Enter Kirkpatrick.

Kirkpatrick. My Lord!
Bruce. I fear I have slain Comyn.
[Goes out.
Kirkpatrick. Ha!
You fear!—Then I'll make sure. He opes his eyes.
Comyn. False—foolish—dying—guilty—perjured—lost!
[Dies.
Kirkpatrick [stabbing Comyn].
Something to staunch your muttering. No fear, now.

Enter Sir Robert Comyn with his sword drawn.

Robert Comyn. Stop villain! Hold your hand, rash murderer!
Kirkpatrick. I only gave a grace-thrust to your nephew
To end his agony. Put up your sword.
He died a good death on the altar-steps.
Robert Comyn. Kirkpatrick, you have aided in a deed,
Unseconded, even in these fearful times.
Kirkpatrick. Strong words and stiffly spoken. Does your sword
Keep pace with your sharp tongue?
Robert Comyn. We'll try.
Kirkpatrick. Come on!
[They fight, and Robert Comyn falls.
Robert Comyn. Is this the day of judgment for our house?
Kinsman, I was your follower on earth,
And now I am your henchman through death's vale.
[Dies.

Enter Edward Bruce, Sir Christopher and Sir John Seton, and other gentlemen.

Sir Christopher Seton.
Two Comyns dead! Bruce only spoke of one.
Kirkpatrick. I slew the other. He would have me fight.
Sir John Seton. Alas! and could it be no other way?
There was enough dissension in the realm
Without a feud between these families,
Highest in state and strongest in the field.
1st Gentleman. Comyn is dead, and Bruce has laid him low.
The dead may slay the living. What say you?
2nd Gentleman. I say so too. The stroke that Comyn killed
May yet recoil upon his murderer.
Edward Bruce. Judge not, my friends. A murder has been done
With outward signs of most unrighteous wrath.
But think who did the deed—the noblest Scot,
The knightliest chevalier, the kindliest friend,
The prince of brothers. I, who know, say this.
The very horror and the sacrilege
That frame the crime with dreader circumstance,
Cry out the doer was insane the while,
And recommend him to your lenience.
Therefore, take warning; and before you judge
Let your bloods cool, lest you be guilty too
Of foolish rashness in your condemnation.
My brother left a message for you all:
He asks you who are friends to visit him
to-morrow at Lochmaben; where he means
To lay the matter of his crime before you,
And take your counsel on the consequence.
1st Gentleman. It's fair we should withhold our judgment, sirs,
Until we be possessed of this event,
The cause and manner of its happening.
[Shouting within.

Enter Nigel Bruce.

Nigel Bruce. The people buzz and clamour to be led.
The news of Comyn's death has made them mad;
If blood were wine, and they had drunk of it
To fulness, they could not be more mature
For any mischief that the time suggests.
Edward Bruce. Good mischief, if the English suffer it.
I'll be their captain. Caesar pricked his horse
Across the Rubicon, defying Rome.
Bruce pricked John Comyn over death's dark stream,
Defying England. Caesar triumphed: Bruce
Shall triumph too. And now begins the fight.
[All go out.

SCENE III.—The same. Monks enter and lay the bodies side by side. A bell tolls, and the monks kneel round the altar. Then enter the Countess of Badenoch, and Comyn, Earl of Buchan, and the Countess of Buchan.

Buchan. You holy men, give place a little while.
A Monk. To whom?
Buchan. The wife and friends of slaughtered
Comyn.
[The monks retire.
Countess of Badenoch. Would any mortal think to look at me
This dead man was my husband? Should I weep,
And rend with sighs my breast, and wring my hands;
Peal out my sorrow, like a vesper bell
Calling the cloistered echo's shadowy choir
To take the burden of a woeful dirge;
Enrobe myself in that dishevelment
Which tyrannous grief compels his subjects pale
To show their vassalage by putting on,
I might persuade myself and you, my friends,
That I am sorry for my husband's death:
Even as an actor, lacking any cue,
Visible, tangible, as I have here,
Steps lightly at a word upon the stage,
Leaving his brothers and their merry chat,
And takes upon him any passion's show
With such devotion and abandonment,
That what was first a cloak becomes a soul,
And audience and actor both are held
Dissolved in ecstasy; which, breaking, back
From high heroics to sad homeliness
Their spirits are precipitated straight.
But I'll not play the broken heart, for you,
My friends, my audience, know the cause I have
Rather to laugh than weep. O wretched corpse!
What habitation holds the spirit now
Which Bruce ejected rashly, warrantless,
Pulling the house about the tenant's ears?
Buchan. He loved me little, and he loved you less;
And by his death he leaves a legacy,
The taking up of which, if spirits watch
From where eternally they rest or pine,
Our tragic, many-scened mortality,
Will reconcile him to his sudden death.
Countess of Buchan. Husband, what legacy?
Buchan. A mortal feud.
Countess of Buchan. Will you avenge on Bruce the death of him
Whom his best friends lament not?
Buchan. Yes, I must.
And good Sir Robert, too—his blood cries out.
It is a duty that the world will look
To see performed directly and with speed,
Admitting no perfunct, half-passive dance
On patient Providence. Dissuade me not,
For it becomes you not. There is a thing
That vaguely circulates in certain spheres
Concerning you, my dearest. Sad am I
That from my lips it first should taint your ears;
But you must know it now. Give me your hand.
This white and fragrant palm from guilty deeds,
That harden more than penitential toil,
Or from the touch of slime, is not more free,
Than your unshriven soul from infant thoughts
Swaddled in shame. But foul-tongued calumny,
Tutored by hatred, like a jabbering bird
With implication lewd repeats your name
And Bruce's in a breath.
Countess of Buchan. Alas, I know!
The lying scandal that benights my life
Will be a foil to make my memory shine.—
If it confronts you graven on the sky
To visit retribution on his head
Whose hand laid low your cousin's, be it so:
I'll not invade your secrets; but I mean
To do what woman can for Bruce's cause,
Which whispers tell me will be Scotland's soon.
Buchan. Well, we'll not quarrel. We'll talk of this again.
Countess of Badenoch.
Come take me home. I'm in a gentler mood.
Let those good cowls return and pray their best.
[The Countess of Badenoch and the Earl and
Countess of Buchan go out. The monks
advance and kneel, and the scene closes.