LACY (to MARMADUKE) My Captain, We come by order of the Band. Belike You have not heard that Henry has at last Dissolved the Barons' League, and sent abroad His Sheriffs with fit force to reinstate The genuine owners of such Lands and Baronies As, in these long commotions, have been seized. His Power is this way tending. It befits us To stand upon our guard, and with our swords Defend the innocent. MARMADUKE Lacy! we look But at the surfaces of things; we hear Of towns in flames, fields ravaged, young and old Driven out in troops to want and nakedness; Then grasp our swords and rush upon a cure That flatters us, because it asks not thought: The deeper malady is better hid; The world is poisoned at the heart. LACY What mean you? WALLACE (whose eye has been fixed suspiciously upon OSWALD) Ay, what is it you mean? MARMADUKE Hark'ee, my Friends;-- [Appearing gay.] Were there a Man who, being weak and helpless And most forlorn, should bribe a Mother, pressed By penury, to yield him up her Daughter, A little Infant, and instruct the Babe, Prattling upon his knee, to call him Father-- LACY Why, if his heart be tender, that offence I could forgive him. MARMADUKE (going on) And should he make the Child An instrument of falsehood, should he teach her To stretch her arms, and dim the gladsome light Of infant playfulness with piteous looks Of misery that was not-- LACY Troth, 'tis hard-- But in a world like ours-- MARMADUKE (changing his tone) This self-same Man-- Even while he printed kisses on the cheek Of this poor Babe, and taught its innocent tongue To lisp the name of Father--could he look To the unnatural harvest of that time When he should give her up, a Woman grown, To him who bid the highest in the market Of foul pollution-- LACY The whole visible world Contains not such a Monster!