Pray don't believe them, madam! This way! This

What needs your presence?

BATH. What! Do you think I'll suffer my brave

boy

To be slandered by a set of coward-ruffians,

And leave it to their malice,-yes, mere malice!—
To tell its own tale?

SAROL.

[LASKA and Servants bow to LADY SAROLTA. Laska! What may this mean? LAS. (pompously, as commencing a set speech.) Madam! and may it please your ladyship! This old man's son, by name, Bethlen Bathory, Stands charged, on weighty evidence, that he, On yester-eve, being his lordship's birth-day, Did traitorously defame Lord Casimir: The lord high steward of the realm, moreoverSAROL. Be brief! We know his titles! LAS.

And moreover

Raved like a traitor at our liege King Emerick.
And furthermore, said witnesses make oath,
Led on the assault upon his lordship's servants;
Yea, insolently tore, from this, your huntsman,
His badge of livery of your noble house,
And trampled it in scorn.

SAROL. (to the servants who offer to speak.)
have had your spokesman !

Where is the young man thus accused?

BATH

But if no ill betide him on the mountains,

He will not long be absent!

SAROL.

You

I know not:

Thou art his father?

BATH. None ever with more reason prized a son;

Yet I hate falsehood more than I love him.

But more than one, now in my lady's presence,

Witness'd the affray, besides these men of malice;

And if I swerve from truth

BATH. My tale is brief.

During our festive

dance,

Your servants, the accusers of my son,

Offered gross insults, in unmanly sort,

To our village maidens. He, (could he do less?)
Rose in defence of outraged modesty,
And so persuasive did his cudgel prove,
(Your hectoring sparks so over brave to women
Are always cowards) that they soon took flight,
And now in mere revenge, like baffled boasters,
Have framed this tale, out of some hasty words
Which their own threats provoked.

SAROL.

Old man! you talk

Too bluntly! Did your son owe no respect

To the livery of our house?

BATH.

Even such respect

As the sheep's skin should gain for the hot wolf

That hath began to worry the poor lambs!

LAS. Old insolent ruffian!

GLY.

Pardon! pardon, madam!

I saw the whole affray. The good old man

Means no offence, sweet lady!-You, yourself,

Laska! know well, that these men were the ruffians!

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.