Crom. There is no king save one, and He
Is with us! [Points to 1st Cavalier.]
Yon poor wretch—­what saith he? 
Nay! 
Strike not his mouth.

1st Cav. I defy thee, Satan!  I’ll back my rapier, an’ thou wilt fight, Brewer!  Curse on thy muddy veins, thou hast no honourable desperation in thee.  Come, if thou beest a man, give up thy odds.  What, ho!  Excalibur!

[Makes a rush to get at CROMWELL]

Crom. It seemeth that
The ungodly fret.  Go, place him in the stocks. 
I charge ye harm him not—­
But give him ale,
Wine, and a scurvy song-book—­Such as he
Do make us triumph.  Fie, fie, Cornet Dean! 
Well, stop his mouth, an’t please ye; come, away!
[Trumpets sound.]
This is a gift of God, see burial
Unto the dead—­now on to Marston Moor.

[Exeunt U.E.R.]

[Enter WILLIAM, U.E.L.]

Will. So my master hath at last turned roundhead with a vengeance, and therefore I, to whom the rogue is necessary, am here, on the brink of nowhere.  To think that so much merit may be quenched by the mechanical art of a base gunner, who hath no fear in his actions; for I take it that a discreet reverence for the body we live in, which the vulgar term fear, shows the best proof of the value of the individual.  Egad! life here is as cheap as the grass on an empty common, where there is no democracy of goose to hiss at the kingly shadow of a single ass in God’s sunshine.  My master hath not done well; for he must have known that I could not leave him without a moral guide and companion—­to die, too, with the sin of my unpaid wages on his conscience.  Well, pray heaven, there come soon a partition of the crown jewels amongst us, after which I will withdraw this right arm from a cause I cannot approve; but to cherish principles one should not lack means; therefore, [taking the feather from his cap and throwing it down] lie thou there, carnal device! and I will go look for a barber and be despoiled, like a topsy-turvy Samson, not to lose strength, but to gain it.  I thank heaven that our camp did yesterday fall in dry places, for there were many of these sour-visaged soldiers called me Jonah, and I did well to escape ducking in a horse-pond.  Soft, here be some of them coming.  Yestere’en I committed sacrilege in a knapsack, and stole a small Bible from amid great plunder for my salvation.  Now will I feign to read it, and I doubt not the sin will be pardoned, for self-preservation is the second law of nature, as I have generally observed fornication to be the first!

Enter a party of Soldiers, R.

[Looking up.] These be some of Oliver’s Ironsides; every one of whom is, as David, a man of war and a prophet; truly they are more earnest and sober than the others.

1st Troop. To-morrow we shall sup in York.

Will. [Aside.] How the man of war identifies himself with the remnant of those that shall sup.