfulness of his fortunes he passed by. See him you must; but not to-night. The newness of the sight shall move the bitterest compunction and the truest remorse; but afterwards, trust me, dear lady, the happiest effects of a returning peace, and a gracious comfort, to him, to you, and all of us.

MARGARET.

I think he would not deny me. He hath ere this received farewell letters from his brother, who hath taken a resolution to estrange himself, for a time, from country, friends, and kindred, and to seek occupation for his sad thoughts in travelling in foreign places, where sights remote and extern to himself may draw from him kindly and not painful ruminations.

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SANDFORD.

An hour past sun-set. You shall first refresh your

MARGARET.

A good rest to us all.

wrought in him, who by nature is allied to nothing limbs (tired with travel) with meats and some cordial less than a self-debasing humor of dejection, that I have never seen anything more changed and spirit- wine, and then betake your no less wearied mind to broken. He hath, with a peremptory resolution, dis- repose. missed the partners of his riots and late hours, denied his house and person to their most earnest solicitings, and will be seen by none. He keeps ever alone, and his grief (which is solitary) does not so much seem to possess and govern in him, as it is by him,| with a wilfulness of most manifest affection, entertained and cherished.

MARGARET.

How bears he up against the common rumor?

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Thanks, lady.

SANDFORD.

ACT V.

SCENE I.

JOHN WOODVIL (dressing).

JOHN.

How beautiful,
And comely do these mourning garments show!
[Handling his mourning.
Sure Grief hath set his sacred impress here,
To claim the world's respect! they note so feelingly
By outward types the serious man within.-
Alas! what part or portion can I claim
In all the decencies of virtuous sorrow,

Which other mourners use? as, namely,
This black attire, abstraction from society,

These your submissions to my low estate,
And cleavings to the fates of sunken Woodvil,

Good thoughts, and frequent sighs, and seldom smiles, Write bitter things 'gainst my unworthiness.

A cleaving sadness native to the brow,

All sweet condolements of like-grieved friends, (That steal away the sense of loss almost),

Men's pity, and good offices

Which enemies themselves do for us then,
Putting their hostile disposition off,

As we put off our high thoughts and proud looks.
[Pauses, and observes the pictures.
These pictures must be taken down :
The portraitures of our most ancient family
For nigh three hundred years! How have I listen'd,
To hear Sir Walter, with an old man's pride,
Holding me in his arms, a prating boy,

And pointing to the pictures where they hung,
Repeat by course their worthy histories,

(As Hugh de Widville, Walter, first of the name,
And Anne the handsome, Stephen, and famous John:
Telling me I must be his famous John).

But that was in old times.

Now, no more

Must I grow proud upon our house's pride.
I rather, I, by most unheard-of crimes,
Have backward tainted all their noble blood,
Rased out the memory of an ancient family,
And quite reversed the honors of our house.
Who now shall sit and tell us anecdotes?
The secret history of his own times,

And fashions of the world when he was young:
How England slept out three-and-twenty years,
While Carr and Villiers ruled the baby king:
The costly fancies of the pedant's reign,
Balls, feastings, huntings, shows in allegory,
And Beauties of the court of James the First.

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To give you in your stead a better self!
Such as you were, when these eyes first beheld

You mounted on your sprightly steed, White Margery,
Sir Rowland my father's gift,

And all my maidens gave my heart for lost.
I was a young thing then, being newly come
Home from my convent education, where

Seven years I had wasted in the bosom of France:
Returning home true Protestant, you call'd me
Your little heretic nun. How timid-bashful

Did John salute his love, being newly seen.
Sir Rowland term'd it a rare modesty,

And praised it in a youth.

JOHN.

MARGARET.

Wilt go to church, John?

JOHN.

I have been there already.

MARGARET.

How canst say thou hast been there already? The bells are only now ringing for morning service, and hast thou been at church already?

JOHN.

I left my bed betimes, I could not sleep,
And when I rose, I look'd (as my custom is)
From my chamber-window, where I can see the sun
rise;

And the first object I discern'd

Was the glistering spire of St. Mary Ottery.

Well, John.

MARGARET.

JOHN.

Then I remember'd 't was the sabbath-day.
Immediately a wish arose in my mind,

To go to church and pray with Christian people.
And then I check'd myself, and said to myself,
"Thou hast been a heathen, John, these two years past
(Not having been at church in all that time),
And is it fit, that now for the first time
Thou shouldst offend the eyes of Christian people
With a murderer's presence in the house of prayer?
Thou wouldst but discompose their pious thoughts,
And do thyself no good: for how couldst thou pray,
With unwash'd hands, and lips unused to the offices?"
And then I at my own presumption smiled;
And then I wept that I should smile at all,
Having such cause of grief! I wept outright:
Tears like a river flooded all my face,

And I began to pray, and found I could pray;
And still 1 yearn'd to say my prayers in the church
Doubtless (said I) one might find comfort in it."
So stealing down the stairs, like one that fear'd de-

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Now Margaret weeps herself. [A noise of bells heard. And, thinking so, I wept a second flood

Hark the bells, John.

MARGARET.

JOHN.

Those are the church-bells of St. Mary Ottery.

More poignant than the first;

But afterwards was greatly comforted.

It seem'd, the guilt of blood was passing from me Even in the act and agony of tears,

51

212

And all my sins forgiven.

The Witch;

A DRAMATIC SKETCH OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

CHARACTERS.

So saying, she departed,

Leaving Sir Francis like a man, beneath

Old Servant in the Family of SIR FRANCIS FAIRFORD. Whose feet a scaffolding was suddenly falling;

STRANGER.

SERVANT.

ONE summer night, Sir Francis, as it chanced,
Was pacing to and fro in the avenue
That westward fronts our house,

Among those aged oaks, said to have been planted
Three hundred years ago

By a neighboring prior of the Fairford name.
Being o'ertask'd in thought, he heeded not
The importunate suit of one who stood by the gate,
And begged an alms.

Some say he shoved her rudely from the gate
With angry chiding; but I can never think
(Our master's nature hath a sweetness in it)
That he could use a woman, an old woman,
With such discourtesy: but he refused her-
And better had he met a lion in his path
Than that old woman that night;
For she was one who practised the black arts,
And served the devil, being since burnt for witchcraft.
She look'd at him as one that meant to blast him,
And with a frightful noise

("T was partly like a woman's voice,
And partly like the hissing of a snake),

She nothing said but this :

(Sir Francis told the words)

A mischief, mischief, mischief,
And a nine-times-killing curse,

By day and by night, to the caitiff wight.
Who shakes the poor like snakes from his door,
And shuts up the womb of his purse.
And still she cried

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So he described it.

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And sure I think

He bore his death-wound like a little child;
With such rare sweetness of dumb melancholy
He strove to clothe his agony in smiles,
Which he would force up in his poor pale cheeks,
Like ill-timed guests that had no proper dwelling
there;

And, when they ask'd him his complaint, he laid
His hand upon his heart, to show the place
Where Susan came to him a-nights, he said,
And prick'd him with a pin.-

And thereupon Sir Francis call'd to mind
The beggar-witch that stood by the gateway
And begged an alms.

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All this and more at her death.

STRANGER.

I do not love to credit tales of magic.

Heaven's music, which is Order, seems unstrung.
And this brave world

(The mystery of God) unbeautified,

Disorder'd, marr'd, where such strange things are

acted.

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