The Life of Sir John Oldcastle [31]
I think no less: are they suspected, trow ye,
For doing of this murder?
LORD POWIS.
What is means
I cannot tell, but we shall know anon.
Mean space as you pass by them, ask the question,
But do it secretly, you be not seen,
And make some sign that I may know your mind.
LADY POWIS.
My Lord Cobham? madam?
[As she passeth over the stage by them.]
COBHAM.
No Cobham now, nor madam, as you love us,
But John of Lancashire, and Ione his wife.
LADY POWIS.
Oh tell, what is it that our love can do,
To pleasure you? for we are bound to you.
COBHAM.
Nothing but this, that you conceal our names;
So, gentle lady, pass for being spied.
LADY POWIS.
My heart I leave, to bear part of your grief.
[Exit.]
JUDGE.
Call the prisoners to the bar. Sir Richard Lee,
What evidence can you bring against these people,
To prove them guilty of the murder done?
LEE.
This bloody towel and these naked knives,
Beside we found them sitting by the place,
Where the dead body lay, within a bush.
JUDGE.
What answer you why law should not proceed,
According to the evidence given in,
To tax ye with the penalty of death?
COBHAM.
That we are free from murder's very thoughts,
And know not how the gentleman was slain.
FIRST JUSTICE.
How came this linen cloth so bloody then?
LADY COBHAM.
My husband hot with travelling, my lord,
His nose gushed out a bleeding, that was it.
SECOND JUSTICE.
But wherefore were your sharp edged knives
unsheathed?
LADY COBHAM.
To cut such simple victual as we had.
JUDGE.
Say we admit this answer to those articles,
What made ye in so private a dark nook,
So far remote from any common path,
As was the thick where the dead corpse was thrown?
COBHAM.
Journeying, my lord, from London from the term,
Down into Lancashire where we do dwell,
And what with age and travel being faint,
We gladly sought a place where we might rest,
Free from resort of other passengers,
And so we strayed into that secret corner.
JUDGE.
These are but ambages to drive of time,
And linger Justice from her purposed end.
But who are these?
[Enter the Constable, bringing in the Irishman, sir
John of Wrotham, and Doll.]
CONSTABLE.
Stay Judgement, and release those innocents,
For here is he, whose hand hath done the deed,
For which they stand indicted at the bar,--
This savage villain, this rude Irish slave.
His tongue already hath confessed the fact,
And here is witness to confirm as much.
SIR JOHN.
Yes, my good Lords, no sooner had he slain
His loving master for the wealth he had,
But I upon the instant met with him,
And what he purchased with the loss of blood:
With strokes I presently bereaved him of;
Some of the which is spent, the rest remaining
I willingly surrender to the hands
Of old sir Richard Lee, as being his.
Beside, my Lord Judge, I greet your honor
With letters from my Lord of Rochester.
[Delivers a letter.]
LEE.
Is this the wolf whose thirsty throat did drink
My dear son's blood? art thou the snake
He cherished, yet with envious piercing sting
Assailed him mortally? foul stigmatic,
Thou venom of the country where thou livedst,
And pestilence of this: were it not that law
Stands ready to revenge thy cruelty,
Traitor to God, thy master, and to me,
These hands should be thy executioner.
JUDGE.
Patience, sir Richard Lee, you shall have justice,
And he the guerdon of his base desert.
The fact is odious; therefore, take him hence,
And being hanged until the wretch be dead,
His body after shall be handed in chains
Near to the place where he did act the murder.
IRISHMAN.
Prethee, Lord shudge, let me have mine own
clothes, my strouces there, and let me be hanged
in a with after my cuntry--the Irish--fashion.
[Exit.]
JUDGE.
Go to; away with him. And now, sir John,
Although by you this murther came to light,
And therein you have well deserved, yet upright law,
So will not have you be excused and quit,
For you did rob the Irishman, by which
You stand attainted here of felony.
Beside, you have been lewd,