Fal. I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, Heaven reward him! If I do grow great, I'll grow less: for I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do. [Exit, bearing off the body.

SCENE V.-Another part of the Field.

The trumpets sound. Enter KING HENRY, PRINCE
HENRY, PRINCE JOHN, WESTMORLAND, and
others, with WORCESTER and VERNON, prisoners.
K.Hen. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.-
Ill-spirited Worcester! did we not send grace,
Pardon, and terms of love, to all of you?
And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary:
Misuse the tenor of thy kinsman's trust?
Three knights, upon our party slain to-day,
A noble earl, and many a creature else,
Had been alive this hour,

If, like a christian, thou hadst truly borne
Betwixt our armies true intelligence.

Wor. What I have done my safety urged me to: And I embrace this fortune patiently,

Since not to be avoided it falls on me.

K. Hen. Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too:

Other offenders we will pause upon.

[Exeunt WORCESTER and VERNON, guarded. How goes the field?

Warkworth. Before NORTHUMBERLAND's Castle.

Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues.

Rum. Open your ears: for which of you will stop

The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?
I, from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my posthorse, still unfold
The acts commencéd on this ball of earth.
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride:
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
I speak of peace, while covert enmity,
Under the smile of safety, wounds the world:
And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make fearful musters, and prepared defence,
Whilst the big year, swollen with some other grief,
Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures;
And of so easy and so plain a stop,

That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still discordant, wavering multitude,

Can play upon it.-But what need I thus
My well-known body to anatomize
Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
run before King Harry's victory:
Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,
Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,
Quenching the flame of bold rebellion

Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I
To speak so true at first? My office is
To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell
Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword;
And that the King, before the Douglas' rage,
Stooped his anointed head as low as death.
This have I rumoured through the peasant towns,
Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
Lies crafty-sick. The posts come tiring on,
And not a man of them brings other news
Than they have learned of me: from Rumour's
tongues

They bring smooth comforts false, worse than
true wrongs.
[Exit.

Should be the father of some stratagem.
The times are wild: contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose,
And bears down all before him.

I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.
North. Good, an heaven will!

Bard. As good as heart can wish:-
The King is almost wounded to the death;
And, in the fortune of my lord your son,
Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts
Killed by the hand of Douglas. Young Prince John,
And Westmorland and Stafford, fled the field:
And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John,
Is prisoner to your son. O, such a day,
So fought, so followed, and so fairly won,
Came not till now to dignify the times,
Since Cæsar's fortunes!