Page:A Series of Plays on the Passions Volume 3.pdf/105

There is not much to run: O an't were finish'd!
But it so slowly runs!

Cath. Yes; watching it,
It seemeth slow. But heed it not; the while,
I'll tell thee some old tale, and ere I've finish'd,
The midnight watch is gone. Sit down, I pray.
(They sit, Orra drawing her chair close to Cathrina.)
What story shall I tell thee?

Or. Something, my friend, which thou thyself hast known,
Touching the awful intercourse which spirits
With mortal men have held at this dread hour.
Did'st thou thyself e'er meet with one whose eyes
Had look'd upon the spectred dead—had seen
Forms from another world?

Cath.Never but once.

Or. (eagerly.) Once then thou did'st. O tell it! tell it me!

Cath. Well, Since I needs must tell it, once I knew
A melancholy man, who did aver,
That journeying on a time o'er a wild waste,
By a fell storm o'erta'en, he was compell'd
To pass the night in a deserted tower,
Where a poor hind, the sole inhabitant
Of the sad place; prepared for him a bed:
And, as he told his tale, at dead of night,
By the pale lamp that in his chamber burn'd,
As it might be an arm's-length from his bed—

Or. So close upon him?