Give me your hand. This white and fragrant palm from guilty deeds, That harden more than penitential toil, Or from the touch of slime, is not more free, Than your unshriven soul from infant thoughts Swaddled in shame. But foul-tongued calumny, Tutored by hatred, like a jabbering bird With implication lewd repeats your name And Bruce's in a breath. Countess of Buchan. Alas, I know! The lying scandal that benights my life Will be a foil to make my memory shine.-- If it confronts you graven on the sky To visit retribution on his head Whose hand laid low your cousin's, be it so: I'll not invade your secrets; but I mean To do what woman can for Bruce's cause, Which whispers tell me will be Scotland's soon. Buchan. Well, we'll not quarrel. We'll talk of this again. Countess of Badenoch. Come take me home. I'm in a gentler mood. Let those good cowls return and pray their best. [The Countess of Badenoch and the Earl and Countess of Buchan go out. The monks advance and kneel, and the scene closes. ACT II SCENE I.--Lochmaben. A Room in the Castle. Enter Lamberton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, Edward and Nigel Bruce, the two Setons, Sir Thomas Randolf, and other Lords and Gentlemen. Lamberton. My lords and gentlemen, this is no time For ceremony, which, when lazy peace Has rusted o'er the world's slack businesses, Oils easily the motion of affairs; For now events impel each other on, And higher powers than beadles usher them. I am commissioned by the noble Bruce To greet you heartily and wish you well While you remain within Lochmaben's walls. By my advice he begs you to excuse His absence, while I speak. When you have heard I doubt not that you will. He has confessed The sacrilegious crime of yesterday, Contritely and with simple truthfulness. No exculpation, no defence at all, Such as we know there is, he offered me. Some of us here may hold that Bruce's act Should rather be extolled than stigmatised. We know for certain now what was the wrong That Comyn, having wrought, denied on oath, And all our sympathy goes out to Bruce. But such the old deceitfulness of sin That feelings of the sweetest comfort oft Mislead us to embrace iniquity. Man's worst of deeds God turns to good account: A penance, which I hope will work God's will, I have enjoined on the humiliate earl. I mean to crown him, Robert, King of Scots: His task will be to make that title good. Now I have said a word that stirs your blood, Begetting hope and courage, valiant twins. And yet it is not I that speak, but God: Surely God speaks. The sequence of events, Of which this conference is the latest bud, Appears to me a heavenly oracle, As evident as Aaron's sprouting rod, Commanding Robert Bruce to be the king. He would have placed the crown on Comyn's head Had Comyn wished, that Scotland might be one; But Comyn thought to get the crown by guile, And like an impious fool betrayed his friend, Setting between him and the English king A gulf of enmity impassable.