Enter a Scout. Brother, thou com'st in haste; what news, I pray? Thy cave, I trow, will soon be fill'd with those, Who are by present ills too roughly shent To look thro' vision'd spells on those to come. Wiz. What thou woud'st tell me, tell me in plain words. To the first onset of his arms would yield Their ill defended towers, has found them strengthen'd With aid from Wessex, and unwillingly Led back with cautious skill the Mercian troops Meaning to tempt the foe, as it is thought, To follow him into our open plains, Where they must needs with least advantage fight. Wiz. Who told thee this? Scout. Mine eyes have seen them. Scarcely three miles off, The armies, at this moment, are engaged In bloody battle. On my way I met A crowd of helpless women, from their homes Bearing some helpless babe or valued piece Of household goods, snatch'd up in haste. I hear They follow close behind. (Enter a crowd of women, young and old; some leading children and carrying infants on their backs or in their arms, others carrying bundles and pieces of household stuff.) Wiz. Who are ye, wretched women, Who, all so pale and haggard, bear along Those helpless infants, and those seeming wrecks, From desolation saved? What do you want? First Wom. Nought but the friendly shelter of your cave, For now or house, or home, or blazing hearth, Good Wizard, we have none. Wiz. And are the armies there so near your dwellings ? First Wom. Ay, round them, in them the loud battle clangs. And weapon'd warriors cross their clashing blades. Second Wom. Ay, woe is me! our warm and cheerful hearths And rushed floors whereon our children play'd, Are now the bloody lair of dying men. Old Wom. Ah woe is me! those yellow thatched roofs, Which I have seen these sixty years and ten, Smoking so sweetly 'midst our tufted thorns, And the turf'd graves wherein our fathers sleep! Young Wom. Ah woe is me! my little helpless babos! Now must some mossy rock or shading tree Be your cold home, and the wild haws your food. No cheerful blazing fire and seething pot Third Wom. Alack, alack! of all my goodly stuff I thought to have them to my dying day! Young Wom. (Enter a Young Man leading in an Idiot.) Ah, my dear Swithick! art thou safe indeed? Young Man. To save our idiot brother, see'st thou here? I could not leave him in that pityless broil. Young Wom. Well hast thou done! poor helpless Balderkin ! So shalt thou still, albeit thou know'st it not. (Enter Man carrying an Old Man on his back.) Young Man. And see here, too, our neighbour Edwin comes, Bearing his bed-rid father on his back. Come in, good man. How dost thou, aged neighbour? Wiz. True, good folks; I wish my means were better for your sakes. Where we may take our room and freely breatne; Come let us enter there. [Exeunt, all following the Wizard into the inner cave. SCENE II. A field of battle strewed with slain, and some people seen upon the background searching amongst the dead bodies. Her. Enter Hereulf and Ethelbert. (stopping short and holding up his hands.) Good mercy! see at what a bloody price Will be a slight step of but small advantage. Eth. (not attending to him, and after gazing for some time on the field.) So thus ye lie, who, with the morning sun, Rose cheerily, and girt your armour on With all the vigour, and capacity, And comeliness of strong and youthful men. Ye also, taken in your manhood's wane, With grizzled pates, from mates, whose wither'd hands For some good thirty years had smooth'd your couch : Alas! and ye whose fair and early growth Did give you the similitude of men Ere your Her. Ay, so it needs must be, since Mollo's son (they withdraw to one side.) Second Cairl. Thou'st seen a rueful sight. Third Cairl. Yes, I have seen that which no other sight Can from my fancy wear. Oh there be some Whose writhed features, fix'd in all the strength Of grappling agony, do stare upon you, With their dead eyes half open'd. And there be some, stuck through with bristling darts, Whose gnashing teeth have ground the very sand. Who in convulsive motion yet retain Some shreds of life more horrible than death: I've heard their groans, oh, oh ! (A voice from the ground.) Baldwick ! Third Cairl. What voice is that? it comes from some one near. First Cairl. See, yon stretch'd body moves its bloody hand : It must be him. (Voice again.) Baldwick! Third Cairl (going up to the body from whence the voice came.) Who art thou, wretched man? I know thee not. Voice. Ah, but thou dost! I have sat by thy fire, And heard thy merry tales, and shar'd thy meal. Third Cairl. Good holy saints! and art thou Athelbald? Woe! woe is me to see thee in such case! What shall I do for thee? Voice. If thou hast any love of mercy in thee, Turn me upon my face that I may die; For lying thus, see'st thou this flooded gash? I cannot die. Third Cairl. I will, good Athelbald. Alack the day! That I should do for thee so sad a service; (Turns the soldier on his face.) Voice. I thank thee, friend, farewell! (dies) Third Cairl. Farewell! farewell! a merry soul thou wert, And sweet thy ploughman's whistle in our fields. Second Cairl. (starting with horror.) Good heaven forfend! it moves! What dost thou see? First Cairl. Look on that bloody corse, so smear'd and mangled, That it has lost all form of what it was; It moves! it moves! there is life in it still. First Cairl. Methought it spoke, but faint and low the sound. Third Cairl. Ha! did'st thou hear a voice? we'll go to it. Who art thou? oh! who art thou? (to u fallen warrior, who makes signs to him to pull something from his breast.) Yes, from thy breast; I understand the sign. (pulling out a band or 'kerchief from his breast.) It is some maiden's pledge. Fallen Warrior. (making signs.) Upon mine arm. I pray thee, on mine arm, Third Cairl. I'll do it, but thy wounds are past all binding. Heaven grant him peace! I'd give a goodly sum Second Cairl. (Enter a woman wailing and wringing her hands. Some wretched mother who has lost her son. I met her searching 'midst the farther dead, Mother. I rear'd him like a little playful kid, Second Cairl. Be comforted, good mother. Mother. What say'st thou to me? knowest thou where he lies? If thou hast kindness in thee tell me truly; For dead or living still he is mine all, And let me have him. Third Cairl. (aside to Second.) Send her away, good friend; I know her now. Her boy is lying with the farther dead, Like a fell'd sapling; lead her from the field. (Exeunt Mother and Second Cairl. First Cairl. But who comes now, with such distracted gait, Tossing her snowy arms unto the wind, And gazing wildly o'er each mangled corse? (Enter a young woman searching distractedly amongst the dead.) Young Woman. No, no! thou art not here! thou art not here! Yet if thou be like these I shall not know thee Oh! if they have so gash'd thee o'er with wounds And marr'd thy comely form! I'll not believe it Until these very eyes have seen thee dead, These very hands have press'd on thy cold heart I'll not believe it. Third Cairl. Ah, gentle maiden! many a maiden's love, Young Woman. I know, too true it is, but none like him. O thou who ever wert of all most fair: If heaven have suffer'd this, amen, amen! (Searching again amongst the dead she perceives the band round the arm of the fallen warrior, and uttering a loud shriek falls senseless upon the ground. The Cairls run to her assistance, with Ethelbert and Hereulf, who come forward from the place they had withdrawn to; Hereulf clenching his hand and muttering curses upon Mollo's son, as he crosses the stage. The scene closes.) Bede, "the Venerable," without whose writings we should know next to nothing of the early history of our church, or of the first introduction of Christianity into the island, was born about the year 675 on the lands which afterwards belonged to the two abbeys of St. Peter and St. Paul in the bishopric of Durham, near the mouth of the river Tyne. At seven years of age he was taken into the monastery of St. Peter at Jarrow to be educated for a priest. After twelve years of diligent study he took deacon's orders, and eleven years after that period, or when he was in his thirtieth year, he was ordained a priest. His fame now reached Rome, and be was invited by Pope Sergius to repair to that city in order to assist in the promulgation of certain points of ecclesiastical discipline. But Bede, loving study better than travel, and being strongly attached to his own cell and quiet monastery declined the invitation, and remained at Jarrow to make himself master of all the learning which was then accessible, and to write the ecclesiastical history of the English nation. The materials within his reach consisted of a few chronicles, and a few annals preserved in different religious houses; but he had also access to living prelates and other churchmen, some of whom had been principal actors in a part of the events and scenes he had to describe, while others inherited from their own fathers all the traditional lore relating to the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon people, and more particularly of that part of the nation which was settled to the north of the Humber. Hence we find that Bede's narrative is fullest when he treats of the introduction and establishment of Christianity in Northumbria. He lived so near to the time that his history has much of the charm of a contemporary narrative. The date of his birth was within eighty years after the first landing of Augustin, and within half a century of the date assigned to the conversion of the Northumbrian king Edwin. He must have known, in his youth, persons who were living at the time of that conversion, and many that were alive when King Oswald revived the Christian faith and brought the monks from Iona to Lindisfarne. He published his ecclesiastical history (if we may apply the term publication to the very limited means which then existed of making a literary work known) about the year 734; but previously to this he had written and put forth many other books and treatises. His whole life indeed appears to have been absorbed by his literary labours. Sickness |