Three Wonder Plays Part 39

_Guardian_: Come on then and I will give you some. They will be glad of it. Play now the harp as you go.

(_Princes go off playing, "Home, Sweet Home_."

_The Wrenboys sit down_.)

_1st Wrenboy_: It is likely we'll get good treatment.

_Jester: (Coming forward.)_ Ye should be tired.

_2nd Wrenboy_: We should be, but that we have our feet well soled,--with the dust of the road!

_3rd Wrenboy_: If walking could tire us we might be tired. But we're as well pleased to be moving, where we have no house or home that you'll call a house or a home.

_Jester_: That's not so with those young princes.

Wouldn't you be well pleased if ye could change places with them? (_He goes back to his corner_.)

_4th Wrenboy_: They are lovely kind young princes. I was near in dread they might set the dogs at us.

_5th Wrenboy_: They would do that if they knew the Ogre had sent us to spy out the place for him.

_1st Wrenboy_: It failed us to see what he wanted us to see. It is likely he will beat us, when we go back, with his cat-o'-nine-tails.

_2nd Wrenboy_: Wouldn't it be good if we could do as that Jester was saying and change places with those sons of kings! They that can lie in the suns.h.i.+ne on soft pillows.

_3rd Wrenboy_: They that can use food when they ask it, and not have to wait till they can find it, or steal it, or get it what way they can.

_3rd Wrenboy_: And not to be waiting till you'll hear a rabbit squealing, with the teeth of a weasel in his neck.

_4th Wrenboy_: And the weasel when you take it to be spitting poison at you, the same as a serpent.

_5th Wrenboy_: It would be a nice thing to be eating sweet red apples in place of the green crabs.

_1st Wrenboy_: Or to be maybe sucking marrow-bones.

_2nd Wrenboy_: It is likely they are as airy and as careless as the blackbird singing on the bush.

_3rd Wrenboy_: It's likely they go following after foxes on horses, having huntsmen and beagles at their feet.

_4th Wrenboy_: Or go out sporting and fowling with their greyhound and with their gun.

_5th Wrenboy_: Or matching fighting c.o.c.ks.

_1st Wrenboy_: It's likely they lead a gentleman's life, card-playing and eating and drinking, and racing with jockeys in speckled clothes.

_2nd Wrenboy_: Their brooches were s.h.i.+ning like green fire, the same as a marten cat's eyes. They have everything finer than another.

_3rd Wrenboy_: Their faces as clean as a linen sheet. Their hair as if combed with a silver comb.

_4th Wrenboy_: There is no one to so much as put a clean s.h.i.+rt on ourselves.

_5th Wrenboy: (Rubbing his hand_.) I never felt uneasy at the dirt that is grinted into me till I saw them so nice.

_1st Wrenboy_: That music they were playing put me in mind of some far thing. It is dreamed to me, and it is never leaving my mind, that there is something I remember in the long ago ...

music in a house that was as bright as the moon, or as the brightest night of stars.

_5th Wrenboy_: Whisht! They are coming!

(_The Princes come back_.)

_1st Prince_: Here are coppers for you.

_2nd Prince_: And white money.

_3rd Prince_: And here is a piece of gold.

_3rd Wrenboy_: We are thankful to you! We'll bury the Wren in grand style now!

_4th Prince_: Have you far to go?

_1st Wrenboy_: Not very far if it was a straight road. But it is through the forest we go, beyond the lake.

_2nd Wrenboy_: We will hardly be there before the moon rises.

_1st Prince_: Are you afraid in the night time?

_2nd Wrenboy_: I am not. But I've seen a great deal of strange things at that time.

_2nd Prince_: What sort of things?

_2nd Wrenboy_: Fairies you'd see.

_3rd Prince_: Are there such things?

_2nd Wrenboy_: One night I was attending a pot-still, roasting oats for to make still-whiskey, and I seen hares coming out of the wood, by fours and by sixes, and they as thin as thin....

_3rd Wrenboy_: Hares are the biggest fairies of all.

_4th Wrenboy_: And down by the sea _I_ met a weasel bringing up a fish in his mouth from the tide. And I often seen seals there, seals that are enchanted and look like humans, and will hold up a hand the same as a Christian.

_5th Wrenboy_: I that saw a hedgehog running up the side of a mountain as swift as a racehorse.

_1st Wrenboy_: It's the moonlight is the only time!

_1st Prince_: I never saw the moon but through a window.

_1st Wrenboy_: That's the time to go ramble.

_(He chants_.) You'll see the crane in the water standing, And never landing a fish, for fright, For he can but s.h.i.+ver seeing in the river His shadow shaking in the bright moonlight.

_2nd Wrenboy_: Or you may listen to the plover's whistle, When high above him the wild geese screech; Or the mallard flying, as the night is dying, His neck out-stretched towards the salt sea beach.