And have ensconc'd themselves upon Mile-end, In honour of your valour and your skill, Must lead the vaward. God and right stand with ye! Shore. Friend, tell my lord I'll wait upon him strait. Jane. Friend, tell my lord he does my husband wrong, To set him foremost in the danger still. Ye shall not go, if I may have my will. Shore. Peace, wife; no more. Friend, I will follow ye. Exit Officer. Jane. I'faith, ye shall not. Prithee, do not go. If thou be kill'd. Let me go with thee, Mat. As you are still companion with the best; With them be merry, and pray for our good speed. Jane. To part from thee, my very heart doth bleed. [Exeunt. SCENE II.—Mile End. Enter Falconbridge with his Troops, marching. Fal. Yet stand we in the sight of uprear'd Troy, And suck the air she draws: our very breath Flies from our nostrils warm unto the walls. We beard her bristling spires, her battled towers, But he that keeps your Sovereign in the Tower What he hath got, he holds by tyranny. Spi. March fair, ye rogues, all kings or capknitters. Dost thou hear, Tom Falconbridge? I prithee grant me one boon I shall ask thee. Fal. What is it, Ned? it's hard I should deny thee. Spi. Why, that when we have won the city, as we cannot choose but win it, that I may have the knighting of all these rogues and rascals. Fal. What then? Spi. What then? Zounds, I scorn your scurvy, wrymouthed "What then?" Now, a pox take me if I fight a blow. Fal. Why this is fine. Go to; knight whom thou wilt. Spi. Who? I knight any of them? I'll see them hanged first for a company of tattered ragged rascals. If I were a king, I would not knight one of them. Chub. What, not me, Cavallero Chub? Spi. Yes, I care not if I knight thee; and yet I'll see thee hanged ere I'll honour thee so much. I care not so much for the matter; but I would not be denied my humour. Fal. Why, what a perverse fellow art thou, Ned! Spi. Ho, my fine Tom, my brave Falconbridge, my mad Greek, my lusty Neville ! thou art a king, a Caesar ! a plague on thee; I love thee not, and yet I'll die with thee. Enter the Lord Mayor, Recorder, Josselin, Shore, and their Soldiers, marching. Mayor. See how rebellion can exalt itself, Pruning the feathers of sick discipline. Rec. They think they can outlook our truer looks. Shore. Mark but the scornful eye of Falconbridge. Mayor. I rather think 'tis fear upon his cheek Deciphers pale disturbance in his heart. Jos. Our coming forth hath—well, I say no more; Spi. How like a troop of rank o'erridden jades Chub. Nay; rather so many men in the moon, And every one a furzen bush in his mouth. Spi. The four and twenty wards! now, fair befal them; Would any one have thought before this hour, Fal. Peace, soldiers! they are resolute, you see; How sternly in their own peculiar strength, Did they of late repulse us from their walls! And unexpected, they have met us here! I would not but commend their chivalry. Spi. Captain, shall we go challenge them to fight? 'Sblood! we burn daylight; they will think, anon, We are afraid to see their glittering swords. Chub. Tell them, they come instead of pudding pies Rec. The bastard offers to come forth, my lord. Mayor. Traitor! All. Traitor! zounds, down with him! Fal. Be patient: give me leave, I say, to speak. With those that keep their lawful King in bonds. Until your lofty buildings kiss our feet, Unless you grant me passage through your streets. breasts, If any passage thou art like to have. Fal. Why then upon your bodies will I tread, And wade through standing pools of your lost blood. Shore. We know thy threats, and reckon them as wind, Not of sufficient power to shake a reed. Spi. But we shook your gates not long ago, And made your walls to shake like Irish bogs. Chub. Ay, and so terrified ye, that not one of ye durst come to fetch a pint of sack at the Mouth at Bishopsgate; no, not for your lives. Jos. Ay, but you know what followed, and so forth. Spi. Et cætera! are you there? methinks, the sight of the dun bull, the Neville's honoured crest, should make you leave your broken sentences, and quite forget ever to speak at all. Shore. Nay, then, look thou upon our City's arms, Wherein is a bloody dagger: that is it, Wherewith a rebel like to Falconbridge Had his desert, meet for his treachery. Can you behold that, and not quake for fear? Rec. Since when, it is successively decreed, Traitors with us shall never better speed. Spi. Captain and fellow-soldiers, talk no more, But draw your meaning forth in downright blows. Fal. Sound then alarum. Mayor. Do the like for us, And where the right is, there attend success! Jos. Stay, and be better advis'd. Why, countrymen, What is this Falconbridge you follow so? I could instruct you; but you know my mind. And your pretence King Henry's liberty. True; but as how? Shall I declare you? No. Fal. Away with this parenthesis of words. |