Thomas À Becket A Dramatic Chronicle. In Five Acts |
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| 3. | SCENE III. |
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 | Thomas À Becket |  |
SCENE III.
A Street in Southwark.De Eynsford, John of Oxford, Walter Mapes, De Broke.
De Eynsford.
We are nicely pacified, are we not, now the
king has sent home this belligerent Archbishop with the
kiss of peace,—to pass it round among us?
John of O.
Yes? have you ever heard the story of the
Bear in the Boat? Methought our vessel rehearsed it:
here sat the Primate i' the middle, clad even over the ears
with his shaggy ermine, spreading his loose bulk from gunwale
to gunwale, growling to himself, and snuffing for prey,
whilst all the humanity aboard skulked out of his sight to
the scuttle-holes. I who had been made bear-leader, shrank
into a most distant follower of his movements: now he had
got the ring out of his nose, a squeeze from him was strangulation
and a snap demolition.
Mapes.
He would at least have taken such a mouthful out
of you as the Dragon does out of the full-moon—brought
your plenitude to the wane—reduced your rotundity to the
shape of a sickle!—Why, but now I went to pay him my
humble devoirs, and his complaisance received me with a
smile like a shark's, as if he would gladly have swallowed
me wholesale.
De Broke.
What are offenders so weak as I to look for,
when my lord Primate of York has been suspended, and the
two Bishops excommunicated with many others?
De Eynsford.
Unless their journey to Rouen plead both
their own cause and ours with success, our penitential knees
will have to wear out the Black Mountain in Palestine.
He is vindictive as a bloodhound!
John of O.
Be of good hope: they have the King's whole
heart already, and need only a little of his ear. This late
about as cordial as that between the porcupine and the
serpent: they may both have agreed to live crony-like
together, but irascible readiness to bristle in the one, and
most swelling venom in the other, will soon make them ill
bosom-companions.
Mapes.
Methought that kiss of peace the King gave him
was not quite so warm as he would have given the Lady
Rose. I was just beside his majesty, and he turned him
about after it as if he could have spat it on the floor.
John of O.
Yet he stooped with most gracious condescension
from his horse, to hold the haughty Prelate's stirrup
for him.
De Eynsford.
Yea, that was stooping indeed! not from
his horse alone, but his state of honour. I had rather have
taken hold of Becket's toe, and tumbled him over his palfrey!
Mapes.
Sir Bevis of Southampton on his proud war-horse
Arundel, never looked such a self-promising, prodigious
deed-doer as Becket on his little ambler.
De Broke.
Well, and if so, how much more must it exalt
him in his own conceit, this besotted adulation of him by
the people on his progress to visit the young king? Woodstock
palace will not have a room high enough for his
haughtiness!
De Eynsford.
Hear you how the base-born churls and
citizens applaud him! Howling beasts!
[Shouts within.
Mapes.
Will you go look at them?
De Eynsford.
Who, I? rather at the infidel dogs fawning
and yelping hymns before Mahound!
[Exit.
John of O.
It behoves me to have an eye on the prelate.
Mapes.
And me to have both mine on the people, for it
is the more curious nondescript of the two.
[Exit with John of Oxford.
De Broke.
If I can only keep my spoils from his See by it,
I'll consent to be the last bob of the many-headed monster's
tail! Let me join.
[Exit.
| Thomas À Becket | |