SIMON Hang ye, villains, ye are two better known than trusted. I have seen those faces before. Are ye not two beggarly retainers, trencher-parasites, to John? I think ye rank above his footmen. A sort of bed and board worms--locusts that infest our house; a leprosy that long has hung upon its walls and princely apartments, reaching to fill all the corners of my brother's once noble heart. GRAY We are his friends. SIMON Fie, Sir, do not weep. How these rogues will triumph! Shall I whip off their heads, father? (_Draws_.) LOVEL Come, Sir, though this shew handsome in you, being his son, yet the law must have its course. SIMON And if I tell you the law shall not have its course, cannot ye be content? Courage, father; shall such things as these apprehend a man? Which of ye will venture upon me?--Will you, Mr. Constable self-elect? or you, Sir, with a pimple on your nose, got at Oxford by hard drinking, your only badge of loyalty? GRAY 'Tis a brave youth--I cannot strike at him. SIMON Father, why do you cover your face with your hands? Why do you fetch your breath so hard? See, villains, his heart is burst! O villains, he cannot speak. One of you run for some water: quickly, ye knaves; will ye have your throats cut? (_They both slink off_.) How is it with you, Sir Walter? Look up, Sir, the villains are gone. He hears me not, and this deep disgrace of treachery in his son hath touched him even to the death. O most distuned, and distempered world, where sons talk their aged fathers into their graves! Garrulous and diseased world, and still empty, rotten and hollow _talking_ world, where good men decay, states turn round in an endless mutability, and still for the worse, nothing is at a stay, nothing abides but vanity, chaotic vanity.--Brother, adieu! There lies the parent stock which gave us life, Which I will see consign'd with tears to earth. Leave thou the solemn funeral rites to me, Grief and a true remorse abide with thee. (_Bears in the body_.) SCENE.--_Another Part of the Forest_.