They hold in trust for us, and leave us starveling.
They shine above us, like a winter moon,
Lustrous, but freezing."
She sighs for the return of her boy, who, when he fled from his tyrants to seek a land where his heart might throb without the leave of a master, had promised that he would come back some day in honor to avenge her and to redeem his class. Meanwhile, he has become a stalwart and experienced man. Under the name of Aylmere, he has won distinction in the armies of Italy, and delved in the lore of the schools, but never lost sight of his origin and his early hatred of the oppressors of the poor. He now, disguised, enters the cot of his mother with his wife, Mariamne, and their child. He is unrecognized. Lacy, with fatherly pride, tells him of the brave boy missed so long, and proceeds to describe how he had behaved when Lord Say had insulted his mother:
"The proud lord would have spurned him; but young Cade"—
Here Aylmere, with sudden impulse, springs up, throws off his cloak, and cries, with an exulting laugh,—
"I struck him to my feet! I've not forgot it!
How kissed his scarlet doublet the mean earth.
Beneath a bondman's blow, and he a lord!
That memory hath made my exile green!