So fervently I love you, that to dry These piteous tears, I'd throw my life away. Lady R. What power directed thy unconscious tongue To speak as thou hast done? to name Anna. I know not : But since my words have made my mistress tremble, I will speak no more; but silent mix My tears with hers. Lady R. No, thou shalt not be silent. Anna. What means my noble mistress? Lady R. Didst thou not ask what had my sorrows been, If I, in early youth, had lost a husband? In the cold bosom of the earth is lodged, Mangled with wounds, the husband of my youth; My child and his ! Anna. Oh! lady most revered! The tale, wrapt up in your amazing words, Lady R. Alas! an ancient feud, Hereditary evil, was the source Of my misfortunes. Ruling fate decreed, Three weeks, three little weeks, with wings of down, Scarce were they gone, when my stern sire was told, Sincerity! Thou first of virtues, let no mortal leave Thy onward path! although the earth should gape, And from the gulph of hell destruction cry To take dissimulation's winding way. Anna. Alas! how few of woman's fearful kind Durst own a truth so hardy! Lady R. The first truth Is easiest to avow. This moral learn, This precious moral, from my tragic tale.— That Douglas and my brother both were slain. My lord! my life! my husband!-mighty heaven 7 What had I done to merit such affliction ? Anna. My dearest lady! many a tale of tears I've listen'd to; but never did I hear A tale so sad as this. Lady R. In the first days Of my distracting grief, I found myself As women wish to be, who love their lords. Who join'd our hands, my brother's ancient tutor, Till time should make my father's fortune mine. Set out with me to reach her sister's house : Or heard of, Anna, since that fatal hour. Anna. Not seen, or heard of! then perhaps he lives. Lady R. No. It was dark December; wind and rain Had beat all night. Across the Carron lay Anna. That power, whose ministers good angels are Lady R. I will avoid him. An ungracious person Is doubly irksome in an hour like this. Anna. Why speaks my lady thus of Randolph's heir ? Lady R. Because he's not the heir of Randolph's virtues. Subtle and shrewd, he offers to mankind An artificial image of himself; And he with ease can vary to the taste Of different men, its features Yet is he brave and politic in war? And stands aloft in these unruly times. [Exit LADY RANDOLPH. Anna. Oh, happiness! where art thou to be found! I see thou dwellest not with birth and beauty, Nor dost thou, it would seem, with virtue dwell, Enter GLENALVON. Glen. What dost thou muse on, meditating maid? Like some entranced and visionary seer, On earth thou stand'st, thy thoughts ascend to Heaven. Anna. Would that I were, e'en as thou say'st, a To have seer, my doubts by heavenly vision clear'd! Glen. What dost thou doubt of! What hast thou to do With subjects intricate? Thy youth, thy beauty, Anna. Let women view yon monument of woe, [Exit ANNA, Glen. [Solus.] So!-Lady Randolph shuns me; by and by I'll woo her as the lion wooes his bride. The deed's a-doing now, that makes me lord B Madly I blabb'd my passion to his wife, [Exit. ACT THE SECOND. SCENE I. A Court, &c. Enter SERVANTS and a STRANGER at one door, and LADY RANDOLPH and ANNA at another. Lady R. What means this clamour? Stranger, speak secure ; Hast thou been wrong'd? Have these rude men presumed To vex the weary traveller on his way? 1st Serv. By us no stranger ever suffer'd wrong: This man, with outcry wild, has call'd us forth; So sore afraid he cannot speak his fears. |