University of Virginia Library

Scene—The Forest.

SIR WALTER. SIMON. LOVEL. GRAY.
LOVEL.

Sir, we are sorry we cannot return your French salutation.

GRAY.

Nor otherwise consider this garb you trust to than as a poor disguise.

LOVEL.

Nor use much ceremony with a traitor.

GRAY.

Therefore, without much induction of superfluous words, I attach you, Sir Walter Woodvil, of High Treason, in the King's name.

LOVEL.

And of taking part in the great Rebellion against our late lawful Sovereign, Charles the First.

SIMON.

John has betrayed us, father.

LOVEL.

Come, Sir, you had best surrender fairly. We know you, Sir.

SIMON.

Hang ye, villains, ye are two better known than trusted. I have seen those faces before. Are ye not two beggarly retainers, trencher-parasites, to John? I think ye rank above his footmen. A sort of bed and board worms—locusts that infest our house; a leprosy that long has hung upon its walls and princely apartments, reaching to fill all the corners of my brother's once noble heart.

GRAY.

We are his friends.

SIMON.

Fie, Sir, do not weep. How these rogues will triumph! Shall I whip off their heads, father?

(Draws.)
LOVEL.

Come, Sir, though this shew handsome in you, being his son, yet the law must have its course.

SIMON.

And if I tell you the law shall not have its course, cannot ye be content? Courage, father; shall such things as these apprehend a man? Which of ye will venture upon me?—Will you, Mr. Constable self-elect? or you, Sir, with a pimple on your nose, got

at Oxford by hard drinking, your only badge of loyalty?

GRAY.

'Tis a brave youth—I cannot strike at him.

SIMON.

Father, why do you cover your face with your hands? Why do you fetch your breath so hard? See, villains, his heart is burst! O villains, he cannot speak. One of you run for some water: quickly, ye knaves; will ye have your throats cut?

(They both slink off.)

How is it with you, Sir Walter? Look up, Sir, the villains are gone. He hears me not, and this deep disgrace of treachery in his son hath touched him even to the death. O most distuned, and distempered world, where sons talk their aged fathers into their graves! Garrulous and diseased world, and still empty, rotten and hollow talking world, where good men decay, states turn round in an endless mutability, and still for the worse, nothing is at a stay, nothing abides but vanity, chaotic vanity.—Brother, adieu!

(Bears in the body.)