King. Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see[2107]15
Danger and disobedience in thine eye:
O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,[2108]
And majesty might never yet endure
The moody frontier of a servant brow.[2109]
You have good leave to leave us: when we need20
Your use and counsel, we shall send for you. [Exit Wor.[2110]
You were about to speak. [To North.
North. Yea, my good lord.[2111]
Those prisoners in your highness' name demanded,[2112]
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,[2113]
Were, as he says, not with such strength denied[2114]25
As is deliver'd to your majesty:[2115]
Either envy, therefore, or misprision[2116]
Is guilty of this fault and not my son.[2117]
Hot. My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
But I remember, when the fight was done,30
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, and trimly dress'd,[2118]
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd
Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home;35
He was perfumed like a milliner;
And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose and took 't away again;[2119]
Who therewith angry, when it next came there,[2119]40
Took it in snuff; and still he smiled and talk'd,[2119][2120]
And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,[2121]
He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.45
With many holiday and lady terms[2122]
He question'd me; amongst the rest, demanded[2123]
My prisoners in your majesty's behalf.
I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,[2124]
To be so pester'd with a popinjay,[2125][2126]50
Out of my grief and my impatience,[2125]
Answer'd neglectingly I know not what,
He should, or he should not; for he made me mad[2127]
To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet
And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman55
Of guns and drums and wounds,—God save the mark!—
And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth[2128]
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity, so it was,
This villanous salt-petre should be digg'd[2129]60
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.[2130]
This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,65
I answer'd indirectly, as I said;[2131]
And I beseech you, let not his report[2132]
Come current for an accusation
Betwixt my love and your high majesty.
Blunt. The circumstance consider'd, good my lord,70
Whate'er Lord Harry Percy then had said[2133]
To such a person and in such a place,
At such a time, with all the rest re-told,
May reasonably die and never rise
To do him wrong or any way impeach75
What then he said, so he unsay it now.[2134]
King. Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,[2135]
But with proviso and exception,
That we at our own charge shall ransom straight
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;80
Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray'd[2136]
The lives of those that he did lead to fight
Against that great magician, damn'd Glendower,[2137]
Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March[2138]
Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then,85
Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?
Shall we buy treason? and indent with fears,[2139]
When they have lost and forfeited themselves?
No, on the barren mountains let him starve;[2140]
For I shall never hold that man my friend90
Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost
To ransom home revolted Mortimer.
Hot. Revolted Mortimer!
He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,[2141]
But by the chance of war: to prove that true[2141][2142]95
Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,[2143]
Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took,
When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank,[2144]
In single opposition, hand to hand,
He did confound the best part of an hour100
In changing hardiment with great Glendower:
Three times they breathed and three times did they drink,
Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood;
Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,105
And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank[2145]
Bloodstained with these valiant combatants.
Never did base and rotten policy[2146]
Colour her working with such deadly wounds;
Nor never could the noble Mortimer[2147]110
Receive so many, and all willingly:
Then let not him be slander'd with revolt.[2148]
King. Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him;[2149]
He never did encounter with Glendower:
I tell thee,[2150]115
He durst as well have met the devil alone
As Owen Glendower for an enemy.
Art thou not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth[2151]
Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer:
Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,120
Or you shall hear in such a kind from me
As will displease you. My Lord Northumberland,[2152]
We license your departure with your son.
Send us your prisoners, or you will hear of it.
[Exeunt King Henry, Blunt, and train.[2153]
Hot. An if the devil come and roar for them,[2154]125
I will not send them: I will after straight
And tell him so; for I will ease my heart,
Albeit I make a hazard of my head.[2155]
North. What, drunk with choler? stay and pause awhile:
Here comes your uncle.