Leofric. How! what is it?
Godiva. I would not, in the first hurry of your wrath, appeal to you, my loving lord, on behalf of these unhappy men who have offended you.
Leofric. Unhappy! is that all?
Godiva. Unhappy they must surely be, to have offended you so grievously. What a soft air breathes over us! how quiet and serene and still an evening! how calm are the heavens and the earth! Shall none enjoy them; not even we, my Leofric? The sun is ready to set: let it never set, O Leofric, on your anger. These are not my words: they are better than mine. Should they lose their virtue from my unworthiness in uttering them?
Leofric. Godiva, wouldst thou plead to me for rebels?
Godiva. They have, then, drawn the sword against you? Indeed, I knew it not.
Leofric. They have omitted to send me my dues, established by my ancestors, well knowing of our nuptials, and of the charges and festivities they require, and that in a season of such scarcity my own lands are insufficient.
Godiva. If they were starving, as they said they were——
Leofric. Must I starve too? Is it not enough to lose my vassals?
Godiva. Enough! O God! too much! too much! May you never lose them! Give them life, peace, comfort, contentment. There are those among them who kissed me in my infancy, and who blessed me at the baptismal font. Leofric, Leofric! the first old man I meet I shall think is one of those; and I shall think on the blessing he gave, and (ah me!) on the blessing I bring back to him. My heart will bleed, will burst; and he will weep at it! he will weep, poor soul, for the wife of a cruel lord who denounces vengeance on him, who carries death into his family!