Gaunt. Villains! take back to your kitchens those spits and skewers that you, forsooth, would fain call swords and arrows; and keep your bricks and stones for your graves!
Joanna. Imprudent man! who can save you? I shall be frightened: I must speak at once.
O good kind people! ye who so greatly loved me, when I am sure I had done nothing to deserve it, have I (unhappy me!) no merit with you now, when I would assuage your anger, protect your fair fame, and send you home contented with yourselves and me? Who is he, worthy citizens, whom ye would drag to slaughter?
True, indeed, he did revile someone. Neither I nor you can say whom—some feaster and rioter, it seems, who had little right (he thought) to carry sword or bow, and who, to show it, hath slunk away. And then another raised his anger: he was indignant that, under his roof, a woman should be exposed to stoning. Which of you would not be as choleric in a like affront? In the house of which among you should I not be protected as resolutely?
No, no: I never can believe those angry cries. Let none ever tell me again he is the enemy of my son, of his king, your darling child, Richard. Are your fears more lively than a poor weak female’s? than a mother’s? yours, whom he hath so often led to victory, and praised to his father, naming each—he, John of Gaunt, the defender of the helpless, the comforter of the desolate, the rallying signal of the desperately brave!
Retire, Duke of Lancaster! This is no time——
Gaunt. Madam, I obey; but not through terror of that puddle at the house door, which my handful of dust would dry up. Deign to command me!
Joanna. In the name of my son, then, retire!
Gaunt. Angelic goodness! I must fairly win it.
Joanna. I think I know his voice that crieth out: ‘Who will answer for him?’ An honest and loyal man’s, one who would counsel and save me in any difficulty and danger. With what pleasure and satisfaction, with what perfect joy and confidence, do I answer our right-trusty and well-judging friend!