No More Learning

For once you loved me.


IDONEA You shall back with me
And see your Friend again. The good old Man
Will be rejoiced to greet you.


OLD PILGRIM It seems but yesterday
That a fierce storm o'ertook us, worn with travel,
In a deep wood remote from any town.
A cave that opened to the road presented
A friendly shelter, and we entered in.


IDONEA And I was with you?


OLD PILGRIM If indeed 'twas you--
But you were then a tottering Little-one--
We sate us down. The sky grew dark and darker:
I struck my flint, and built up a small fire
With rotten boughs and leaves, such as the winds
Of many autumns in the cave had piled.
Meanwhile the storm fell heavy on the woods;
Our little fire sent forth a cheering warmth
And we were comforted, and talked of comfort;
But 'twas an angry night, and o'er our heads
The thunder rolled in peals that would have made
A sleeping man uneasy in his bed.
O Lady, you have need to love your Father.
His voice--methinks I hear it now, his voice
When, after a broad flash that filled the cave,
He said to me, that he had seen his Child,
A face (no cherub's face more beautiful)
Revealed by lustre brought with it from heaven;
And it was you, dear Lady!


IDONEA God be praised,
That I have been his comforter till now!
And will be so through every change of fortune
And every sacrifice his peace requires. --
Let us be gone with speed, that he may hear
These joyful tidings from no lips but mine.


[Exeunt IDONEA and Pilgrims.
]




SCENE--The Area of a half-ruined Castle--on one side the entrance to a
dungeon--OSWALD and MARMADUKE pacing backwards and forwards.



MARMADUKE 'Tis a wild night.


OSWALD I'd give my cloak and bonnet
For sight of a warm fire.


MARMADUKE The wind blows keen;
My hands are numb.


OSWALD Ha! ha! 'tis nipping cold.
[Blowing his fingers. ]
I long for news of our brave Comrades; Lacy
Would drive those Scottish Rovers to their dens
If once they blew a horn this side the Tweed.


MARMADUKE I think I see a second range of Towers;
This castle has another Area--come,
Let us examine it.


OSWALD 'Tis a bitter night;
I hope Idonea is well housed. That horseman,
Who at full speed swept by us where the wood
Roared in the tempest, was within an ace
Of sending to his grave our precious Charge:
That would have been a vile mischance.


MARMADUKE It would.


OSWALD Justice had been most cruelly defrauded.


MARMADUKE Most cruelly.


OSWALD As up the steep we clomb,
I saw a distant fire in the north-east;
I took it for the blaze of Cheviot Beacon:
With proper speed our quarters may be gained
To-morrow evening.