University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

Robert's Tent.
Robert and Arthur.
Robt.
Ay, when he's dead I will be calm.
Enter Olave and Cornelius.
Where's Ethel?

Ol.
He takes it coldly.

Robt.
By my father's blood,
Thou liest, man!

[Olave makes a show of anger, half drawing his sword.
Cor.
Have patience! he is mad.

Robt.
Saddle my horse! Plague take these loiterers!
Who rides with me? Death! I'll endure no more
These slow delays; each moment that goes by
Puts daggers in my breast. Arthur, go with me;
Upon our foaming blood-embathed steeds
Up to his throne we'll ride, through all his rout
Of scattered courtiers. Come down, thou King!
I think I see his face upon the floor
Crying for mercy. Mercy!—Ha! ha! ha!—
What is it, gentlemen? Saw you never yet
A man made infamous? Well, well! I look
To see my sword peep through his back.

Arth.
For shame!
Forget yourself not out of reason thus.

Robt.
Are you ice-tempered too? I shall go mad!

Arth.
I nurse as fierce a temper as you do;
But such a rash unsteady course will mar
Certainty of completion. My revenge
Shall step as sure as life-blood through my veins,
And to a certainty as dead as death.
We'll run no risks; take all advantages;
Gather our chances with as strict a hand
As sureties; cherish our meanest hopes,
And knit the poorest opportunities
All to one end: so that no loop remain
For failure to slip through.

Robt.
Ay, but be swift;
For time lets in a thousand obstacles
Worse than the worst foreseen.

Arth.
Both swift and sure.

Robt.
Ay, but be swift. For all the air about me
Is heavy with ancestral countenances,
Looking to me for blood with frowning brows;
A thousand whispers of the shame-stirred dead
Cry in my ears, Revenge! Enter Ethel.

Ha! welcome, Ethel!
Ay! such a countenance becomes a man
So wronged as you are. We shall have it now;
A most sufficing vengeance.

Eth.
Oh, not vengeance.

Robt.
Is there another name more terrible?

Eth.
I will not have it so.

Robt.
What, will you not?

Arth.
Listen to me. This is our safest course.
You are the general, Robert, and beloved
Of all your soldiers. Take them over with you—
All the whole army. Who dares stay behind?
Make one with the enemy, on the sole condition
That they march straight unto our common end,
And seize the King; resistance he can make none,
More than a straw against fire. Once in our hands,
But for the time that I can stretch my arm,
Then I'll be swift!

Robt.
And I'll be careful then!
Most wisely planned.

Eth.
Oh, monstrous! what will you do?
Have you forgot all virtue? Will you bring in
Strange conquerors upon your native land,
Let bloody war and ravage feed themselves
Upon the bodies of your countrymen;
And, to avenge a wrong done to yourselves,—
But how much more to mighty throned justice!—
Let in a thousand wrongs as terrible,
And give injustice scope?
Is this a cure? Tears and the sighs of orphans,
The shrieks of women, groans of ruined men,—
Will these heal wrongs, or rather make of you
Ten times the nurses of that wickedness
You thus avenge in others?

Robt.
Now, I swear!
Although the eyes of dead unburied men
Should stare the bright stars out of countenance,
And tears of children be so plentiful
That their warm rain would melt the ponderous ice,
And set the winter-frozen Baltic free;
More women groan their bitter souls away
Than would make populous the empty air
With weeping ghosts; ay, though this native land
Become a dish for horror and despair
To glut themselves to overfulness on,—
I care not, so I drive along with it
Unto my end.

Arth.
Well spoken, brother Robert!

Eth.
I say this shall not be!

Robt.
Thou say'st!—thou! thou!
Art thou the pander to these love-tricks—thou?

Eth.
Peace, you passionate insolent!

Arth.
Robert, be calm.—
Ethel, if you are that tame-spirited thing,
That colder than the lizard, that you feel not
The greatness of your injury, be it so.
We that are not so natured will do that
Which shall suffice for all.

Eth.
I say you shall not!
This wrong is mine a thousand times more deeply
Than it is yours. I do not wink at it,
Nor do I see what other instrument
Can work the great intents of wounded justice
Save this weak spirit of mine; but to that end,
And that I may not stain the holy hand
Of this my mighty mistress, nor let doubt
Check at her just award, I must put off,
Like robes unconsecrated from a priest,
This temper which you nourish. I have controlled it,
And so must you. For this most traitorous plan
You have conceived, think nothing more of it;
I'll fight against it to the death.

Robt.
Fight well, then;
You'll fight alone.

Eth.
Not so. The God of battles
Shall on my side put forth his hand. And fear me.
For I have no compassion in my spirit
For wilful wickedness.

Robt.
Brother, away!
It irks my soul to stand here chaffering
With this dull metal. What, Ethel, whom we thought
Honourable! oh, how much past our apeing!

Arth.
Go with us.

Ol.
Not I. You'll pardon me.

Robt.
You will not? Ha!
Bring me the man that will not go with me;
I'll trail him after at my horse's heels.

Arth.
Peace! you mar all. Think of it, gentlemen.

[Exeunt Robert and Arthur.
Eth.
How say you, Olave and Cornelius,
Will you too join the Swede?

Cor.
I'll fight with you,
Wherever that may be.

Ol.
I'll not take arms
Against my country with the rascal Swede.
Had I your cause, I might.

Eth.
Are you firm now?

Ol.
Ay, I have chosen. There's nobleness moves in you
That takes me, though I be no match for it.

Eth.
Go to the officers of each regiment;
Tell them the objects of the General,
And say, I, in his traitorous default,
Now claim to lead them. Those that would not be traitors,
Let them look to their soldiers, and stand firm.
Bid them assemble in my tent to-night,—
No, in yours, good Cornelius, let it be.

Ol.
Ay, maybe the officers will stand firm enough;
But what boots that, if the men go? About Ingelwald
They'll flock like hiving bees, and where he bids
Follow like sheep. I will not answer even
For my own men.

Eth.
Go to the officers.
If the men mutiny, I'll speak to them;
And Olave, the new levies that are coming,
Stop them at distance. Send a trusty officer;
Let them not mix at all with the other men.
I nothing fear the victory.
[Exit Olave.
Cornelius,
You have a woman waits upon your wife,
And did once on the Countess Ingelwald;
Send her into my tent. You guess at it.
Be silent, good Cornelius.

[Exeunt.