"A heinous anti-christian offence.
Why anti-christian? Because anti-catholic? Why anti-catholic? Because
anti-roman. Why anti-roman? Because Carthaginian. Is not pun from
Punic? punica fides: the very quint-essential quiddity of bad faith:
double-visaged: double-tongued. He that will make a pun will---- I say
no more. Fie on it. Stand forth, clerk. Who is the bride's father?"
"There is no bride's father," said the baron. "I am the father
of Matilda Fitzwater."
"There is none such," said the friar. "This is the fair
Maid Marian. Will you make a virtue of necessity, or will you give
laws to the flowing tide? Will you give her, or shall Robin take her?
Will you be her true natural father, or shall I commute paternity?
Stand forth, Scarlet."
"Stand back, sirrah Scarlet," said the baron. "My daughter shall
have no father but me. Needs must when the devil drives."
"No matter who drives," said the friar, "so that, like a
well-disposed subject, you yield cheerful obedience to those
who can enforce it."
"Mawd, sweet Mawd," said the baron, "will you then forsake
your poor old father in his distress, with his castle in ashes,
and his enemy in power?"
"Not so, father," said Marian; "I will always be your true daughter:
I will always love, and serve, and watch, and defend you: but neither
will I forsake my plighted love, and my own liege lord, who was your
choice before he was mine, for you made him my associate in infancy;
and that he continued to be mine when he ceased to be yours, does not
in any way show remissness in my duties or falling off in my affections.
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