No More Learning

-- GOVERNOR ENDICOTT'S private room. An open window.

ENDICOTT seated in an arm-chair. BELLINGHAM standing near.

ENDICOTT.
O lost, O loved! wilt thou return no more?
O loved and lost, and loved the more when lost!
How many men are dragged into their graves
By their rebellious children! I now feel
The agony of a father's breaking heart
In David's cry, "O Absalom, my son! "

BELLINGHAM.
Can you not turn your thoughts a little while
To public matters? There are papers here
That need attention.

ENDICOTT.
Trouble me no more!
My business now is with another world,
Ah, Richard Bellingham! I greatly fear
That in my righteous zeal I have been led
To doing many things which, left undone,
My mind would now be easier. Did I dream it,
Or has some person told me, that John Norton
Is dead?

BELLINGHAM.
You have not dreamed it. He is dead,
And gone to his reward. It was no dream.

ENDICOTT.
Then it was very sudden; for I saw him
Standing where you now stand, not long ago.

BELLINGHAM.
By his own fireside, in the afternoon,
A faintness and a giddiness came o'er him;
And, leaning on the chimney-piece, he cried,
"The hand of God is on me! " and fell dead.

ENDICOTT.
And did not some one say, or have I dreamed it,
That Humphrey Atherton is dead?

BELLINGHAM.
Alas!