William Shakespeare: King Henry IV Part I

ACT I. 3. Scene III. The Same. A Room in the Palace. (continued)

NORTH.
At Berkeley-castle.

HOT.
You say true:--
Why, what a candy deal of courtesy
This fawning greyhound then did proffer me!
Look, when his infant fortune came to age,
And, Gentle Harry Percy, and kind cousin,--
O, the Devil take such cozeners!--God forgive me!--
Good uncle, tell your tale; for I have done.

WOR.
Nay, if you have not, to't again;
We'll stay your leisure.

HOT.
I have done, i'faith.

WOR.
Then once more to your Scottish prisoners.
Deliver them up without their ransom straight,
And make the Douglas' son your only mean
For powers in Scotland; which, for divers reasons
Which I shall send you written, be assured,
Will easily be granted.--
[To Northumberland.] You, my lord,
Your son in Scotland being thus employ'd,
Shall secretly into the bosom creep
Of that same noble prelate, well beloved,
Th' Archbishop.

HOT.
Of York, is't not?

WOR.
True; who bears hard
His brother's death at Bristol, the Lord Scroop.
I speak not this in estimation,
As what I think might be, but what I know
Is ruminated, plotted, and set down,
And only stays but to behold the face
Of that occasion that shall bring it on.

HOT.
I smell't: upon my life, it will do well.

NORTH.
Before the game's a-foot, thou still lett'st slip.

HOT.
Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot:--
And then the power of Scotland and of York
To join with Mortimer, ha?

WOR.
And so they shall.

HOT.

In faith, it is exceedingly well aim'd.

WOR.
And 'tis no little reason bids us speed,
To save our heads by raising of a head;
For, bear ourselves as even as we can,
The King will always think him in our debt,
And think we think ourselves unsatisfied,
Till he hath found a time to pay us home:
And see already how he doth begin
To make us strangers to his looks of love.