SCENE L-The Court of a Castle, surrounded with woods.

Enter Lady RANDOLPH.

Lady R. YE woods and wilds, whose melan

choly gloom

Accords with my soul's sadness, and draws forth
The voice of sorrow from my bursting heart,
Farewell awhile; I will not leave you long;
For in your shades I deem some spirit dwells,
Who, from the chiding stream, or groaning oak,
Still hears and answers to Matilda's moan.
Oh, Douglas! Douglas! if departed ghosts
Are e'er permitted to review this world,
Within the circle of that wood thou art,
And, with the passion of immortals, hear'st
My lamentation: hear'st thy wretched wife
Weep for her husband slain, her infant lost.
My brother's timeless death I seem to mourn,
Who perished with thee on this fatal day.
To thee I lift my voice; to thee address
The plaint which mortal ear has never heard.
O disregard me not! though I am called
Another's now, my heart is wholly thine.
Incapable of change, affection lies
Buried, my Douglas, in thy bloody grave.-
But Randolph comes, whom fate has made my
lord,

To chide my anguish, and defraud the dead.

Enter Lord RANDOLPH.

Lord R. Again these weeds of woe!

thou well

say,

To feed a passion which consumes thy life? The living claim some duty; vainly thou Bestow'st thy cares upon the silent dead.

dost

Lady R. Silent, alas! is he for whom I mourn:
Childless, without memorial of his name,
He only now in my remembrance lives.
This fatal day stirs my time-settled sorrow,
Troubles afresh the fountain of my heart.
Lord R. When was it pure of sadness! These
black weeds

Express the wonted colour of thy mind,
For ever dark and dismal. Seven long years
Are passed, since we were joined by sacred ties:
Clouds all the while have hung upon thy brow,
Nor broke, nor parted by one gleam of joy.
Time, that wears out the trace of deepest an-
guish,

As the sea smooths the prints made in the sand,
Has passed o'er thee in vain.

Lady R. If time to come
Should prove as incffectual, yet, my lord,

Thou can'st not blame me. When our Scottish youth

Vied with each other for my luckless love,
Oft I besought them, I implored them all,
Not to assail me with my father's aid,
Nor blend their better destiny with mine;

For melancholy had congealed my blood,
And froze affection in my chilly breast.
At last my sire, roused with the base attempt
To force me from him, which thou rendered'st
vain,

To his own daughter bowed his hoary head,
Besought me to commiserate his age,

And vowed he should not, could not, die in

peace,

Unless he saw me wedded, and secured
From violence and outrage. Then, my lord!
In my extreme distress I called on thee,
Thee I bespake, professed my strong desire
To lead a single, solitary life,

And begged thy nobleness, not to demand
Her for a wife, whose heart was dead to love.
How thou persisted'st after this, thou knowest,
And must confess that I am not unjust,
Nor more to thee than to myself injurious.

Lord R. That I confess; yet ever must regret
The grief I cannot cure. Would thou wert not
Composed of grief and tenderness alone,
But had'st a spark of other passions in thee,
Pride, anger, vanity, the strong desire
Of admiration, dear to woman-kind;
These might contend with, and allay thy grief,
As meeting tides and currents smooth our firth.
Lady R. To such a cause the human mind oft

Owes

Its transient calm; a calm I envy not.

Lord R. Sure thou art not the daughter of Sir Malcolm!

Strong was his rage, eternal his resentment:
For when thy brother fell, he smiled to hear
That Douglas' son in the same field was slain.
Lady R. Oh! rake not up the ashes of my
fathers!

Implacable resentment was their crime,
And grievous has the expiation been.
Contending with the Douglas, gallant lives
Of either house were lost; my ancestors
Compelled, at last, to leave their ancient seat
On Tiviot's pleasant banks; and now, of them
No heir is left. Had they not been so stern,
I had not been the last of all my race.

Lord R. Thy grief wrests to its purposes my
words.

I never asked of thee that ardent love
Which in the breasts of fancy's children burns.
Decent affection and complacent kindness
Were all I wished for; but I wished in vain.
Hence with the less regret my eyes behold
The storm of war that gathers o'er this land:
If I should perish by the Danish sword,
Matilda would not shed one tear the more.
Lady R. Thou dost not think so: woeful as [

Where every warrior on the tip-toe stands
Of expectation, and impatient asks

Each who arrives, if he is come to tell
The Danes are landed.

Lady R. O, may adverse winds

Far from the coast of Scotland drive their fleet:
And every soldier of both hosts return
In peace and safety to his pleasant home!

Lord R. Thou speak'st a woman's, hear a warrior's wish:

Right from their native land, the stormy north,
May the wind blow, till every keel is fixed
Immoveable in Caledonia's strand!
Then shall our foes repent their bold invasion,
And roving armies shun the fatal shore.

Lady R. War I detest: but war with foreign foes,

Whose manners, language, and whose looks are strange,

Is not so horrid, nor to me so hateful,

As that which with our neighbours oft we wage.
A river here, there an ideal line,

By fancy drawn, divide the sister kingdoms.
On each side dwells a people similar,
As twins are, to each other; valiant both;
Both for their valour famous through the world.
Yet will they not unite their kindred arms,
And, if they must have war, wage distant war,
But with each other fight in cruel conflict.
Gallant in strife, and noble in their ire,
The battle is their pastime. They go forth
Gay in the morning, as to summer sport;
When evening comes, the glory of the morn,
The youthful warrior, is a clod of clay.
Thus fall the prime of either hapless land,
And such the fruit of Scotch and English wars!
Lord R. I'll hear no more: this melody would
make

A soldier drop his sword, and doff his arms,
Sit down and weep the conquests he has made;
Yea, (like a monk) sing rest and peace in heaven
To souls of warriors in his battles slain.
Lady, farewell: I leave thee not alone;
Yonder comes one whose love makes duty light.
[Exit.

But since my words have made my mistress tremble,

I will speak so no more; but silent mix
My tears with hers.

Lady R. No, thou shalt not be silent.
I'll trust thy faithful love, and thou shalt be
Henceforth the instructed partner of my woes.
But what avails it? Can thy feeble pity
Roll back the flood of never-ebbing time?
Compel the earth and ocean to give up
Their dead alive?

Anna. What means my noble mistress?
Lady R. Did'st thou not ask what had my sor-
rows been,

If I in early youth had lost a husband?---
In the cold bosom of the earth is lodged,
Mangled with wounds, the husband of my youth;
And in some cavern of the ocean lies
My child and his.--

Anna. Oh! lady most revered!
The tale, wrapt up in your amazing words,
Deign to unfold!"

Lady R. Alas! an ancient feud,
Hereditary evil, was the source

Of my misfortunes. Ruling fate decreed,
That my brave brother should in battle save
The life of Douglas, son, our house's foe:
The youthful warriors vowed eternal friendship.
To see the vaunted sister of his friend,
Impatient, Douglas to Balermo came,
Under a borrowed name.---My heart he gained;
Nor did I long refuse the hand he begged:
My brother's presence authorized our marriage.
Three weeks, three little wecks, with wings of

down,

That the false stranger was lord Douglas' son.
Frantic with rage, the baron drew his sword
And questioned me. Alone, forsaken, faint,
Kneeling beneath his sword, faultering I took
An oath equivocal, that I ne'er would
Wed one of Douglas' name. Sincerity!
Thou first of virtues, let no mortal leave
Thy onward path, although the earth should gape,
And from the gulf of hell destruction cry,
To take dissimulation's winding way!

Anna. Alas! how few of woman's fearful kind Durst own a truth so hardy!

Lady R. The first truth

Is easiest to avow. This moral learn,
This precious moral from my tragic tale.-
In a few days the dreadful tidings came,
That Douglas and my brother both were slain.
My lord! my life! niy husband!--mighty God!

With his loved Malcolm, in the battle fell:
They two alone were privy to the marriage.
On silence and concealment I resolved,
Till time should make my father's fortune mine.
That very night on which my son was born,
My nurse, the only confidante I had,

Set out with him to reach her sister's house:
But nurse, nor infant, have I ever seen,
Or heard of, Anna, since that fatal hour.
My murdered child!-had thy fond mother feared
The loss of thee, she had loud fame defied,
Despised her father's rage, her father's grief,
And wandered with thee through the scorning
world.

Anna. Not seen nor heard of! then perhaps he lives.

Lady R. No. It was dark December; wind

and rain

Had beat all night. Across the Carron lay
The destined road; and in its swelling flood
My faithful servant perished with my child.
Oh! hapless son of a most hapless sire!
But they are both at rest; and I, alone,
Dwell in this world of woe, condemned to walk,
Like a guilt-troubled ghost, my painful rounds;
Nor has despiteful fate permitted me
The comfort of a solitary sorrow.
Though dead to love, I was compelled to wed
Randolph, who snatched me from a villain's arms;
And Randolph now possesses the domains,
That by Sir Malcolm's death on me devolved;
Domains, that should to Douglas' son have given
A baron's title and a baron's power.
Such were my soothing thoughts, while I be-
wailed

The slaughtered father of a son unborn.
And when that son came, like a ray from heaven,
Which shines and disappears-alas, my child!
How long did thy fond mother grasp the hope
Of having thee, she knew not how, restored!
Year after year hath worn her hope away;
But left, still undiminished, her desire.
Anna. The hand, that spins the uneven thread
of life,

May smooth the length that's yet to come of

yours.

Lady R. Not in this world; I have consider-
ed well

Its various evils, and on whom they fall.
Alas! how oft does goodness wound itself,
And sweet affection prove the spring of woe!
Oh! had I died when my loved husband fell!
Had some good angel oped to me the book
Of Providence, and let me read my life,
My heart had broke, when I beheld the sum

Of ills, which one by one I have endured.
Anna. That God, whose ministers good angels

are,

Hath shut the book, in mercy to mankind.
But we must leave this theme: Glenalvon comes:
I saw him bend on you his thoughtful eyes,
And hitherward he slowly stalks his way.
Lady R. I will avoid him. An ungracious
person

Is doubly irksome in an hour like this.
Anna. Why speaks my lady thus of Randolph's
heir?

Lady R. Because he's not the heir of Ran-
dolph's virtues.

Subtle and shrewd, he offers to mankind
An artificial image of himself:

And he with ease can vary, to the taste
Of different men, its features. Self-denied,
And master of his appetites, he seems:
But his fierce nature, like a fox chained up,
Watches to seize unseen the wished-for prey.
Never were vice and virtue poised so ill,
As in Glenalvon's unrelenting mind.
Yet is he brave and politic in war,
And stands aloft in these unruly times.
Why I describe him thus I'll tell hereafter.
Stay and detain him till I reach the castle.
[Exit Lady R.

Anna. Oh happiness! Where art thou to be.
found?

I see thou dwellest not with birth and beauty, Though graced with grandeur, and in wealth arrayed:

Nor dost thou, it would seem, with virtue dwell; Else had this gentle lady missed thee not.

woe,

When I had seized the dame, by chance he came,
Rescued, and had the lady for his labour;
J'scaped unknown; a slender consolation!
Heaven is my witness that I do not love
To sow in peril, and let others reap
The jocund harvest. Yet I am not safe:
By love, or something like it, stung, inflamed,
Madly I blabbed my passion to his wife,
And she has threatened to acquaint him of it.

SCENE I-A Court, &c.

The way of woman's will I do not know:
But well I know the baron's wrath is deadly.
I will not live in fear: the man I dread
Is as a Dane to me: ay, and the man
Who stands betwixt me and my chief desire.
No bar but he; she has no kinsman near,
No brother in his sister's quarrel bold;
And for the righteous cause, a stranger's cause,
I know no chief that will defy Glenalvon. [Exit.

Enter servants and a stranger at one door, and LADY RANDOLPH and ANNA at another. Lady R. What means this clamour? Stranger, speak secure;

Hast thou been wronged? Have these proud men presumed

To vex the weary traveller on his way?

Ser. By us no stranger ever suffered wrong: This man with outcry wild has called us forth; So sore afraid he cannot speak his fears. Enter Lord RANDOLPH and a Young Man, with their Swords drawn and bloody.

Lady R. Nor vain the stranger's fears! how fares my lord?

Lord R. That it fares well, thanks to this gallant youth,

Whose valour saved me from a wretched death!
As down the winding dale I walked alone,
At the cross-way four armed men attacked me;
Rovers, I judge, from the licentious camp;
Who would have quickly laid lord Randolph low,
Had not this brave and generous stranger come,
Like my good angel, in the hour of fate,
And, mocking danger, made my foes his own.
They turned upon him, but his active arm
Struck to the ground, from whence they rose no

more,

Stran. A low-born man, of parentage obscure, Who nought can boast but his desire to be A soldier, and to gain a name in arms.

Lord R. Whoe'er thou art, thy spirit is enno
bled

By the great King of kings! thou art ordained
And stamped a hero, by the sovereign hand
Of nature! blush not, flower of modesty,
As well as valour, to declare thy birth.

Stran. My name is Norval: on the Grampian
hills

My father feeds his flocks; a frugal swain,
Whose constant cares were to increase his store,
And keep his only son, myself, at home.
For I had heard of battles, and I longed
To follow to the field some warlike lord:
And Heaven soon granted what my sire denied.
This moon, which rose last night, round as my
shield,

Had not yet filled her horns, when, by her light,
A band of fierce barbarians, from the hills,
Rushed, like a torrent, down upon the vale,
Sweeping our flocks and herds. The shepherds
fled

For safety and for succour. I alone,
With bended bow, and quiver full of arrows,
Hovered about the enemy, and marked
The road he took; then hastened to my friends,
Whom, with a troop of fifty chosen men,
I met advancing. The pursuit I led,
Till we o'ertook the spoil-encumbered foe.
We fought and conquered. Ere a sword was
drawn,

An arrow from my bow had pierced their chief,
Who wore that day the arms which now I wear
Returning home in triumph, I disdained
The shepherd's slothful life; and having heard
That our good king had summoned his bold peers
To lead their warriors to the Carron's side,
I left my father's house, and took with me
A chosen servant to conduct my steps;-
Yon trembling coward, who forsook his master
Journeying with this intent, I passed these tower
And, heaven-directed, came this day to do
The happy deed that gilds my humble name.
Lord R. He is as wise as brave. Was ever

tale

But I must know, who my deliverer is.