Enter JOHN ENDICOTT and UPSALL.
JOHN ENDICOTT.
Scourged in three towns! and yet the busy people Go up and down the streets on their affairs Of business or of pleasure, as if nothing Had happened to disturb them or their thoughts! When bloody tragedies like this are acted, The pulses of a nation should stand still The town should be in mourning, and the people Speak only in low whispers to each other.
UPSALL.
I know this people; and that underneath A cold outside there burns a secret fire That will find vent and will not be put out, Till every remnant of these barbarous laws Shall be to ashes burned, and blown away.
JOHN ENDICOTT.
Scourged in three towns! It is incredible Such things can be! I feel the blood within me Fast mounting in rebellion, since in vain Have I implored compassion of my father! UPSALL.
You know your father only as a father; I know him better as a Magistrate.
He is a man both loving and severe; A tender heart; a will inflexible.
None ever loved him more than I have loved him.
He is an upright man and a just man In all things save the treatment of the Quakers.
JOHN ENDICOTT.
Yet I have found him cruel and unjust Even as a father.

He has driven me forth Into the street; has shut his door upon me, With words of bitterness.

I am as homeless As these poor Quakers are.
UPSALL.
Then come with me.
You shall be welcome for your father's sake, And the old friendship that has been between us.
He will relent erelong.

A father's anger Is like a sword without a handle, piercing Both ways alike, and wounding him that wields it No less than him that it is pointed at.
[Exeunt.
SCENE III.

-- The prison.