Shame on you!

SAROL. (speaks with affected anger.) What! Glycine? Go, retire!

[Exit GLYCINE mournfully.

Be it then that these men faulted. Yet yourself,

Or better still belike the maidens' parents,

Might have complained to us.

Was ever access

Denied you? Or free audience? Or are we

Weak and unfit to punish our own servants?

BATH. So then! So then! Heaven grant an old man patience!

And must the gard❜ner leave his seedling plants,

Leave his young roses to the rooting swine

While he goes ask their master, if perchance

His leisure serve to scourge them from their ravage? LASK. HO! Take the rude clown from your lady's presence!

I will report her further will!

SAROL.

Wait then,

Till thou hast learnt it! Fervent good old man!

Forgive me that, to try thee, I put on

A face of sterness, alien to my meaning!

[Then speaks to the Servants.

Hence! leave my presence! and you Laska! mark

me!

Those rioters are no longer of my household!

If we but shake a dew-drop from a rose
In vain would we re-place it, and as vainly
Restore the tear of wounded modesty

To a maiden's eye familiarized to licence.

But these men, Laska

LASK. (aside)

Yes now 'tis coming!

SAROL. Brutal aggressors first, then baffled dastards, That they have sought to piece out their revenge With a tale of words lur'd from the lips of anger Stamps them most dangerous; and till I want Fit means for wicked ends, we shall not need Their services. Discharge them! You, Bathory! Are henceforth of my household! I shall place you Near my own person! When your son returns Present him to us!

BATHO. Ha! what strangers* here? What business have they in an old man's eye? Your goodness, lady-and it came so sudden

I can not-must not-let you be deceived.

I have yet another tale, but (then to Sarolta aside.)

not for all ears!

* Refers to the tear, which he feels starting in his eye. The following

line was borrowed unconsciously from Mr. Wordsworth's Excursion.

SAROL. I oft have passed your cottage, and still

prais'd

Its beauty, and that trim orchard-plot, whose blossoms
The gusts of April shower'd aslant its thatch.

Come, you shall show it me! And, while you bid it
Farewell, be not ashamed that I should witness
The oil of gladness glittering on the water
Of an ebbing grief.

[Bathory bowing, shows her into his cottage.
LASK. (alone) Vexation! baffled! school'd!
Ho! Laska! wake! why? what can all this mean?
She sent away that cockatrice in anger!

Oh the false witch! It is too plain, she loves him.
And now, the old man near my lady's person,
She'll see this Bethlen hourly!

[Laska flings himself into the seat.
Glycine peeps in timidly.

LASK. No, serpent! no; 'tis you that sting me;

Yes; gaze as if your very eyes embraced him!

Ha! you forget the scene of yesterday!

Mute ere he came, but then-Out on your screams,

And your pretended fears!

GLY.

Your fears, at least,

Were real, Laska! or your trembling limbs

And white cheeks play'd the hypocrites most vilely!

LASK. I fear! whom? what?

For having fed my jealousy and envy

With a plot, made out of other men's revenges,
Against a brave and innocent young man's life!

Yet, yet, pray tell me!

LASK. (malignantly.)

You will know too soon.

GLY. Would I could find my lady! tho' she chid

me

Nay now, I have marr'd the verse: well! this one

LASK. Pshaw! Is it not as plain as impudence, That you're in love with this young swaggering beggar, Bethlen Bathory? When he was accused,

Why pressed you forward? Why did you defend him? GLY. Question meet question: that's a woman's privilege.

Why, Laska, did you urge Lord Casimir

To make my lady force that promise from me?

LASK. So then, you say, Lady Sarolta forc'd you?
GLY. Could I look up to her dear countenance,

And say her nay? As far back as I wot of,
All her commands were gracious, sweet requests.
How could it be then, but that her requests

Must needs have sounded to me as commands?