rkly).
'Twill take less than a dance to lead us there! You know right well
that the Puritans have sworn that if they catch us straying beyond the
bounds of Merrymount 'twill be the stocks and the whipping-post, and
that without mercy!

SCARLETT
(with a laugh and a shrug).
The stocks and the whipping-post! Come, drive such thoughts from your
head! Look! Yonder comes Jock with a tankard of apple juice! Cups for
us all! Quick, Lackleather! (Carved wooden cups are taken from the
trunk of a hollow tree.) Come, where are we all?

TIB.
All here, save Sarah Scarlett, who bides with Goody Gleason, and Bess,
who hath been away since dawn. Robin and Kit have gone to search for
her.

SCARLETT.
Well, Bess or no Bess, the maypole is waiting! Play us another catch,
goodfellow Faunch! My heels grow rusty!

[All start to dance.

ROBIN
(bursting in from right, followed by Kit Carmel). Simon! Simon! You'll
not dance so gaily when you've heard the news! Put up your music,
Faunch! Give over your capers, Lackleather! Bess hath been taken by the
Puritans!

[General consternation.

SCARLETT
(as all stop dancing).
You're jesting, lad!

ROBIN
(as he catches breath).
'Tis no jest, Simon! 'Tis bitter truth. 'Tis towards the stocks they
are leading her!

SCARLETT
(outraged).
You let them capture her?

KIT.
What were we two against so many!

SCARLETT
(passionately).
All Merrymount to the rescue! Zounds! Shall a pack o' Puritans match
their wits against ours? Who follows me?

ALL.
All of us! All!

LACKLEATHER.
There'll be a rescue!

FAUNCH
(as he follows, fiddling gaily).
A rescue made to music!

[All disappear into the woods, right, just as Sarah Scarlett, with
Goody Gleason leaning on her arm, comes out of the woods, left.

SARAH.
Faunch! Faunch! (Looks after the vanishing Merrymount folk.) He does
not hear me! Where are they going that they do not hear me? Nay, then,
dear Gran'am, rest on me. Step slowly. They've left off dancing at the
maypole, and gone I know not whither. Will you not rest you, while I
blow this flicker o' fire? (Leads Goody Gleason to bed of pine.) I'll
make thee broth, and season it right pleasantly when the lads come back
from their traps; for, now that I think on it, it may be to their traps
they have gone. (Sees Goody Gleason placed in comfortable fashion on
the bed of pine.) Rest, then, if you can, dear Gran'am. 'Twill
strengthen you against your chills and fever. (Seats herself at fi