--on a Tuesday----Tracy! _A long silence, broken by_ FITZURSE _saying, contemptuously,_ God help thee! JOHN OF SALISBURY (_aside_). How the good Archbishop reddens! He never yet could brook the note of scorn. FITZURSE. My lord, we bring a message from the King Beyond the water; will you have it alone, Or with these listeners near you? BECKET. As you will. FITZURSE. Nay, as _you_ will. BECKET. Nay, as _you_ will. JOHN OF SALISBURY. Why then Better perhaps to speak with them apart. Let us withdraw. [_All go out except the four_ KNIGHTS _and_ BECKET. FITZURSE. We are all alone with him. Shall I not smite him with his own cross-staff? DE MORVILLE. No, look! the door is open: let him be. FITZURSE. The King condemns your excommunicating---- BECKET. This is no secret, but a public matter. In here again! [JOHN OF SALISBURY _and_ MONKS _return_. Now, sirs, the King's commands! FITZURSE. The King beyond the water, thro' our voices, Commands you to be dutiful and leal To your young King on this side of the water, Not scorn him for the foibles of his youth. What! you would make his coronation void By cursing those who crown'd him. Out upon you! BECKET. Reginald, all men know I loved the Prince. His father gave him to my care, and I Became his second father: he had his faults, For which I would have laid mine own life down To help him from them, since indeed I loved him, And love him next after my lord his father. Rather than dim the splendour of his crown I fain would treble and quadruple it With revenues, realms, and golden provinces So that were done in equity. FITZURSE. You have broken Your bond of peace, your treaty with the King-- Wakening such brawls and loud disturbances In England, that he calls you oversea To answer for it in his Norman courts. BECKET. Prate not of bonds, for never, oh, never again Shall the waste voice of the bond-breaking sea Divide me from the mother church of England, My Canterbury. Loud disturbances! Oh, ay--the bells rang out even to deafening, Organ and pipe, and dulcimer, chants and hymns In all the churches, trumpets in the halls, Sobs, laughter, cries: they spread their raiment down Before me--would have made my pathway flowers, Save that it was mid-winter in the street, But full mid-summer in those honest hearts. FITZURSE. The King commands you to absolve the bishops Whom you have excommunicated. BECKET. I? Not I, the Pope. Ask _him_ for absolution. FITZURSE. But you advised the Pope. BECKET. And so I did. They have but to submit. THE FOUR KNIGHTS. The King commands you. We are all King's men.