Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/207

Rh him their heavy castle gates. There, outside in the rude storm, with no attendants but his faithful Kent and a poor jester, who had been his sport when he was king, stood the once mighty Lear. The hail fell in large stones upon his head, stripped of its royal crown, and the wild wind blew his long white hairs about his face. The whole country was a barren heath, without a house to give them shelter; and thus buffeted by storms and wounded in his heart’s core, is it to be wondered at that he lost his reason and became insane?

Before the night was over, a kind lord, named Gloster, came to seek them, and took them to a farm-house where Lear could be warmed and fed. But it could not restore his reason, and he knew no more the faces of his friends, but raved madly of his daughters.

In the mean time the Earl of Kent, who had been so faithful to his old master, had been busy at work for him. He had been sending messengers to France, where Cordelia and her husband dwelt, telling of the manner in which the cruel sisters treated Lear; and the French king had already begun to march an army toward Britain. On the very night that Lear was driven out, he landed his troops at Dover, the nearest English seaport from France.

As soon as the storm cleared, Gloster told