您可以在百度里搜索“The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 4 艾草文学(www.321553.xyz)”查找最新章节！

　　SCENE.—Sherwood Forest.

　　SIR WALTER WOODVIL. SIMON WOODVIL. (Disguised as Frenchmen.)

　　SIR WALTER

　　How fares my boy, Simon, my youngest born,

　　My hope, my pride, young Woodvil, speak to me?

　　Some grief untold weighs heavy at thy heart:

　　I know it by thy alter'd cheer of late.

　　Thinkest, thy brother plays thy father false?

　　It is a mad and thriftless prodigal,

　　Grown proud upon the favours of the court;

　　Court manners, and court fashions, he affects,

　　And in the heat and uncheck'd blood of youth,

　　Harbours a company of riotous men,

　　All hot, and young, court-seekers, like himself,

　　Most skilful to devour a patrimony;

　　And these have eat into my old estates,

　　And these have drain'd thy father's cellars dry;

　　But these so common faults of youth not named,

　　(Things which themselves outgrow, left to themselves,)

　　I know no quality that stains his honor.

　　My life upon his faith and noble mind,

　　Son John could never play thy father false.

　　SIMON

　　I never thought but nobly of my brother,

　　Touching his honor and fidelity.

　　Still I could wish him charier of his person,

　　And of his time more frugal, than to spend

　　In riotous living, graceless society,

　　And mirth unpalatable, hours better employ'd

　　(With those persuasive graces nature lent him)

　　In fervent pleadings for a father's life.

　　SIR WALTER

　　I would not owe my life to a jealous court,

　　Whose shallow policy I know it is,

　　On some reluctant acts of prudent mercy,

　　(Not voluntary, but extorted by the times,

　　In the first tremblings of new-fixed power,

　　And recollection smarting from old wounds,)

　　On these to build a spurious popularity.

　　Unknowing what free grace or mercy mean,

　　They fear to punish, therefore do they pardon.

　　For this cause have I oft forbid my son,

　　By letters, overtures, open solicitings,

　　Or closet-tamperings, by gold or fee,

　　To beg or bargain with the court for my life.

　　SIMON

　　And John has ta'en you, father, at your word,

　　True to the letter of his paternal charge.

　　SIR WALTER

　　Well, my good cause, and my good conscience, boy,

　　Shall be for sons to me, if John prove false.

　　Men die but once, and the opportunity

　　Of a noble death is not an every-day fortune:

　　It is a gift which noble spirits pray for.

　　SIMON

　　I would not wrong my brother by surmise;

　　I know him generous, full of gentle qualities,

　　Incapable of base compliances,

　　No prodigal in his nature, but affecting

　　This shew of bravery for ambitious ends.

　　He drinks, for 'tis the humour of the court,

　　And drink may one day wrest the secret from him,

　　And pluck you from your hiding place in the sequel.

　　SIR WALTER

　　Fair death shall be my doom, and foul life his.

　　Till when, we'll live as free in this green forest

　　As yonder deer, who roam unfearing treason:

　　Who seem the Aborigines of this place,

　　Or Sherwood theirs by tenure.

　　SIMON

　　'Tis said, that Robert Earl of Huntingdon,

　　Men call'd him Robin Hood, an outlaw bold,

　　With a merry crew of hunters here did haunt,

　　Not sparing the king's venison. May one believe

　　The antique tale?

　　SIR WALTER

　　There is much likelihood,

　　Such bandits did in England erst abound,

　　When polity was young. I have read of the pranks

　　Of that mad archer, and of the tax he levied

　　On travellers, whatever their degree,

　　Baron, or knight, whoever pass'd these woods,

　　Layman, or priest, not sparing the bishop's mitre

　　For spiritual regards; nay, once, 'tis said,

　　He robb'd the king himself.

　　SIMON

　　A perilous man. (Smiling.)

　　SIR WALTER

　　How quietly we live here,

　　Unread in the world's business,

　　And take no note of all its slippery changes.

　　'Twere best we make a world among ourselves,

　　A little world,

　　Without the ills and falsehoods of the greater:

　　We two being all the inhabitants of ours,

　　And kings and subjects both in one.

　　SIMON

　　Only the dangerous errors, fond conceits,

　　Which make the business of that greater world,

　　Must have no place in ours:

　　As, namely, riches, honors, birth, place, courtesy,

　　Good fame and bad, rumours and popular noises,

　　Books, creeds, opinions, prejudices national,

　　Humours particular,

　　Soul-killing lies, and truths that work small good,

　　Feuds, factions, enmities, relationships,

　　Loves, hatreds, sympathies, antipathies,

　　And all the intricate stuff quarrels are made of.

　　(Margaret enters in boy's apparel.)

　　SIR WALTER

　　What pretty boy have we here?

　　MARGARET

　　Bon jour, messieurs. Ye have handsome English faces,

　　I should have ta'en you else for other two,

　　I came to seek in the forest.

　　SIR WALTER

　　Who are they?

　　MARGARET

　　A gallant brace of Frenchmen, curled monsieurs,

　　That, men say, haunt these woods, affecting privacy,

　　More than the manner of their countrymen.

　　SIMON

　　We have here a wonder.

　　The face is Margaret's face.

　　SIR WALTER

　　The face is Margaret's, but the dress the same

　　My Stephen sometimes wore.

　　(To Margaret)

　　Suppose us them; whom do men say we are?

　　Or know you what you seek?

　　MARGARET

　　A worthy pair of exiles,

　　Two whom the politics of state revenge,

　　In final issue of long civil broils,

　　Have houseless driven from your native France,

　　To wander idle in these English woods,

　　Where now ye live; most part

　　Thinking on home, and all the joys of France,

　　Where grows the purple vine.

　　SIR WALTER

　　These woods, young stranger,

　　And grassy pastures, which the slim deer loves,

　　Are they less beauteous than the land of France,

　　Where grows the purple vine?

　　MARGARET

　　I cannot tell.

　　To an indifferent eye both shew alike.

　　'Tis not the scene,

　　But all familiar objects in the scene,

　　Which now ye miss, that constitute a difference.

　　Ye had a country, exiles, ye have none now;

　　Friends had ye, and much wealth, ye now have nothing;

　　Our manners, laws, our customs, all are foreign to you,

　　I know ye loathe them, cannot learn them readily;

　　And there is reason, exiles, ye should love

　　Our English earth less than your land of France,

　　Where grows the purple vine; where all delights grow,

　　Old custom has made pleasant.

　　SIR WALTER

　　You, that are read

　　So deeply in our story, what are you?

　　MARGARET

　　A bare adventurer; in brief a woman,

　　That put strange garments on, and came thus far

　　To seek an ancient friend:

　　And having spent her stock of idle words,

　　And feeling some tears coming,

　　Hastes now to clasp Sir Walter Woodvil's knees,

　　And beg a boon for Margaret, his poor ward. (Kneeling.)

　　SIR WALTER

　　Not at my feet, Margaret, not at my feet.

　　MARGARET

　　Yes, till her suit is answer'd.

　　SIR WALTER

　　Name it.

　　MARGARET

　　A little boon, and yet so great a grace,

　　She fears to ask it.

　　SIR WALTER

　　Some riddle, Margaret?

　　MARGARET

　　No riddle, but a plain request.

　　SIR WALTER

　　Name it.

　　MARGARET

　　Free liberty of Sherwood,

　　And leave to take her lot with you in the forest.

　　SIR WALTER

　　A scant petition, Margaret, but take it,

　　Seal'd with an old man's tears.—

　　Rise, daughter of Sir Rowland.

　　(Addresses them both.)

　　O you most worthy,

　　You constant followers of a man proscribed,

　　Following poor misery in the throat of danger;

　　Fast servitors to craz'd and penniless poverty,

　　Serving poor poverty without hope of gain;

　　Kind children of a sire unfortunate;

　　Green clinging tendrils round a trunk decay'd,

　　Which needs must bring on you timeless decay;

　　Fair living forms to a dead carcase join'd;—

　　What shall I say?

　　Better the dead were gather'd to the dead,

　　Than death and life in disproportion meet.—

　　Go, seek your fortunes, children.—

　　SIMON

　　Why, whither should we go?

　　SIR WALTER

　　You to the Court, where now your brother John

　　Commits a rape on Fortune.

　　SIMON

　　Luck to John!

　　A light-heel'd strumpet, when the sport is done.

　　SIR WALTER

　　You to the sweet society of your equals,

　　Where the world's fashion smiles on youth and beauty.

　　MARGARET

　　Where young men's flatteries cozen young maids' beauty,

　　There pride oft gets the vantage hand of duty,

　　There sweet humility withers.

　　SIMON

　　Mistress Margaret,

　　How fared my brother John, when you left Devon?

　　MARGARET

　　John was well, Sir.

　　SIMON

　　'Tis now nine months almost,

　　Since I saw home. What new friends has John made?

　　Or keeps he his first love?—I did suspect

　　Some foul disloyalty. Now do I know,

　　John has prov'd false to her, for Margaret weeps.

　　It is a scurvy brother.

　　SIR WALTER

　　Fie upon it.

　　All men are false, I think. The date of love

　　Is out, expired, its stories all grown stale,

　　O'erpast, forgotten, like an antique tale

　　Of Hero and Leander.

　　SIMON I have known some men that are too general-contemplative for the narrow passion. I am in some sort a general lover.

　　MARGARET In the name of the boy God, who plays at hood-man-blind with the Muses, and cares not whom he catches: what is it you love?

　　SIMON

　　Simply, all things that live,

　　From the crook'd worm to man's imperial form,

　　And God-resembling likeness. The poor fly,

　　That makes short holyday in the sun beam,

　　And dies by some child's hand. The feeble bird

　　With little wings, yet greatly venturous

　　In the upper sky. The fish in th' other element,

　　That knows no touch of eloquence. What else?

　　Yon tall and elegant stag,

　　Who paints a dancing shadow of his horns

　　In the water, where he drinks.

　　MARGARET

　　I myself love all these things, yet so as with a difference:—

　　for example, some animals better than others, some men

　　rather than other men; the nightingale before the cuckoo, the

　　swift and graceful palfrey before the slow and asinine mule.

　　Your humour goes to confound all qualities.

　　What sports do you use in the forest?—

　　SIMON

　　Not many; some few, as thus:—

　　To see the sun to bed, and to arise,

　　Like some hot amourist with glowing eyes,

　　Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him,

　　With all his fires and travelling glories round him.

　　Sometimes the moon on soft night clouds to rest,

　　Like beauty nestling in a young man's breast,

　　And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keep

　　Admiring silence, while those lovers sleep.

　　Sometimes outstretcht, in very idleness,

　　Nought doing, saying little, thinking less,

　　To view the leaves, thin dancers upon air,

　　Go eddying round; and small birds, how they fare,

　　When mother Autumn fills their beaks with corn,

　　Filch'd from the careless Amalthea's horn;

　　And how the woods berries and worms provide

　　Without their pains, when earth has nought beside

　　To answer their small wants.

　　To view the graceful deer come tripping by,

　　Then stop, and gaze, then turn, they know not why,

　　Like bashful younkers in society.

　　To mark the structure of a plant or tree,

　　And all fair things of earth, how fair they be.

　　MARGARET (smiling)

　　And, afterwards them paint in simile.

　　SIR WALTER

　　Mistress Margaret will have need of some refreshment.

　　Please you, we have some poor viands within.

　　MARGARET

　　Indeed I stand in need of them.

　　SIR WALTER

　　Under the shade of a thick-spreading tree,

　　Upon the grass, no better carpeting,

　　We'll eat our noon-tide meal; and, dinner done,

　　One of us shall repair to Nottingham,

　　To seek some safe night-lodging in the town,

　　Where you may sleep, while here with us you dwell,

　　By day, in the forest, expecting better times,

　　And gentler habitations, noble Margaret.

　　SIMON

　　Allons, young Frenchman—

　　MARGARET

　　Allons, Sir Englishman. The time has been,

　　I've studied love-lays in the English tongue,

　　And been enamour'd of rare poesy:

　　Which now I must unlearn. Henceforth,

　　Sweet mother-tongue, old English speech, adieu;

　　For Margaret has got new name and language new.

　　(Exeunt.)

　　ACT THE THIRD SCENE.—An Apartment of State in Woodvil Hall—Cavaliers drinking.

　　JOHN WOODVIL, LOVEL, GRAY, and four more.

　　JOHN

　　More mirth, I beseech you, gentlemen—Mr. Gray, you are not merry.—

　　GRAY More wine, say I, and mirth shall ensue in course. What! we have not yet above three half-pints a man to answer for. Brevity is the soul of drinking, as of wit. Despatch, I say. More wine. (Fills.)

　　FIRST GENTLEMAN I entreat you, let there be some order, some method, in our drinkings. I love to lose my reason with my eyes open, to commit the deed of drunkenness with forethought and deliberation. I love to feel the fumes of the liquor gathering here, like clouds.

　　SECOND GENTLEMAN And I am for plunging into madness at once. Damn order, and method, and steps, and degrees, that he speaks of. Let confusion have her legitimate work.

　　LOVEL I marvel why the poets, who, of all men, methinks, should possess the hottest livers, and most empyreal fancies, should affect to see such virtues in cold water.

　　GRAY

　　Virtue in cold water! ha! ha! ha!—

　　JOHN Because your poet-born hath an internal wine, richer than lippara or canaries, yet uncrushed from any grapes of earth, unpressed in mortal wine-presses.

　　THIRD GENTLEMAN

　　What may be the name of this wine?

　　JOHN It hath as many names as qualities. It is denominated indifferently, wit, conceit, invention, inspiration, but its most royal and comprehensive name is fancy.

　　THIRD GENTLEMAN

　　And where keeps he this sovereign liquor?

　　JOHN Its cellars are in the brain, whence your true poet deriveth intoxication at will; while his animal spirits, catching a pride from the quality and neighbourhood of their noble relative, the brain, refuse to be sustained by wines and fermentations of earth.

　　THIRD GENTLEMAN

　　But is your poet-born alway tipsy with this liquor?

　　JOHN He hath his stoopings and reposes; but his proper element is the sky, and in the suburbs of the empyrean.

　　THIRD GENTLEMAN Is your wine-intellectual so exquisite? henceforth, I, a man of plain conceit, will, in all humility, content my mind with canaries.

　　FOURTH GENTLEMAN I am for a song or a catch. When will the catches come on, the sweet wicked catches?

　　JOHN

　　They cannot be introduced with propriety before midnight. Every man must

　　commit his twenty bumpers first. We are not yet well roused. Frank

　　Lovel, the glass stands with you.

　　LOVEL

　　Gentlemen, the Duke. (Fills.)

　　ALL

　　The Duke. (They drink.)

　　GRAY

　　Can any tell, why his Grace, being a Papist—

　　JOHN Pshaw! we will have no questions of state now. Is not this his Majesty's birth-day?

　　GRAY

　　What follows?

　　JOHN

　　That every man should sing, and be joyful, and ask no questions.

　　SECOND GENTLEMAN

　　Damn politics, they spoil drinking.

　　THIRD GENTLEMAN

　　For certain,'tis a blessed monarchy.

　　SECOND GENTLEMAN The cursed fanatic days we have seen! The times have been when swearing was out of fashion.

　　THIRD GENTLEMAN

　　And drinking.

　　FIRST GENTLEMAN

　　And wenching.

　　GRAY The cursed yeas and forsooths, which we have heard uttered, when a man could not rap out an innocent oath, but strait the air was thought to be infected.

　　LOVEL 'Twas a pleasant trick of the saint, which that trim puritan Swear-not-at-all Smooth-speech used, when his spouse chid him with an oath for committing with his servant-maid, to cause his house to be fumigated with burnt brandy, and ends of scripture, to disperse the devil's breath, as he termed it.

　　ALL

　　Ha! ha! ha!

　　GRAY But 'twas pleasanter, when the other saint Resist-the-devil- and-he-will-flee-from-thee Pure-man was overtaken in the act, to plead an illusio visûs, and maintain his sanctity upon a supposed power in the adversary to counterfeit the shapes of things.

　　ALL

　　Ha! ha! ha!

　　JOHN Another round, and then let every man devise what trick he can in his fancy, for the better manifesting our loyalty this day.

　　GRAY

　　Shall we hang a puritan?

　　JOHN

　　No, that has been done already in Coleman-Street.

　　SECOND GENTLEMAN

　　Or fire a conventicle?

　　JOHN

　　That is stale too.

　　THIRD GENTLEMAN

　　Or burn the assembly's catechism?

　　FOURTH GENTLEMAN

　　Or drink the king's health, every man standing upon his head naked?

　　JOHN (to Lovel)

　　We have here some pleasant madness.

　　THIRD GENTLEMAN Who shall pledge me in a pint bumper, while we drink to the king upon our knees?

　　LOVEL

　　Why on our knees, Cavalier?

　　JOHN (smiling) For more devotion, to be sure. (To a servant.) Sirrah, fetch the gilt goblets.

　　(The goblets are brought. They drink the king's health, kneeling. A shout of general approbation following the first appearance of the goblets.)

　　JOHN We have here the unchecked virtues of the grape. How the vapours curl upwards! It were a life of gods to dwell in such an element: to see, and hear, and talk brave things. Now fie upon these casual potations. That a man's most exalted reason should depend upon the ignoble fermenting of a fruit, which sparrows pluck at as well as we!

　　GRAY (aside to Lovel)

　　Observe how he is ravished.

　　LOVEL

　　Vanity and gay thoughts of wine do meet in him and engender madness.

　　(While the rest are engaged in a wild kind of talk, John advances to the front of the stage and soliloquises.)

　　JOHN

　　My spirits turn to fire, they mount so fast.

　　My joys are turbulent, my hopes shew like fruition.

　　These high and gusty relishes of life, sure,

　　Have no allayings of mortality in them.

　　I am too hot now and o'ercapable,

　　For the tedious processes, and creeping wisdom,

　　Of human acts, and enterprizes of a man.

　　I want some seasonings of adversity,

　　Some strokes of the old mortifier Calamity,

　　To take these swellings down, divines call vanity.

　　FIRST GENTLEMAN

　　Mr. Woodvil, Mr. Woodvil.

　　SECOND GENTLEMAN

　　Where is Woodvil?

　　GRAY Let him alone. I have seen him in these lunes before. His abstractions must not taint the good mirth.

　　JOHN (continuing to soliloquize)

　　O for some friend now,

　　To conceal nothing from, to have no secrets.

　　How fine and noble a thing is confidence,

　　How reasonable too, and almost godlike!

　　Fast cement of fast friends, band of society,

　　Old natural go-between in the world's business,

　　Where civil life and order, wanting this cement,

　　Would presently rush back

　　Into the pristine state of singularity,

　　And each man stand alone.

　　(A Servant enters.) Gentlemen, the fire-works are ready.

　　FIRST GENTLEMAN

　　What be they?

　　LOVEL The work of London artists, which our host has provided in honour of this day.

　　SECOND GENTLEMAN

　　'Sdeath, who would part with his wine for a rocket?

　　LOVEL Why truly, gentlemen, as our kind host has been at the pains to provide this spectacle, we can do no less than be present at it. It will not take up much time. Every man may return fresh and thirsting to his liquor.

　　THIRD GENTLEMAN

　　There is reason in what he says.

　　SECOND GENTLEMAN

　　Charge on then, bottle in hand. There's husbandry in that.

　　(They go out, singing. Only Level remains, who observes Woodvil.)

　　JOHN (still talking to himself)

　　This Lovel here's of a tough honesty,

　　Would put the rack to the proof. He is not of that sort,

　　Which haunt my house, snorting the liquors,

　　And when their wisdoms are afloat with wine,

　　Spend vows as fast as vapours, which go off

　　Even with the fumes, their fathers. He is one,

　　Whose sober morning actions

　　Shame not his o'ernight's promises;

　　Talks little, flatters less, and makes no promises;

　　Why this is he, whom the dark-wisdom'd fate

　　Might trust her counsels of predestination with,

　　And the world be no loser.

　　Why should I fear this man?

　　(Seeing Lovel.)

　　Where is the company gone?

　　LOVEL To see the fire-works, where you will be expected to follow. But I perceive you are better engaged.

　　JOHN

　　I have been meditating this half-hour

　　On all the properties of a brave friendship,

　　The mysteries that are in it, the noble uses,

　　Its limits withal, and its nice boundaries.

　　Exempli gratia, how far a man

　　May lawfully forswear himself for his friend;

　　What quantity of lies, some of them brave ones,

　　He may lawfully incur in a friend's behalf;

　　What oaths, blood-crimes, hereditary quarrels,

　　Night brawls, fierce words, and duels in the morning,

　　He need not stick at, to maintain his friend's honor, or his cause.

　　LOVEL

　　I think many men would die for their friends.

　　JOHN

　　Death! why 'tis nothing. We go to it for sport,

　　To gain a name, or purse, or please a sullen humour,

　　When one has worn his fortune's livery threadbare,

　　Or his spleen'd mistress frowns. Husbands will venture on it,

　　To cure the hot fits and cold shakings of jealousy.

　　A friend, sir, must do more.

　　LOVEL

　　Can he do more than die?

　　JOHN

　　To serve a friend this he may do. Pray mark me.

　　Having a law within (great spirits feel one)

　　He cannot, ought not to be bound by any

　　Positive laws or ord'nances extern,

　　But may reject all these: by the law of friendship

　　He may do so much, be they, indifferently,

　　Penn'd statutes, or the land's unwritten usages,

　　As public fame, civil compliances,

　　Misnamed honor, trust in matter of secrets,

　　All vows and promises, the feeble mind's religion,

　　(Binding our morning knowledge to approve

　　What last night's ignorance spake);

　　The ties of blood withal, and prejudice of kin.

　　Sir, these weak terrors

　　Must never shake me. I know what belongs

　　To a worthy friendship. Come, you shall have my confidence.

　　LOVEL

　　I hope you think me worthy.

　　JOHN

　　You will smile to hear now—

　　Sir Walter never has been out of the island.

　　LOVEL

　　You amaze me.

　　JOHN

　　That same report of his escape to France

　　Was a fine tale, forg'd by myself—Ha! ha!

　　I knew it would stagger him.

　　LOVEL

　　Pray, give me leave.

　　Where has he dwelt, how liv'd, how lain conceal'd?

　　Sure I may ask so much.

　　JOHN

　　From place to place, dwelling in no place long,

　　My brother Simon still hath borne him company,

　　('Tis a brave youth, I envy him all his virtues.)

　　Disguis'd in foreign garb, they pass for Frenchmen,

　　Two Protestant exiles from the Limosin

　　Newly arriv'd. Their dwelling's now at Nottingham,

　　Where no soul knows them.

　　LOVEL Can you assign any reason, why a gentleman of Sir Walter's known prudence should expose his person so lightly?

　　JOHN

　　I believe, a certain fondness,

　　A child-like cleaving to the land that gave him birth,

　　Chains him like fate.

　　LOVEL

　　I have known some exiles thus

　　To linger out the term of the law's indulgence,

　　To the hazard of being known.

　　JOHN

　　You may suppose sometimes

　　They use the neighb'ring Sherwood for their sport,

　　Their exercise and freer recreation.—

　　I see you smile. Pray now, be careful.

　　LOVEL

　　I am no babbler, sir; you need not fear me.

　　JOHN

　　But some men have been known to talk in their sleep,

　　And tell fine tales that way.

　　LOVEL

　　I have heard so much. But, to say truth, I mostly sleep alone.

　　JOHN

　　Or drink, sir? do you never drink too freely?

　　Some men will drink, and tell you all their secrets.

　　LOVEL

　　Why do you question me, who know my habits?

　　JOHN

　　I think you are no sot,

　　No tavern-troubler, worshipper of the grape;

　　But all men drink sometimes,

　　And veriest saints at festivals relax,

　　The marriage of a friend, or a wife's birth-day.

　　LOVEL

　　How much, sir, may a man with safety drink? (Smiling.)

　　JOHN

　　Sir, three half pints a day is reasonable;

　　I care not if you never exceed that quantity.

　　LOVEL

　　I shall observe it;

　　On holidays two quarts.

　　JOHN

　　Or stay; you keep no wench?

　　LOVEL

　　Ha!

　　JOHN

　　No painted mistress for your private hours?

　　You keep no whore, sir?

　　LOVEL

　　What does he mean?

　　JOHN

　　Who for a close embrace, a toy of sin,

　　And amorous praising of your worship's breath,

　　In rosy junction of four melting lips,

　　Can kiss out secrets from you?

　　LOVEL

　　How strange this passionate behaviour shews in you!

　　Sure you think me some weak one.

　　JOHN

　　Pray pardon me some fears.

　　You have now the pledge of a dear father's life.

　　I am a son—would fain be thought a loving one;

　　You may allow me some fears: do not despise me,

　　If, in a posture foreign to my spirit,

　　And by our well-knit friendship I conjure you,

　　Touch not Sir Walter's life. (Kneels.)

　　You see these tears. My father's an old man.

　　Pray let him live.

　　LOVEL

　　I must be bold to tell you, these new freedoms

　　Shew most unhandsome in you.

　　JOHN (rising)

　　Ha! do you say so?

　　Sure, you are not grown proud upon my secret!

　　Ah! now I see it plain. He would be babbling.

　　No doubt a garrulous and hard-fac'd traitor—

　　But I'll not give you leave. (Draws.)

　　LOVEL

　　What does this madman mean?

　　JOHN

　　Come, sir; here is no subterfuge.

　　You must kill me, or I kill you.

　　LOVEL (drawing)

　　Then self-defence plead my excuse.

　　Have at you, sir. (They fight.)

　　JOHN

　　Stay, sir.

　　I hope you have made your will.

　　If not, 'tis no great matter.

　　A broken cavalier has seldom much

　　He can bequeath: an old worn peruke,

　　A snuff-box with a picture of Prince Rupert,

　　A rusty sword he'll swear was used at Naseby,

　　Though it ne'er came within ten miles of the place;

　　And, if he's very rich,

　　A cheap edition of the Icon Basilike,

　　Is mostly all the wealth he dies possest of.

　　You say few prayers, I fancy;—

　　So to it again. (They fight again. Lovel is disarmed.)

　　LOVEL

　　You had best now take my life. I guess you mean it.

　　JOHN (musing)

　　No:—Men will say I fear'd him, if I kill'd him.

　　Live still, and be a traitor in thy wish,

　　But never act thy thought, being a coward.

　　That vengeance, which thy soul shall nightly thirst for,

　　And this disgrace I've done you cry aloud for,

　　Still have the will without the power to execute.

　　So now I leave you,

　　Feeling a sweet security. No doubt

　　My secret shall remain a virgin for you!—

　　(Goes out, smiling in scorn.)

　　LOVEL (rising)

　　For once you are mistaken in your man.

　　The deed you wot of shall forthwith be done.

　　A bird let loose, a secret out of hand,

　　Returns not back. Why, then 'tis baby policy

　　To menace him who hath it in his keeping.

　　I will go look for Gray;

　　Then, northward ho! such tricks as we shall play

　　Have not been seen, I think, in merry Sherwood,

　　Since the days of Robin Hood, that archer good. The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 4