er,
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
pr