Page:A Series of Plays on the Passions Volume 3.pdf/257

Rh

lie after all: some wicked invention to make you afraid.

Vald. (sternly.) What sayest thou?

Page. O no, I don't mean afraid; only uneasy as it were:—no, no! not uneasy neither; only somewhat as you feel at present, my Lord; you know best what to call it.

Vald. At a siege!

Page. Dear my Lord, those words are glued to your tongue.

Vald. (not heeding him.) My grandfather perished at a siege, and his grandfather also: is this fate decreed in our family for alternate generations? (Sinks into a chair by the table, and Page, seeing him so much absorbed, comes close to him, staring curiously in his face.)

Vald. Take thy varlet's face out of my sight; why art thou so near me? Leave the room, I say.[ Page. A hundred dreams prove false for one that prefigures any real event.—It should not have been, however: my mother should have found for me some other occupation than a military life.—Quit it? No, I can't do that; the world would cry out upon me; Livia would despise me.—'Tis a strange thing that women, who can't fight themselves, should so eagerly push us to the work.—Pooh! am I a fool that it seizes me thus?—I would this boy, however, had really destroyed the letter.