And now, just as the hour of completion of the vowed time of his disguise, Guy takes to dying, and in that state he is found by Rainhorn, the son who knows him not. He sends a token by the young fellow to Phillis, who begins to suspect that the palmer who used to be so particular in asking for “brown bread” at her gate, must be the “Master Guy” of the days of sunny youth, short kirtles, and long love-making. Mother and son haste to the spot, but the vital spark has fled. Phillis exclaims, with much composed thought, not unnatural in a woman whose husband has been seven-and-twenty years away from home, and whose memory is good: “If it be he, he has a mould-wart underneath his ear” to which the son as composedly remarks, “View him, good mother, satisfy your mind.” Thereupon the proper identification of the “party” is established; and the widow is preparing to administer, without will annexed, when Rainhorn bids her banish sorrow, as the King is coming. The son evidently thinks the honor of a living king should drown sorrow for a deceased parent; just as a Roman family that can boast of a Pope in it, does not put on mourning even when that Pope dies; the having had him, being considered a joy that no grief should diminish.
Athelstan is evidently a King of Cockayne, for he affably expresses surprise at the old traveller’s death, seeing, says his Majesty, that “I had appointed for to meet Sir Guy” to which the son, who has now succeeded to the estate, replies, in the spirit of an heir who has been waiting long for an inheritance:—“that the death has happened, and can not now be helped.”
But the most remarkable matter in this tragedy is that uttered by Time, who plays prologue, epilogue, and interlude between the acts. Whatever Charles may have thought of the piece, he was doubtless well-pleased with Time, who addresses the audience in verse, giving a political turn to the lesson on the stage. I dare say the following lines were loudly applauded, if not by the king, by the gallants, courtiers, and cavaliers generally:—
“In Holy Land abroad Guy’s spirits roam,
And not in deans and chapters’ lands at home.
His sacred fury menaceth that nation,
Which held Judea under sequestration.
He doth not strike at surplices and tippets,
To bring an olio in of sects and sippets;
But deals his warlike and death-doing blows