Enter ELEANOR.

Ele. My lord, I hear th' approach of hasty steps. Lord Sal. Farewell, my best:

Nor peace nor sleep shall visit me, till I

Have given thee freedom, and reveng'd our wrongs.

Enter Knight.

Knt. Lord Raymond, sir, forthwith expects your coming.

Lord Sal. I will attend him.-Lady, fain would I Have told thee less ungracious things; but all Have their appointed trials. Learn to bear; Convinc'd, the hand of Heaven, when it inflicts, Prepares us oft for some superior good.

[Exeunt.

ACT III. SCENE 1.

Within the Castle. Enter RAYMOND and GREY.

Raymond.

I

SEE nor cause my joys to check ; nor boast

As yet securely.

Grey. Think, that hope, the young,

The merry-minded fair, exalts us oft,

To make our fall the greater.

Ray. Why this cold,

This prudent maxim }

Grey. Mark the wary falcon :

Forward he shoots his piercing eye, and kens
The quarry from afar ;-like his be thine.-
Perhaps, my lord, mine are but nicer fears,
Wak'd in a heart o'er anxious of thy welfare :-
Yet hath the younger of those strangers rais'd
In me suspicions of alarming hue,

Lest, underneath this honest guise, there lurk
Some subtle mischief. Lady Salisbury saw him:
Their conference, as 'twas long, so was it held
In secret would we had been present.
Ray. Granting

Our presence had been seemly—wherefore spoke
You not this counsel ere they met?
Grey. I saw not then the danger.

His honest carriage, and the recent change
Within her mind, had lull'd each nicer fear.

Ray. 'Till now unmov'd, say what hath wak'd suspicion ?

Grey. I know not well.-Would she were firmly thine,

Beyond the reach and grasp of wayward fortune.

The knight, whose office was to introduce

Him to the countess, he dismiss'd, ere they

Approach'd th' apartment.

Ray. Indeed!

Grey. This too-Is it not strange, though night, and

this

Thy proffer'd roof, invited his sojourn;

He would not wait th' approach of morning?

Ray. Are they gone?

Grey. Amid the unguarded joy

Which held us, they escap'd, unheeded.

Knt. My lord,

Enter Second Knight.

Two strangers, it is said, in palmers weeds
Attired, have lodg'd since morning in a hut ;
You may have mark'd it, in the darksome glen,
Near to the forest of wild oaks, just where

The stream white rushes down the shelving cliff.
Ray. Since morning, say'st thou ?

Knt. Further I have learn'd;

Their guise, as doth appear from certain words
O'erheard, is borrow'd with design to mask
Some secret purpose.

[Exit.

Grey. It must be so :

Their close-concerted arts have foil'd our caution.

Ray. They scarce have measur'd half the precincts

yet ;

Send forth my knights, we will pursue them.

Grey. No:-One way there is, and only one

hence;

I hear the countess

-But

She loves Lord William well:

[Exeunt.

And much, much will a pious mother, sure,

To save an only son.

Enter LADY SALISBURY and ELEANOR.

Lady Sal. In spite of this event, this blest event, That hath restor❜d the lord of this fond bosom,

Yet is my mind with doubts and fears disturb'd;
With images and wild conceits, of form
Unsightly; such as hover oft in dreams
About the curtains of the sick.-

-Alas!

Whilst others joy within the friendly roof,
Of night regardless, and the storm that beats
Without, he struggles hard; or he at best
To the dark shelter of the dripping wood.
Besides, what unknown perils may assail him,
Unaided thus, against whatever ill.-

Would he had waited the return of morn!

Ele. The night is dark indeed, the tempest high;
But hear me, lady, hear a pious lesson,
Which thy own lips to me have oft repeated :
There is a power unseen, whose charge it is,
With ever wakeful eye, to watch the good;
And peaceful ever is that breast, which trusts
In his angelic guard.-The hand

Of Heaven, that hitherto hath been his shield,
Will minister safe convoy to his steps,

Tho' night and darkness shed their thickest gloom. Lady Sal. Misdeem not of my fears; or think I speak,

As over diffident of that same power

Thou nam'st, whose all surveying eye wakes ever;
Clear, unobstructed, either when the sun

Shrowds in night's shadowy veil, or when at noon
He shines reveal'd on his meridian throne.-
But where's the bosom throbs not, if it hopes?
Hope ever is attended with a train

D

Of wakeful doubts; and where the sweet nymph har

bours,

There flutters also her pale sister, fear.—

But hence, as was our purpose, to the shrine;
Where, as is meet, for my dear lord restor❜d,
I will, with grateful adoration-

Enter LORD WILLIAM.

Lord Will. Mother, I fain would know that stranger, who he is, that just now met me.

Lady Sal. And wherefore would'st thou know him, love?

Lord Wil. Gentle he was, and mild; not like those grim-fac'd ones I see here every day: and such kind things he did, as make me love him dearly.

Lady Sal. Say, what were they?

Lord Wil. He kiss'd me, strok'd my head, and patted me upon the cheek, and said

Lady Sal. What said he, sweet?

Lord Wil. He said, Heaven bless thy beauteous head, sweet boy.'

Enter GREY.

Grey. Permit me, honour'd dame, I have a word Or two, that claims thine ear.

Lady Sal. Then but a word ;

My present cares ill brook long interruption.

Grey. Behold the blossom of the spring, how fair! Yet in his velvet bosom lurks the worm,

And hourly wastes him of his choicest sweets;