Marg.  A gallant brace of Frenchmen, curl’d monsieurs, That men say, haunt these woods, affecting privacy, More than the manner of their countrymen.

Simon.  We have here a wonder.  The face is Margaret’s face.

Sir W.  The face is Margaret’s, but the dress the same My Stephen sometime wore. [To Margaret.  Suppose us them; whom do men say we are?  Or know you what you seek?

Marg.  A worthy pair of exiles,
Two whom the politics of state revenge,
In final issue of long civil broils,
Have houseless driven from your native France,
To wander idle in these English woods,
Where now ye live; most part
Thinking on home and all the joys of France,
Where grows the purple vine.

Sir W.  These woods, young stranger,
And grassy pastures, which the slim deer loves,
Are they less beauteous than the land of France,
Where grows the purple vine?

Marg.  I cannot tell. 
To an indifferent eye both show alike. 
’Tis not the scene,
But all familiar objects in the scene,
Which now ye miss, that constitute a difference. 
Ye had a country, exiles, ye have none now;
Friends had ye, and much wealth, ye now have nothing;
Our manners, laws, our customs, all are foreign to you,
I know ye loathe them, cannot learn them readily;
And there is reason, exiles, ye should love
Our English earth less than your land of France,
Where grows the purple vine; where all delights grow
Old custom has made pleasant.

Sir W.  You, that are read So deeply in our story, what are you?

Marg.  A bare adventurer; in brief a woman,
That put strange garments on, and came thus far
To seek an ancient friend: 
And having spent her stock of idle words,
And feeling some tears coming,
Hastes now to clasp Sir Walter Woodvil’s knees,
And beg a boon for Margaret; his poor ward.

[Kneeling.

Sir W.  Not at my feet, Margaret; not at my feet.

Marg.  Yes, till her suit is answered.

Sir W.  Name it.

Marg.  A little boon, and yet so great a grace, She fears to ask it.

Sir W.  Some riddle, Margaret?

Marg.  No riddle, but a plain request.

Sir W.  Name it.

Marg.  Free liberty of Sherwood, And leave to take her lot with you in the forest.

Sir W.  A scant petition, Margaret; but take it,
Seal’d with an old man’s tears.—­
Rise, daughter of Sir Rowland.

[Addressing them both.

O you most worthy,
You constant followers of a man proscribed,
Following poor misery in the throat of danger;
Fast servitors to crazed and penniless poverty,
Serving poor poverty without hope of gain;
Kind children of a sire unfortunate;
Green clinging tendrils round a trunk decay’d,
Which needs must bring on you timeless decay;
Fair living forms to a dead carcass joined;—­
What shall I say? 
Better the dead were gather’d to the dead,
Than death and life in disproportion meet.—­
Go, seek your fortunes, children.—­