JOHN. I believe, a certain fondness, JOHN. 11 Or drink, sir? do you never drink too freely? LOVEL Why do you question me, who know my habits? I think you are no sot, JOHN. No tavern-troubler, worshipper of the grape; And veriest saints at festivals relax, The marriage of a friend, or a wife's birth-day. LOVEL How much, sir, may a man with safety drink? JOHN. Sir, three half-pints a day is reasonable; I shall observe it; LOVEL JOHN. Or stay; you keep no wench? Ha! LOVEL. JOHN. A child-like cleaving to the land that gave him birth, You see these tears. My father's an old man. Come, sir, here is no subterfuge. But some men have been known to talk in their sleep, You must kill me, or I kill you. And tell fine tales that way. LOVEL I have heard so much. But, to say truth, I mostly lave at you, sir. sleep alone. LOVEL (drawing). [Drains. No:-Men will say I fear'd him, if I kill'd him. Feeling a sweet security. No doubt My secret shall remain a virgin for you!— For once you are mistaken in your man. Then, northward ho! such tricks as we shall play ACT IV. SCENE I. An Apartment in Woodvil Hall. JOHN WOODVIL (alone). A weight of wine lies heavy on my head, Preacheth of temperance, no sermon better. Some men are full of choler, when they are drunk; SCENE II. The Forest. SIR WALTER, SIMON, LOVEL, GRAY. LOVEL 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 betray'd us, father. LOVEL. Come, Sir, you had best surrender fairly. We know you, Sir. Father, why do you cover your face with your hands? Why do you fetch your breath so hard? See. I 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! There lies the parent stock which gave us life, Sir, we are sorry we cannot return your French Grief and a true remorse abide with thee. salutation. [Bears in the body Well, he is dead! And what should Margaret do in the forest? O Woodvil, man enfeoffed to despair!' Take thy farewell of peace. O never look again to see good days, No tongue must speak to him, no tongue of man SCENE IV. SANDFORD, MARGARET (as from a journey). SANDFORD. The violence of the sudden mischance hath so wrought in him, who by nature is allied to nothing less than a self-debasing humor of dejection, that I have never seen anything more changed and spiritbroken. He hath, with a peremptory resolution, dismissed the partners of his riots and late hours, denied his house and person to their most earnest solicitings, and will be seen by none. He keeps ever alone, and his grief (which is solitary) does not so much seem to possess and govern in him, as it is by him, with a wilfulness of most manifest affection, entertained and cherished. MARGARET. How bears he up against the common rumor? SANDFORD. With a strange indifference, which whosoever dives not into the niceness of his sorrow might mistake for MARGARET. I knew a greatness ever to be resident in him, to which the admiring eyes of men should look up even in the declining and bankrupt state of his pride. Fain would I see him, fain talk with him; but that a sense of respect, which is violated, when without deliberation we press into the society of the unhappy, checks and holds me back. How, think you, he would bear my presence? SANDFORD. As of an assured friend, whom in the forgetfulness of his fortunes he passed by. See him you must; but not to-night. The newness of the sight shall move the bitterest compunction and the truest remorse; but afterwards, trust me, dear lady, the happiest effects of a returning peace, and a gracious comfort, to him, to you, and all of us. MARGARET. I think he would not deny me. He hath ere this received farewell letters from his brother, who hath taken a resolution to estrange himself, for a time, from country, friends, and kindred, and to seek occupation for his sad thoughts in travelling in foreign places, where sights remote and extern to himself may draw from him kindly and not painful ruminations. SANDFORD. I was present at the receipt of the letter. The contents seemed to affect him, for a moment, with a more lively passion of grief than he has at any time outwardly shown. He wept with many tears (which I had not before noted in him), and appeared to be touched with a sense of some unkindness; but the cause of their sad separation and divorce quickly recurring, he presently returned to his former inwardness of suffering. MARGARET. The reproach of his brother's presence at this hour should have been a weight more than could be sustained by his already oppressed and sinking spiritMeditating upon these intricate and wide-spread sorrows, hath brought a heaviness upon me, as of sleep. How goes the night? [Handling his mourning. pride for ever clipt; and yet a virtuous predominance And comely do these mourning garments show! of filial grief is so ever uppermost, that you may dis- Sure Grief hath set his sacred impress here, cover his thoughts less troubled with conjecturing To claim the world's respect! they note so feelingly what living opinions will say, and judge of his deeds, By outward types the serious man within.than absorbed and buried with the dead, whom his Alas! what part or portion can I claim In all the decencies of virtuous sorrow, indiscretion made so. obdurate and insensate. Yet are the wings of his How beautiful, 399 These your submissions to my low estate, Which other mourners use? as, namely, This black attire, abstraction from society, Good thoughts, and frequent sighs, and seldom smiles, Write bitter things 'gainst my unworthiness. A cleaving sadness native to the brow, All sweet condolements of like-grieved friends, (That steal away the sense of loss almost), Men's pity, and good offices Which enemies themselves do for us then, As we put off our high thoughts and proud looks. And pointing to the pictures where they hung, (As Hugh de Widville, Walter, first of the name, And Anne the handsome, Stephen, and famous John: Telling me I must be his famous John). But that was in old times. Now, no more Must I grow proud upon our house's pride. MARGARET enters. JOHN. Comes Margaret here to witness my disgrace? And diminution of my honor's brightness. MARGARET. Old times should never be forgotten, John. I came to talk about them with my friend. JOHN. I did refuse you, Margaret, in my pride. MARGARET. If John rejected Margaret in his pride, (As who does not, being splenetic, refuse Sometimes old playfellows), the spleen being gone, The less offence with image of the greater, The offence no longer lives. O Woodvil, those were happy days, When we two first began to love. When first, Under pretence of visiting my father, (Being then a stripling, nigh upon my age), You came a wooing to his daughter, John. Do you remember, Thereby to work the soul's humility, (Which end hath happily not been frustrate quite), To give you in your stead a better self! Such as you were, when these eyes first beheld And all my maidens gave my heart for lost. Seven years I had wasted in the bosom of France: Did John salute his love, being newly seen. And praised it in a youth. JOHN. MARGARET. Wilt go to church, John? JOHN. I have been there already. MARGARET. How canst say thou hast been there already? The bells are only now ringing for morning service, and hast thou been at church already? JOHN. I left my bed betimes, I could not sleep, From my chamber-window, where I can see the sun rise; And the first object I discern'd Was the glistering spire of St. Mary Ottery. Well, John. MARGARET. JOHN. Then I remember'd 't was the sabbath-day. And I began to pray, and found I could pray; 64 tection, Or was about to act unlawful business At that dead time of dawn, I flew to the church, and found the doors wide open, (Whether by negligence I knew not, Or some peculiar grace to me vouchsafed, Yes. MARGARET. JOHN. So entering in, not without fear, And covering up my eyes for shame, A docile infant by Sir Walter's side; Now Margaret weeps herself. [A noise of bells heard. And, thinking so, I wept a second flood |