No More Learning

LACY Hew him down,
And fling him to the ravens.


MARMADUKE But his aspect
It is so meek, his countenance so venerable.


WALLACE (with an appearance of mistrust)
But how, what say you, Oswald?


LACY (at the same moment)
Stab him, were it
Before the Altar.


MARMADUKE What, if he were sick,
Tottering upon the very verge of life,
And old, and blind--


LACY Blind, say you?


OSWALD (coming forward)
Are we Men,
Or own we baby Spirits? Genuine courage
Is not an accidental quality,
A thing dependent for its casual birth
On opposition and impediment.
Wisdom, if Justice speak the word, beats down
The giant's strength; and, at the voice of Justice,
Spares not the worm. The giant and the worm--
She weighs them in one scale. The wiles of woman,
And craft of age, seducing reason, first
Made weakness a protection, and obscured
The moral shapes of things. His tender cries
And helpless innocence--do they protect
The infant lamb? and shall the infirmities,
Which have enabled this enormous Culprit
To perpetrate his crimes, serve as a Sanctuary
To cover him from punishment? Shame! --Justice,
Admitting no resistance, bends alike
The feeble and the strong. She needs not here
Her bonds and chains, which make the mighty feeble.
--We recognise in this old Man a victim
Prepared already for the sacrifice.


LACY By heaven, his words are reason!


OSWALD Yes, my Friends,
His countenance is meek and venerable;
And, by the Mass, to see him at his prayers! --
I am of flesh and blood, and may I perish
When my heart does not ache to think of it! --
Poor Victim! not a virtue under heaven
But what was made an engine to ensnare thee;
But yet I trust, Idonea, thou art safe.


LACY Idonea!


WALLACE How! What? your Idonea?
[To MARMADUKE. ]


MARMADUKE _Mine;_
But now no longer mine. You know Lord Clifford;
He is the Man to whom the Maiden--pure
As beautiful, and gentle and benign,
And in her ample heart loving even me--
Was to be yielded up.


LACY Now, by the head
Of my own child, this Man must die; my hand,
A worthier wanting, shall itself entwine
In his grey hairs! --


MARMADUKE (to LACY)
I love the Father in thee.
You know me, Friends; I have a heart to feel,
And I have felt, more than perhaps becomes me
Or duty sanctions.