An open country.
LAURENCE RABY and FORREST, BRIAN AYLMER and PRESCOT.
Forrest:
I�ve won the two tosses from Prescot;
Now hear me, and hearken and heed,
And pull that vile flower from your waistcoat,
And throw down that beast of a weed;
I�m going to give you the signal
I gave Harry Hunt at Boulogne,
The morning he met Major Bignell,
And shot him as dead as a stone;
For he must look round on his right hand
To watch the white flutter, that stops
His aim, for it takes off his sight, and
I cough while the handkerchief drops.
And you keep both eyes on his figure,
Old fellow, and don�t take them off.
You�ve got the sawhandled hair trigger,
You sight him and shoot when I cough.
Laurence (aside):
Though God will never forgive me,
Though men make light of my name,
Though my sin and my shame outlive me,
I shall not outlast my shame.
The coward, does he mean to miss me?
His right hand shakes like a leaf;
Shall I live for my friends to hiss me,
Of fools and of knaves the chief?
Shall I live for my foes to twit me?
He has master�d his nerve again,
He is firm, he will surely hit me,
Will he reach the heart or the brain?
One long look eastward and northward,
One prayer, �Our Father which art�,
And the cough chimes in with the fourth word,
And I shoot skyward, the heart.