University of Virginia Library

SCENE VI.

—A Street of the City.
Enter Seaton and Carmichael.
It is not my conceit, this stratagem;
Its merit rests with some unknown inventor;
As I was passing down the Market-street,
I overheard a knot of surly townsmen,
Agape and swallowing each the other's breath,
Their faces stormy-sour with discontent,
Mutt'ring new-hatch'd and close conspiracy.
One clench'd his fist, and swore a vulgar oath,
(I knew him to be blacksmith by his face,
Dimm'd with the honest smoke of his profession)
That, give him two score fellows like himself,
Arm'd but with thumping hammers and with tongs,
Some sunny morn he should go crawling through
Lord Card'nal's gates, and cause fly down to splints
His chamber-doors before the pith of iron;
Then he should creep near to my Lord's bedside,
And say as Ehud to fat Moab's king,
I have a message unto thee from God:
And I should then like Jael, Heber's wife,
Take up, quo' he, my hammer in my hand,
And smite him in the temples till he die.
So should I punish him who slays God's saints!

CARMICHAEL.
Thank you, friend Seaton, for the blacksmith's speech,
Myself I may advantage of it soon.—
Farewell, I'll see you by to-morrow morn.

[Exeunt severally.