THE BATTLE OF HEXHAM. * * * * * ACT THE FIRST. SCENE I. _An open Country, near Hexham, in Northumberland; with a distant View of HENRY THE SIXTH'S Camp. Time Day-break._ _Enter ADELINE, in Man's Habit and Accoutrements._ _Adeline._ Heigho! Six dark and weary miles, and not yet at the camp. How tediously affliction paces!--Come, Gregory! come on. Why, how you lag behind!--Poor simple soul! what cares has he to weigh him down? Oh, yes,--he has served me from my cradle; and his plain honest heart feels for his mistress's fallen fortunes, and is heavy.--Come, my good fellow, come! _Enter GREGORY._ _Gregory._ Mercy on us, how my poor legs do ache! _Adeline._ What, with only six miles this morning?--Fie! _Gregory._ Six!--sixteen, if we've gone an inch; my feet are cut to pieces. A man may as well do penance, with pease in his shoes, as trudge over these confounded roads in Northumberland. I used to wonder, when we were at home, in the south, where it is as smooth as a bowling-green, what the labourers did with all the loose stones they carried off the highways; but now, I find, they come and shoot their rubbish in the northern counties. I wish we had never come into them, with all my heart! _Adeline._ Then, you are weary of my service--you wish you had not followed me. _Gregory._ Who I? Heaven forbid!--I'd follow you to the end of the world:--nay, for that matter, I believe I shall follow you there; for I have tramped after you a deuced long way, without knowing where we are going. But I'd live, ay, and die for you too. _Adeline._ Well, well; we must to the wars, my good fellow. _Gregory._ The wars! O lud! that's taking me at my word with a vengeance! I never could abide fighting--there's something so plaguy quarrelsome in it. _Adeline._ Then you had best return. We now, Gregory, are approaching King Henry's camp. _Gregory._ Are we? Oh dear, oh dear! Pray, then, let us wheel about as fast as we can. _Adeline._ Don't you observe the light breaking through the tents yonder? _Gregory._ Mercy on me! they are tents, sure enough! Come, madam, let's be going, if you please. _Adeline._ Why, whither should I go, poor simpleton? My home is wretchedness. The wars I seek have made it so; they have robbed me of my husband; comfort now is lost to me. Oh! Gondibert, too faithful to a weak cause, our ruin is involved with our betters! _Gregory._ Oh, rot the cause, say I! Plague on the House of Lancaster! it has been many a noble gentleman's undoing. The white and red roses have caused more eyes to water in England, than if we had planted the whole island with onions. Such a coil kept up with their two houses!--one's so old and t'other's so old!--they ought both to be pulled down, for a couple of nuisances to the nation. _Adeline._ Peace! peace, man!--half such a word, spoken at random, might cost your life. The times, Gregory, are dangerous.