Crom. Nor spare A courtier for his likeness to the King?
Soldiers. No! No!
Crom. Why then ye are mine own, [observing the soldiers.]
My brave and trusty Ironsides! See here
Are some right honest faces I have known
From childhood, and they'll follow me to death,
If needed.—Let the paltry Scot go hence,
And even Fairfax rein his charger back—
We'll on unto the breach. The Lord Himself
Will ride in thunder with our mail-clad host:
The proudest head that ever wore a crown
Shall not withstand us.—Strike! and spare not! Ho!
Down with the curs'd of God!
Soldiers. A Cromwell! Cromwell! Let us come on!
Crom. The sun that stood in Heaven, Until his beams grew red with two days' blood Of slaughtered Canaan, shall see them flee like chaff before us—
Soldiers. Joshua! cry aloud, A Joshua!—
Crom. These gay Philistine lords That fight for Dagon, will ye fly them, or Hurl them and Dagon down?—
Soldiers. A Samson! Samson!
[Distant cannon heard. Cheering from the Soldiers.]
Will. [Aside.] Here's gory enthusiasm! Now whilst every man is ready to preach individually on his own account, and the whole collectively are about to sing a psalm, I will endeavour to steal away unperceived, lest any of them, imagining himself somewhere between Deuteronomy and Kings, should take it upon himself to proclaim that I come from Gibeon, and so—