No More Learning

"

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!
He too is gone, and by a death as sudden.
Returning home one evening, at the place
Where usually the Quakers have been scourged,
His horse took fright, and threw him to the ground,
So that his brains were dashed about the street.

ENDICOTT.
I am not superstitions, Bellingham,
And yet I tremble lest it may have been
A judgment on him.

BELLINGHAM.
So the people think.
They say his horse saw standing in the way
The ghost of William Leddra, and was frightened.
And furthermore, brave Richard Davenport,
The captain of the Castle, in the storm
Has been struck dead by lightning.

ENDICOTT.
Speak no more.