University of Virginia Library

ACT I.

Scene I.

—The New Forest: by a charcoal-fire. Beowulf and Wilfrith. Leofric in the distance.
Beowulf.
They turn our bread-lands to a pleasant ground.
Nature will never bear it: the fierce earth
Will rend the foreign, sacrilegious hands
As a great mastiff, humble to his lord,
Is fatal to the fondling wayfarer.
Where now I sit there was a sound of bells,
The sight of curling smoke from cotters' roofs;
I feel the undergrowth above my chin
Where there was browsing common. All the wood
Is savage, rank, o'ergrown, pestiferous,
Depopulate of man, and teeming with
The rampant, wild, unprofitable beasts
That forage on him. Ah, there is a sound,
A merry, merry horn, a laughing cry;
Let's wait.

Wilfrith.
Grandfather, you should trust in God.

Beowulf.
It's the earth I'm trusting to, I've planted it;
It feels the tie of blood down to the pith;
It will not fail.

Wilfrith.
But Bishop Wulstan says
That we should love our neighbours.

Beowulf.
So I do;
I love them so, I'd sniff about their graves
If they were here. How can we love the dead
That drop forgotten, and just rot in soul
And body, cut away from burial
And peace-endowing prayer? We must avenge.

Wilfrith.
We are so helpless.

Beowulf.
You have eyes and youth.
Age in despair is weaker than a child;
Its weather-beaten hope is mightier
Than any fitful ferment of the blood.
From the first moment of the rimless dark
In which I wake, slumber, and feel the sun,
A hope struck root, I felt it in the soil
Of my blocked brain, where thought went burrowing—
A tedious mole—and sense writhed underground.
The fibres of this hope took hold of me,
Pierced, ramified my subterranean life;
Now it has heaved out to the upper light
And spreads I know not whither.—I am blind.

Wilfrith
[aside].
He frightens me: it's like one in the grave
Who can lie quiet till the judgment-day,
Brooding his wrongs. [Aloud.]
But must we not forgive?
The Conqueror
Left our king Harold's body on the beach
In his great battle-fury. Afterward
He buried it at Waltham, penitent.

Beowulf.
We must submit, be penitent, forgive!—
But that's to change your mind; I never thought
That God changed His.—I thought within myself
The seasons were not surer than the Lord,
You might depend on Him. It's altered now;
He's God of Battle Abbey; ... on the beach
He let them huddle up King Harold's bones,
He's strewn our prayers as ashes to the wind,
Suffered such resurrection of men's bones
As modest Death cries shame of.—He repents,
His past is not prophetic of to-day;
But at the breaking-places of the wave
All keepeth constant to its habitude;
There is no change of custom in the air;
Yon oak drops acorns; I am comforted.
The earth is English still; the soil gives suck;
It will not rear strange children.
What's that noise?
I hear a whistling and the splint of wood.
Art sharpening arrows?

Leofric.
Why, they have an aim.
I'm carving, grand-dad, could you only see;—
Here is that leering abbess to the life.
Oh, I'll shoot from the gargoyles and not miss.
I'm moulding such a lot of funny curves
About the mouth—not wrinkles—it's more soft. ...
The change is gradual as youth to age.
Look, Wilfrith! ... here's a soul forgets itself,
Popping an eager face from out the cowl,
A blaze of curiosity. Can guess?

Wilfrith.
Not Uncle Godric. It's the curious dean
That frighted Twynham's canons ere his rule,
And longed to build. Why should you mimic him?
He gave you learning.

Leofric.
Bless your mother-wit!
Mock him, you numbskull! 'Tis the very life.
It's clear that he got thwarted yesterday
By the drawn brows: clear too he'll overcome,
By this huge, dominant, aggressive chin.
I've caught the very moulding of his smile;
Smiles have so many shapes.

Beowulf.
Where's Harold, lads?

Leofric
[aside].
Ah me, it's bitter seeing with the voice.
The half-blank, blundering visage overgrown
With sorrow, all the faculties shrunk down
To pollard, and a fevered ignorance
Writhing the sightless gaze. If I might notch
Those wrinkles—

[Carves.
Wilfrith
[to Beowulf].
Harold will be here anon,
Dear grandfather. [To Leofric.]
You have no shame at all
To hew a blind man's face from out that block.—
[Enter Harold, followed by Purkis.]
He's here, and looking sullen. Who's behind?
Why, father!

Purkis.
By your looks you have not seen
What's lying underneath the splintered fir.
Now, grand-dad, clap a great fist to your ear
And take the news. ... A Norman 's dead,
I found him lying stiff down in the glade;
And it's a prince, his cloak all broidered o'er
Thick as the May-buds, and that blasted red
Streaking his golden hair.

Leofric.
Where does he lie?

Purkis.
Up higher half a mile. Don't start, ye fools;
No meddling with him. One might feel him o'er
As if he were a dog; when we are dead
We are all peasants, churl and prince alike,
Except they carry us to Winchester.
And yet I dare not touch him for my eyes.
[Old dad, they gouged yours out; I had to keep
You grumbling through a night of twenty year.]
We must not smell about a fallen stag;
Just let him wither like an autumn leaf.
I think he died by nature, sort of struck.
[To Beowulf.]
Ay, chuckle, grand-dad, there's an eye in Heaven
Peering at loophole, though our chinks be bunged.
[To himself.]
He finds a sort of comfort in it like,
To feel there's some one scanning; for my part
This staring at misfortune in the way
It pleases Providence to practise,—well,
It's like the cattle; they'll stare by the hour—
They never move: the watching simply galls,
If there's no heave of rescue in the eye.
But all the same I'm pleased this happens pat
To cheer the old man up. [Aloud.]
A pretty lad,
We think it's young Prince Richard.

Harold.
Half a child,
And, curse him, such an innocent young face,—
Out ravaging; he could not understand.

Wilfrith.
Should we not bury him?

Beowulf.
Are there no beasts
To feed on him, no rain, nor loosening wind
To help him to mortality? Forbear!
We may not touch the quarry.

Leofric.
I must go
See him myself.

Purkis.
You have a cunning eye
That copies like smooth water; go your ways,
It's early yet; but come back stealthily.
[Exit Leofric.
[To Harold.]
Harold, you're in the sulks.

Harold.
He looked so helpless and so innocent
I could not hate him. Could we rise in hordes
And storm their castles; but to cut one off—

Beowulf.
Is it the work of any native hand?

Harold.
No; there are hundreds who would gladly do 't
For lack of something nobler.

Purkis.
Bide your time.
Come, you are gossiping like wenches; work.
I soon shall have to keep you, dad, and all.
Three sturdy lads, these faggots still to stack,
And that old waster trunk to hew away.
Come, Harold! I find Wilfrith on his knees,
Praying our Lady with his tools before;
And Leofric gets out a curious knife
And peels the bark;—not one can deal a blow.

Harold.
Firewood to warm mere slaves, to be put out
At curfew-bidding. Oh the weariness!
There is no choice 'twixt murder and the tools;
No soldier's part, no fearless happy death,
No hope of honourable home and love.
I have seen trees cut down for building ships,
The bonnie waving branches overhead
Straightened to twigless timber. Father, if
I could so perish for the land's defence,
All wantonness of youth I'd put away,
All sap of pleasure, all sky-peering pride,
To be a seasoned keel, an implement,
A common plank for Freedom's foot to tread;
I will not see my manhood's goodly powers
Rated with monkish imbecility.
Wilfrith may saw the wood and say his prayers,
I'll do some mischief, and so earn my death.

[Exit.
Purkis
[looking after him].
The devil, ah!
Ne'er misdirected to a gallows. If
The boy will turn from wholesome work and prayer
And live on curses, I shall find him caught
Like Absalom up yonder in the bough.
My son, my son!—I laugh when my heart aches;
Like stretching out a weary stiffened leg,
The change of posture brings a little ease.

Wilfrith.
Father, hear!
Let me set out for Twynham, tell the tale
Of the young prince's death; these holy men
Will bring a litter, bear the corpse away,
And no suspicion.

Purkis.
Make an end of it,
A decent end; I do not grudge the child
Some pretty burial chaunting and a mass.
Keep God in thought; He's haply hereabout.
Grand-dad, I'll leave you by the charcoal-fire
To watch; there's nothing else that you can do.

Beowulf.
Nothing at all; I'm best here by the fire
Hid in the turf, the oven where the wood
Is packed, and all is changed by patience.
There's nothing else to do.

Purkis
[looking back at his father].
Sometimes he'll sit
Seven days and nights in the thick oozing smoke,
Noiseless as clay, and on his countenance
A fiery revolution. Nothing comes
Peaceful across; his passions harry him,
And from their ravaged homestead in his eyes
Flee to make murderous havoc on the brow.
He'll not recover; like the Yorkshire wolds
He's scarred effectually,—no hope of corn
On the once pleasant uplands of his face.
All's bleak and desert. ... Poor old rambling dad,
They think he is a prophet!

[Exit.

Scene II.

—Twynham. The Priory Court. Enter Godric, Canons, and Wilfrith.
Godric.
Alas, Prince Richard lies beneath the trees,
His May o'erlaid with death's untimely snow.
Much will Duke Robert mourn his lusty son,—
The second Richard whom the hunt hath slain.
So learn we how sin works the vengeance
That's properly its curse. A father spread
A net of tangled boughs to hold the deer
He loved as they were children of his bone;
Therein his royal issue is entoiled,
Slain with the arbalest. Woe dogs the pride
That took the people's earth in lust of sport,
And banished God from the deep forest-glades.

1st Canon.
An awful deed to burn each holy church!

2nd Canon.
But shall this child receive no sepulchre
Because his fathers sinned?

Godric
[to Canons].
Go, get a bier,
And Wilfrith shall be guide to where he lies.
He took not up with conscious blasphemy
His race's wickedness. To Winchester
He shall be gently borne. [Exeunt Canons.]
Wilfrith, your heart
Hath some petition. Speak it openly.

Wilfrith.
I found you fishing in the shallow streams
That spread a purity about these meads,
And glass the sky which you have vowed to serve.
Your lips were moving happily: methought
You lay in shelter of a lovely peace
I sigh to enter. Here the weight of life
Is taken from the shoulders of the world.—
Oh, might I join your dedicated band,
And share their simple days 'mid lowly scenes
Beyond the forest's hateful witchery.

Godric.
My son, your heart hath heard the heavenly call;
Be patient. You are bidden and will come
Soon as the time is ripe.

Wilfrith.
I'd live and die
At this sweet place, in your sweet company.

Godric.
In God's good time! [Re-enter Canons.]
There come the brothers back.

1st Canon.
All is prepared.

Godric
[to Canons].
Go, four of you, to lift
With song and supplication the fair prince
To mistimed funeral. My blessing!

Wilfrith.
Give
To me peculiar benison. I go
To living death in yon accursed bounds.

Godric.
Hope and religion purify your heart,
And keep it ready! Benedicite.
[Exeunt.
I'll work that he may join our humble Church.
But who comes here?

[Enter more Canons.]
3rd Canon.
O father! woe is me!
That man of wrath, that spoiler of the Church,
That dark blasphemer with the fiery name,
Flambard, is at our gates.

Godric.
Now Heaven help!
He means the house no good.

[Enter other Canons.]
4th Canon.
Alas, sweet Dean!
He enters with a proud and dancing eye,
That inventories all it looks upon,
And smirches all it sees.

5th Canon.
Each door and chink
Draws his observance, and he marks each man
As he would buy him into slavery.
His mouth commands as doth a trumpet-blare,
By clamour brazen-voiced; his ruddy face
Burns like a beacon prophesying strife;
His stubborn form is irresistible;
The weak air flies before it. ...

4th Canon.
A low churl,
A hag-begotten priest.

5th Canon.
We'll never bow
And cringe beneath his trampling insolence.

4th Canon.
Never!

Godric.
God give me strength and soldiership!

4th Canon.
Listen! His voice along the corridor
Crashes the covered silence.

Flambard
[within].
Where's this dean,
This Godric?

[Enters with other Canons.]
Godric.
Here.

Flambard.
I come to claim my own.

Godric.
Then no man who is just may hinder you.

Flambard.
Sense in a churchman! Wonderful! The king
Hath granted me the church and convent.

5th Canon.
Lord!

Flambard.
Ay, so I am thy lord, thou tonsured fool.
The church is mine; the priory too is mine,
And mine, ye shivering souls, the revenue.
'Tis all at my disposal, and I will
To build me a new church of richer stones,
And ampler stretch from sacred East to West,
With higher roof and more exalted tow'r.

Godric.
I'll tell you of the building of this church.—
In ancient days upon St. Cath'rine's hill
The workmen laid foundations; every night
Beneath the moon a thunder moved the air;
The stones were scattered, and then lost to sight:
But soon as morning trod with silver feet
Upon the shining pavement of the streams
Meadowy Stour and Avon, on a strip
Of land, a cape of river-lavèd earth,
The builders found their blocks. So every night
The new foundation on the lofty hill
Was carried by still influence away
To the low bed of waters. The command,
Thus clearly issued, was at last obeyed;
The builders plied their craft; but every day
A Stranger came and bore the heavy hours.
He never broke the necessary crust,
Nor stayed for payment when the sun went down,
And on the day of consecration none
Could see Him near nor far.—They named the church
Christ Church. ... You'd give His finished work to men,
Throw down the walls He spent Himself to build,
Whose corner stones He laid?

Flambard.
Our modern tastes
Judge such a hole unworthy as the home
Of the angelic King.

Godric.
Ye judge for Him
Who gave His judgment—fools!

Flambard.
Chain up thy tongue,
Old man; its surly bark
Must back to kennel.

Godric.
The unhallowed witch
Who bore thee to the devil, trained thy tongue
Thus to detraction and malignity.

Flambard.
Beware, vile Saxon! If I catch that laugh
Sneaking about the corners of your face,
I'll fire it like a fox from every hole
Of eye and mouth. Sir Dean, you shall not eat
My bread till you are humbler.

Godric.
Never fear!
Your meat I will not taste.

1st Canon.
Alas, he raves;
We cannot face the desert.

2nd Canon.
We must yield
With sad submission.

Flambard.
Will ye?

All.
Yes, alas!

Flambard.
Then certain moneys shall ye put apart
To keep you, and all fasts shall be observed.
The rest of your good treasure I shall hold
For sake of the new church that I shall build
To cover you with beauty. Well, Sir Dean,
Will you not rule the dinner I provide
For modest stomachs?

Godric.
No, I'll never touch
Hell-offered bounty: rather will I go
To yon wide shades, where corn and apple-tree
Are exiles, and the beasts have treasured limbs
'Tis death to roast.

Flambard.
The king would blast your sight
For such a speech! You, canons, I forbid
To seek to turn him from his foolishness.
My wrath will burst its sides if longer kept
In fume. We'll drink. Draw forth your choicest wines
And parchments of the priory, the key
Of every store and coffer. While I feed
I'll cast the sums up. Then I'll say adieu,
And pass the gates, and shut them, dean, on you.

[Exeunt.

Scene III.

—Malwood Lodge, in the New Forest. Enter Walter Tirel, William of Breteuil, and Robert Fitzhamon.
Tirel.
'Tis strange he loves the forest with a lust
The green leaves wake to madness; yet its shade
Hath been a brother's hearse, a nephew's doom:
Fate spins beneath its beeches.

Breteuil.
True, the king
Pants with ungoverned joy within its ways.
He loves to scent the honeyed, sylvan air,
To break the greenwood holly with a cry
That peals above the comely-headed trees,
And pierces the remote and quiet deer
Before the dart is through them.

Fitz-hamon.
'Tis a weald
For royal pleasure.

Tirel.
Doubtless; yet methinks
About the silver trunks and mossied paths
There is a noiseless awe, an influence
That passes to the heart and sits within
Unasked, unwelcome, irremovable.

Fitz-hamon.
Our Tirel is besprited in the glades.
'Tis said they swarm with magic shapes and sounds
That make the Saxon chatter with dismay
And superstition.

Tirel.
Well, our Norman woods
Are sunnier and sparser and more soft
In entertainment to the traveller
Than this gigantic forest. I am strange
To such dense multitude of vaulted boughs
As keep the healthy sun from entering.

Breteuil.
We hunt to-day. To-morrow we take horse
For distant Gloucester where the Council meets.
God grant we get a primate; for the king
Still holds the sainted visitor from Bec,
Sweet-featured Anselm, prisoned in the land,
And will not let him sail.

Tirel.
'Tis strange, most strange;
The king is unmoved in his blasphemy
And pride against the Church, and yet he keeps
Its brightest jewel by him.

Fitz-hamon.
Hark! the horn,
The press of dogs, the steed's uneasy pace,
The burly prickers and the merry knaves!

[They enter singing.]
Song.

[Enter the King with boisterous following.]
Rufus.
Here I breathe free; here am I over-lord
Of man and wold; here the subservient soil
I privilege, or starve to barrenness,
As my caprice resolves. I punish here.
Ha, ha! Here am I absolute. I roar
A lion through the woods, and fugitive
Slinks the unmanèd and offenceless herd;
Or scans me with a trembling constancy,
Too much appalled for flight. My will is law,
Fair Forest-Law,—that is my perfect will.
It dooms the poacher to the swinging bough,
The hound to cringing service, and the deer
To the large liberty of wide confine.
I'm generous here to my brute prisoners,
Yielding them charters with a liberal hand,—
License to lord it on this noble vert
At the king's pleasure—the condition.—Ah!
The Church herself must hold her revenues
As ebbs and flows my treasury's yellow tide.
I am the source of all munificence.
When I confer a primate on my realm
The halo will be beaming on his brow,
And he in saintliness excel as far
As I in sovereign empire.
[The King's horse is led in.
Noble roan!
This master-stirrup, fitted to my foot,
Confirms my pre-appointment to excess
In natural dominion. I am stout
In body and gigantic in desire
Of sport; the meagre meshes of this wood
Chafe me; its dwarfish pleasures mock my pride.
I will afforest more; there shall be dark
Through flawless umbrage of serene arcades
From dawn to sunset, ere my hunter's lust
Confess satiety. Mount, gentlemen!

[Exeunt.

Scene IV.

—The Forest. Leofric carving a piece of wood. Wilfrith digging.
Leofric.
A horn!
Methinks the forest hath another use
These precious hours of morning, when the world
Is at some process of its perfecting
'Twere well to learn the trick of. Wilfrith toils,
Tearing yon fibre from the ground a-sweat
With effort; while for me!—my eyes are full;
I have no want; the world is excellent;
There is no prickle in the holly wrong.
How bossily it clusters! Fool to try
Reckon its notches;—a few sturdy twists
With strength of mid-rib chronicles the type—
The burly spread of the wall-building tree,
Its bristling leaves compact, well to the fore;
Behind, the rampart's azure secrecy.
Well, Wilfrith, are you satisfied?

Wilfrith.
If now
I might go in hot from my work and pray.
O brother, tell my father of my need.
I'm bidden to the cloister. What is wrong
Is in our souls; we suffer for our sins,
And must afflict ourselves.

Leofric.
Oh, do not think
We travel so untreasured in resource
We needs must earn the bread of every joy
By sweat of soul. If life 's a desert—ah!
There's manna in the waste; it lies about,
And the wise idle soul is satisfied.—
What is 't? An adder curled upon the bough?
You stare and shake.

[A spectre passes.
Wilfrith.
Brother, you saw it pass ... ?
A mist with bony outlines ... and an eye
Cross'd by a bloody streak.

Leofric.
Such often glide
About the coloured stems or twist around
The blank tree-shapes of midnight.

Wilfrith.
Oh, we live
Within accursèd bounds; the insolence
Of pleasure hath unsanctified the Church,
Unbuilt the home, ungirdled field from field,
And made this tract an uncouth wilderness
Where demons jeer and sooty spectres hunt
With flamy-visaged hounds. I must escape;
The very air is sinful.

Leofric.
In God's time
I'll range the dirty faces of these ghosts
About His tow'r, that men may see their foes
And know them. So I'll turn to righteousness
What poisons you. There's one that's half a cat,
With human eyes and howling fringe of teeth
About its monstrous yawn; one, rough and plump
As knarl upon an oak, is animate
With jollity; one hangs his fiendish jaw
Demure and lustful; one through chink of lid
Gloats on the holy sky. I've learnt them all,
And men shall see them in eternal stone,
And fear and watch.—Here wend no sprites of Hell,
Our uncle and our father.

[Enter Purkis and Godric.]
Wilfrith.
Grave and slow.

Godric.
My sons, my sons, the very Church herself
Gives but uncertain shelter. I am cast
Forth from my house of Twynham, sent to find
A strange asylum for my agèd grief.

Wilfrith.
Never!

Godric.
Alas! 'tis wicked Flambard's will,
That torch of God that brands on us our sins
With flaming judgment.

Wilfrith.
How my heart is sore!
There was sure healing in the holy place
You kept in righteousness across the bounds
Of this sin-blighted purlieu.

Godric.
Comfort lies
A placid child on every sorrow's breast;
It wakes to laugh us into hope again.
All will be well with me. I have no fear.
The homeless in their land are ever watched
By ministers of Grace. Take heart, my son.
At my entreaty, as my parting charge,
The new dean will receive you to the peace
And blessedness of holy brotherhood.

Purkis.
Ay, Wilfrith, never quake and hang your head.
For shame! Become the monk, lad, like a man.

Wilfrith.
I am unworthy. ...

Purkis.
Pooh, it was thy wish.
There's no brave muscle in that puny thought
That makes a man unworthy of his aim.

Wilfrith.
I cannot speak: good uncle, come to me;—
The ruined chapel—there I will give thanks.

[Exit.
Godric.
They think my church is mean; they have proud souls
That will not stoop in pray'r nor rise in chant
Save under mighty column and jagged arch.

Leofric.
The church to be re-built?

Godric.
And you are named
To work its stones to shape of beast and plant,
To twist the column, to endue the wall
With dragon's flinty scales.

Leofric.
I will transplant
The forest and its phantoms to the church.
I'll make our ivy's locked and solid stems
Grip and o'erspread the pillar.

[Enter Harold and Beowulf from another part of the forest.]
Purkis.
Grand-dad comes,
Half-fog, half-thundercloud his poor blurred face.
Why, Harold, you are hot.

Harold.
There's feast to-day
At Minstead; the good buck that Malf may carve
Once in the year is served. Heav'n choke the churl!

Purkis.
He ever loved good dishes. Have you heard
Flambard is lord of Twynham?

Leofric.
And the church
To be re-built.

Godric.
The canons dispossessed
Of the revenue.

Beowulf.
There they christened me—
In the old church of Twynham. It's washed out.

Harold.
Grandfather, do not mind your christening.
Edwin and Aldric both are dead
For shooting at a stag, like Malf, who now
Is chewing at his savoury haunch unhurt.
I loved them. Oh, the sweet, big, comely boys!
Such giants they were growing.

Godric.
Let us go
And learn if we may bury them.

Purkis.
Kind soul!

[Exeunt Godric, Purkis, and Leofric.
Beowulf.
The air has been a-milking; it smells sweet
As a lass fresh from the udders. The young trees
Shoot up; the king grows over-fond of it,
The fatal mazy place, Prince Richard's grave.
Ay, there's a noise of tears. What, Harold, lad!
[Feeling him.]
His sturdy hair.

Harold.
I'll take to woman's work.
To be a man has no significance.

Beowulf.
Eh! But there's change of weather in your voice.
Who suffers? Are they mutilated?

Harold.
What!
You have been deaf and imbecile? You're dull.
I've heard you eloquent.

Beowulf.
These troubles, lad,
Are over-pressing me; I'm like an old
O'erladen cart that cracks beneath the sheaves.
They put too much upon me. In the wood,
Under the oak-boughs they are hanging them?

Harold.
Oh, you have mighty memories to climb;
Away in the great passes you are safe.
There's no remembrance in my youth's routine,
No sweet denial for fair freedom's sake,
No passion-hoarding for the prodigal
Spendthrift fulfilment of a great desire;
No fine asperities of hope, no thrill,
Awe, and exhilaration of a joy
That toils a-hung'ring towards its blessedness.
You cannot know the pang, the helpless love
For my own England that has cast me off,
That will not have me live or die for her.
What is one's country? The sole woman-child,
Rosy and prattling daughter of a Past
Too winnowed in experience, too grave
For blood's desire to mix with reverence;
While she, in tender prime, no grace of youth
Awanting to her, ravishes the heart,
And teaches wisdom in the ecstasy
Of nuptial consummation. Oh, to breathe
The name that she hath taught with her own lips,
To know it is the Norman's heritage,
To know that she herself will change! Before
She plays the harlot, I will seal my soul
From agony; the beasts in spotted heaps
I'll slay, and cast their corpses o'er the fence
Of Malf, the Saxon guardian of the deer.
I'll rot before his eyes, hung on the oak
That branches toward his door. I'll spoil the edge
Of his slave's appetite. Minstead no more
Shall cook and eat its mess of felon's meat;
There shall be some recoil.

[Breaks through the boughs.
Beowulf.
He'll put it down,
This fattening on the people's provender.
There's nothing done except at cost of life.
My lad ...
His voice rang free, a bird upon the wing,
The lark's victorious pinion in the trill
Of his young note. The linnets on the twig
Jar me with insect twitter. By-and-by
I'll sit beside the gallows; I've the time.

[Exit.

Scene V.

—Gloucester. A Room. Enter Bishops Gundulf, Walkelin, and others; Robert Fitz-hamon, Robert of Meulan, and other Nobles.
Gundulf
[showing a petition].
From holy Anselm comes this blessèd leaf
Of healing and assuagement to the land
Fevered with ulcerous sore. Pray Heav'n this balm
Soften the rancour of the royal heart.

Fitz-hamon.
I fear me it will irritate: the king
Hath heard on th' instant that by traitors' hands
His Ralf is put to sea. The storm on 's face
I fled from: there was lightning in its clouds,
And they were ranked for vengeance.

Walkelin.
He hath heard
Of this petition, and will doubtless sign.
He blesses even now in secrecy
The tranquil abbot hither journeying.
Believe me. ...

[Enter the King.]
Rufus.
Where is Ralf? The rumour goes
He is arrested and borne over sea.
Now listen, gentlemen, by Lucca's face,
I'll throw that torch still hissing from the wave,
A brand shall set your bishoprics in flames.
My churls!—it shall be worse for them; I'll throw
A rope across the land,—whether it yield
Or not, it shall be taxed. I'll make myself
The heir of every benefice,—the monks
Shall starve—the—

Fitz-hamon.
We, my lord, are ignorant
Of any misadventure.

Gundulf.
But, if Heav'n
Deign to chastise a base misgovernor,
Beseech your Majesty in holy fear
Receive the dreadful warning and repent.

Walkelin.
My liege, there is another raging sea
Waits to engulf us all—the people's hate.
This See of Canterbury ...

Rufus.
Ha, ha, ha!
You jest, Sir Bishop. I will walk this sea
In royal progress.

Gundulf.
Stay that reckless tongue,
Ere for its sin a sudden leprosy
Snow-like envelop your affrightèd soul.

Fitz-hamon.
Here comes a messenger!

[Enter a Messenger.]
Rufus.
With dripping clothes.
A mariner. How now!
From the whale's belly hast extracted him,
The mighty woe-pronouncer on you all,
My pious lords?

Messenger.
Sir Ranulf greets his liege,
Bids me report—from great calamity
Being delivered, to the castle gates
He journeys swiftly.

Rufus.
Give him welcome, lords!
Escort him to the presence. Bishops, go!
[Exeunt some of the Bishops and Lords.
Ha, ha! They shall receive their ravisher
As the chief nurse and pastor of the flock.
He's chuckling with them now.

Gundulf
[aside].
Heav'n save the king
From a deservèd chastisement.

Fitz-hamon.
He hath
Some ground for his displeasure.

Rufus
[ascending his throne].
To my throne!
Place for the chancellor beside. Make way.
[Enter Flambard and Bishops.]
What! back again,
My peerless chancellor, my jovial Ralf!
My sometime kitchen-clerk, my jolly priest,
Most scrupulous financier, and lord
Over God's heritage—the virtuous way
Of estimating to an ounce the fleece,
The silky-hided revenues that 'long
To my fierce crosier-bearing royalties.
Art wet, storm-frosted, naked and despoiled?
The murderers! Had they extinguish'd you,
My fire-brand to the foxes, my gay flame,
My t—t—t—or—ch, my—

Flambard.
Stop that stuttering, my liege.
'Twas I outwitted them. To see the fools,
When they had made me captive, fail to fix
How to despatch me;—should they drown or slay?
I recommended that the prisoner
Should, by compression of the thumb to throat,
A bloodless corpse, resign his rich attire
Unsullied to his captures. They laughed,
Fell to the survey, and grew quarrelsome,
While friendly winds rose higher. In the gale
My seamanship [is there, my liege, a craft
Of which I am not master?] awed the men,
Coupled with just a sly, malicious, half-
Retaliating, pious hint of how
They were delivered to my hand, and must
Cry mercy! would I pray them into port.
At landing, I had pow'r to pack them all
In prison for the hangman's courtesies;
But plucked them by the beard and bade them drink
Health to my body and their damning souls.
So blessed them and departed. What's the news?

Rufus.
Why, Ralf, a pray'r, a loyal loving pray'r—
Ha, ha!—that I should strictly give command
The people shall entreat the Lord to change
My heart. ... Sweet Ralf, here is my signature
With laughter's palsy somewhat tremulous.
[Signs the paper.
Conceive it! ho! a thousand muffled mouths
To change this heart and force me cast you off.
I warrant they would sweat at it. Ho, ho!

Flambard.
Good jest, i' faith!

Rufus.
And since ye now have warrant for your knees,
Committing you to fasting's penury,
And much hard labour of the lips, I pray
Begone!
[Waving his hand.
While I await the issues of this war,
This sally, this celestial enterprise.
Like a good tow'r I stand, resistant, firm;
Seek ye to undermine me with your pray'rs,
Who bootless batter my thick-wallèd will.
Ay, but I swear, by my own mother's soul,
Tho' you should summon the great Overlord,
To quadruple your forces in this siege,
You will not ...

Flambard.
Leave them threatless to their pray'rs.
Beseech you give me an hour's audience;
Embrace me as your new-restorèd heir.
Let us make merry.

Rufus
[to Attendants].
Pack the churchmen off!
And you, my lords, the council is at end.
[Exeunt Bishops.
Some two hours later and we meet at hunt.
My Ralf, your king himself shall slay the deer
That with full, feastful Norman courtesy
Confirms your welcome at our board to-night;
The rich and savoury meat of your return.
Meanwhile I feed on gluttonous. [To Lords.]
Retire!
[Exeunt Lords.
What knitting still your handsome brows? Uncrease!
Let us to laughter.

Flambard.
They betake themselves
To pray'rs, the beldam's refuge. Nought to fear;
We may retain the See of Canterb'ry.
I have no further scruple—that is—dread.
We may to work.

Rufus.
My pretty Publican,
Too rigorous in sooth you rate the dues
And issues of this action to enjoy
Its perfect rustic innocence. Conceive
This heart, this prodigal, rapacious heart,
This wine-warmed bosom, this gold-hardened breast,
This bubbling fount of life that feeds and fills
Must be dried up to dribble of the monk!
Let's cut our ruddy curls and grow austere
As pious Lanfranc, for whose soul I pray,
Being so affluent in his revenues.
My rosy Ralf, let us resemble him,
And love these hinds and give them liberties,
And pray that we may think upon the Church,
And lay our jewels 'mid be-sainted bones.
Oh, let us pray that this may come to pass,
And show our humbled faith in miracle.
They have permission; let them pray their best,
While I perform my worst.—What didst thou say
Of this vile Purkis and his more offence
Against our forest-laws and honest Malf,
The guardian of our deer?

Flambard.
He slaughters them.
You know there is a custom that the lord
Of Minstead claims with every summer's sun
A stately buck or doe at Llammas-tide,
Provided only that, if either fall
Within the forest-bound, he leave a haunch
To show the antler'd beast's true overlord.
This Purkis, chafing one of Saxon blood
Should servile eat our royal venison,
Heap'd Minstead-tracks with gory haunch and head,
And, breaking all restraint, defiantly
Dared Malf to meddle with his sport.

Rufus.
A dog
To be unclaw'd! Hot-irons! Torture, man!
Don't trust to the ordeal. God's no judge
Of forest-laws; He never followed deer.
A cord about his throat! Within my bounds,
My b—b—b—ou—nd—s!

Flambard.
My lord, you grow too sudden red.
Chafe not so angrily.—He's in a fit.
[Beckons and whispers to a Servant
Name but a forest-treason to this House
It foams i' the mouth half-lunatic. How now?
A rope shall perch the medd'ling clown tree-high
From further mischief.

Rufus.
It—it drives me mad.
I will have every inch of earth;—the half
My realm in hands of priests, and my fair woods,
My noble deer! ... I will be absolute
While there is any breath
Left in my body: no competitor
Shall rival me. King William shall be sole
Archbishop—Anselm they are praying for—
Cur—cur—se him!—of Canterbury.

Flambard.
Tut, my liege,
We'll bleed you of these humours. You're perverse.
[Enter John de Villula.]
Good my lord bishop, help me raise the king;
He's stiff and speechless.

De Villula.
Short, too, i' the neck!
These sudden cholers ... with profanity. ...
Heav'n looks not kindly on the arrogant.
A little water. Ay, ay! he revives;
The Lord looks on his people. ... This is sent
Doubtless in mercy to admonish him.

[Exeunt, bearing Rufus.