so soon?

(_Princes shake their heads_)

_2nd Wrenboy: (Coming back_) There is a gag
on their mouths!

_3rd Wrenboy: (Going and looking_) Their hands
are tied with a rope.

_4th Wrenboy_: They had not the wit to stand
against the Grugach; it is not long till they were
brought to trouble.

_5th Wrenboy_: It was seventeen times worse
for them to be under him than for ourselves that
was used to him, and to his cruelty and his ways.

_1st Wrenboy_: It was bad enough for ourselves.
We were not built for roguery.

(_The Dowager Messengers rushing in_.)

_Dowager Messengers: (Together.)_ What is going
on? What has happened?

_Guardian_: What you see before you has happened.
Those young thieves came to try and to
rob the house. They were found by myself in the
very act of bringing away my golden-handled
sword! They were stopped by this honest man.
(_Points to Ogre_.)

_1st Dowager Messenger_: There would seem to be
a great deal of wickedness around this place!

_Guardian_: I'll put a stop to it! I'll use my
rights as Judge! To have that sort of villainy
running through the Island, it would come through
walls of glass or of marble, and lead away the best.

_2nd Dowager Messenger_: There must be something
gone wrong in the stars, our own young
princes having gone wild out of measure, and these
young vagabonds doing no less than house-breaking!
It is hard to live!

_Ogre_: Indeed, ma'am, it would be a great blessing
to the world if all the boys in it could be born
grown up.

_Guardian: (Sighing_.) I, myself, am beginning
to have that same opinion.

_1st Dowager Messenger_: And so am I myself.
Young men have strength and beauty, and old
men have knowledge and wisdom, but as to boys!
After what we saw a while ago in the supper
room!

_Servant_: The Court is about to sit! Take your
places!

_(Wrenboys make for the dock and Princes the
jury-box.)_

_Guardian_: What do you mean, prisoners, going
up there, that is the place for honourable men!
For a jury! It is here in the criminals' dock your
place is.

_Servant: (To Wrenboys_.) Oh, that is the wrong
place you're in. That is for the wicked and the
poor that are brought to be tried and condemned.

_1st Wrenboy_: It is a place the like of that I was
put one time I was charged before a magistrate
for snaring rabbits.

_Servant_: Silence in the Court. The Judge is
about to speak.

_Guardian: (Reading out of book.)_
It's laid down in a clause of