The Dramatic and Poetical Works of Joanna Baillie ::

An apartment in a royal castle. Ethwald is discovered sitting in deep meditation by the side of a couch, with a lamp burning by him on a high stand: the rest of the stage entirely dark.
Ethw.
Why am I haunted with these thoughts?
What boots it
That from their weak and priest-beridden king
The soldiers turn distasteful, and on me
In mutter'd wishes call? What boots all this?
Occasion fairly smiles, but I am shackled;
Elsewhere I needs must turn my climbing thoughts,
But where? The youthful see around them spread
A boundless field of undetermin'd things,
Towering in tempting greatness:
But, to the closer scan of men matured,

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These fade away, and in the actual state
Of times and circumstances each perceives
A path which doth to his advancement lead,
And only one; as to the dazzled eye
Of the night rev'ller, o'er his emptied bowl,
The multiplied and many whirling lights
Do shrink at last into one single torch,
Shedding a steady ray. I see my path:
But what is that to me? my steps are chain'd.
Amongst the mighty great, the earth's high lords,
There is no place for me! I must lie down
In the dark tomb with those, whose passing brightness
Shines for a while, but leaves no ray behind.

[Throws himself half upon the couch and groans heavily.
Enter Boy.
Boy.
My lord, my lord!
(Ethw. lifts up his head, and looks sternly at him.)
Are you unwell, my lord?

Ethw.
What dost thou want?

Boy.
I could not sleep: and as I list'ning lay
To the drear wind that whistles through these towers,
Methought I heard you groan like one in pain.

Ethw.
Away, and go to sleep: I want thee not:
I say, begone (sternly). [Exit boy.
[He pauses awhile, then sighs very deeply.

He hangs upon me like a dead man's grasp
On the wreck'd swimmer's neck—his boyish love
Was not my seeking; it was fasten'd on me,
And now it hath become an iron band
To fetter down my powers. O that I were
Amidst the warlike and ungentle cast
To strive uncumber'd! What have I to do
With soft affection? (Softened.)
Yet it needs must be!
His gen'rous love:—his brave ungrudging love:
His manly gentle love—O that he had
Mine equal friend been born, who in my rise
Had fair advancement found, and by my side
The next in honour stood!
He drags me to the earth! I needs must lay
My head i' the dust.—Dull hopeless privacy!
From it my soul recoils: unto my nature
It is the death of death, horrid and hateful.
(Starting up eagerly.)
No, in the tossed bark,
Commander of a rude tumultuous crew,
On the wild ocean would I rather live;
Or in the mined caverns of the earth
Untamed bands of lawless men control,
By crime and dire necessity enleagued:
Yea, in the dread turmoil of midnight storms,
If such there be, lead on the sable hosts
Of restless sprites, than say to mortal man
“Thou art my master.”

Enter Boy.

What, here again?

Boy.
O pardon me, my lord! I am in fear;
Strange sounds do howl and hurtle round my bed;
I cannot rest.

Ethw.
Begone, thou wakeful pest! I say, be-gone! [Exit boy.
[Ethw. walks several times across the stage and then pauses.

Yet in my mind one ever-present thought
Rises omnipotent o'er all the rest,
And says, “Thou shalt be great.”
What may this mean? before me is no way.
What deep endued seer will draw this veil
Of dark futurity? Of such I've heard,
But when the troubled seek for them, they are not.

Re-enter Boy.
(Stamping with his foot.)
What! here a third time?
Boy
(falling at his feet).
O, my noble master!
If you should slay me I must come to you;
For in my chamber fearful things there be,
That sound i' the dark; O, do not chide me back.

Ethw.
Strange sound within thy chamber, foolish wight!

Boy
(starting).
Good mercy, list!

Ethw.
It is some night-bird screaming on the tower.

Boy.
Ay, so belike it seemeth, but I know—

Ethw.
What dost thou know?

Boy.
It is no bird, my lord.

Ethw.
What wouldst thou say?

Boy
(clasping his hands together, and staring earnestly in Ethw.'s face).
At dead of night, from the dark Druid's cave
Up rise unhallow'd sprites, and o'er the earth
Hold for the term their wicked rule. Aloft,
Some mounted on the heavy sailing cloud,
Oft pour down noisome streams or biting hail
On the benighted hind, and from his home,
With wayward eddying blasts, still beat him back.
Some on the waters shriek like drowning men,
And, when the pitying passenger springs forth,
To lend his aid, the dark flood swallows him.
Some on lone marshes shine like moving lights;
And some on towers and castle turrets perch'd,
Do scream like nightly birds, to scare the good,
Or rouse the murd'rer to his bloody work.

Ethw.
The Druid's cave, sayst thou? What cave is that?
Where is it? Who hath seen it? What scar'd fool
Hath fill'd thine ears with all these horrid things?

Boy.
It is a cavern vast and terrible,
Under the ground full deep; perhaps, my lord,
Beneath our very feet, here as we stand;
For few do know the spot and centre of it,
Though many mouths it has and entries dark.
Some are like hollow pits bor'd through the earth,
O'er which the list'ning herdsman bends his ear,
And hears afar their lakes of molten fire
Swelt'ring and boiling like a mighty pot.
Some like strait passes through the rifted rocks,

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From which oft issue shrieks, and whistling gusts,
And wailings dismal. Nay, some, as they say,
Deep hollow'd underneath the river's bed,
Which show their narrow op'nings through the fern
And tangling briars, like dank and noisome holes
Wherein foul adders breed. But not far hence
The chiefest mouth of all, 'midst beetling rocks
And groves of blasted oaks, gapes terrible.

Ethw.
So near? but who are they who dwell within?

Boy.
The female high Arch Druid therein holds
With many Druids tending on her will,
(Old, as they say, some hundred years or more)
Her court, where horrid spells bind to her rule
Spirits of earth and air.

Ethw.
Ay, so they tell thee,
But who is he that has held converse with her?

Boy.
Crannock, the bloody prince, did visit her,
And she did show to him the bloody end
Whereto he soon should come; for all she knows
That is, or has been, or shall come to pass.

Ethw.
Yes, in times past such intercourse might be,
But who has seen them now?

Boy.
Thane Ethelbert.

Ethw.
(starting).
What saidst thou, Ethelbert?

Boy.
Yes, truly; oft he goes to visit them
What time the moon rides in her middle course.

Ethw.
Art thou assured of this?

Boy.
A youth who saw him issue from the cave;
'Twas he who told it me.

Ethw.
Mysterious man!
(After a pause.)
Where sleeps the Thane?

Boy.
If walls and doors may hold him,
He sleeps not distant, in the southern tower.

Ethw.
Take thou that lamp, and go before me then.

Boy.
Where?

Ethw.
To the southern tower. Art thou afraid?

Boy.
No, my good lord, but keep you close behind.

[Exeunt; Boy bearing the lamp, and looking often behind to see that Ethw. is near him.

It is natural to suppose that the diviners or fortune-tellers of this period should, in their superstitions and pretensions, very much resemble the ancient Druidesses who were so much revered amongst the Britons as oracles and prophetesses, and that they should, amongst the vulgar, still retain the name of their great predecessors. In Henry's History of Britain, vol. i. p. 181., it will be found that the superstitious practices of the Druids continued long after their religion was abolished, and resisted for a long time the light of Christianity; and that even so late as the reign of Canute, it was necessary to make laws against it.

University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.