ding pilgrims
His empty wrath: yet let him bar my path,
Or stay me but one hour in my life-purpose,
And I will fell him as a savage beast,
God's foe, not mine. Beware thyself, Sir Count!

[Exit. The Counts return from the Cottage.]

C. Pama. Shortly she will return; here to expect her
Is duty both, and honour. Pardon me--
Her humours are well known here? Passers by
Will guess who 'tis we visit?

C. Wal. Very likely.

C. Pama. Well, travellers see strange things--and do them too.
Hem! this turf-smoke affects my breath: we might
Draw back a space.

C. Wal. Certie, we were in luck,
Or both our noses would have been snapped off
By those two she-dragons; how their sainthoods squealed
To see a brace of beards peep in! Poor child!
Two sweet companions for her loneliness!

C. Pama. But ah! what lodging! 'Tis at that my heart bleeds!
That hut, whose rough and smoke-embrowned spars
Dip to the cold clay floor on either side!
Her seats bare deal!--her only furniture
Some earthen crock or two! Why, sir, a dungeon
Were scarce more frightful: such a choice must argue
Aberrant senses, or degenerate blood!

C. Wal. What? Were things foul?

C. Pama. I marked not, sir.

C. Wal. I did.
You might have eat your dinner off the floor.

C. Pama. Off any spot, sir, which a princess' foot
Had hallowed by its touch.

C. Wal. Most courtierly.
Keep, keep those sweet saws for the lady's self.
[Aside] Unless that shock of the nerves shall send them flying.

C. Pama. Yet whence this depth of poverty? I thought
You and her champions had recovered for her
Her lands and titles.

C. Wal. Ay; that coward Henry
Gave them all back as lightly as he took them:
Certie, we were four gentle applicants--
And Rudolph told him some unwelcome truths--
Would God that all of us might hear our sins,
As Henry heard that day!

C. Pama. Then she refused them?

C. Wal. 'It ill befits,' quoth she, 'my royal blood,
To take extorted gifts; I tender back
By you to him, for this his mortal life,
That which he thinks by treason cheaply bought;
To which my son shall, in his father's right,
By God's good will, succeed. For that dread height
May Christ by many woes prepare his youth!'

C. Pama. Humph!

C. Wal. Why here--no, 't cannot be--

C. Pama. What hither comes
Forth from the hospital, where, as they told us,
The Princess labours in her holy duties?
A parti-coloured ghost that stalks for penance?
Ah! a good he