ON'S END

_In an English Castle in Poictou._

Sir Peter Harpdon, _a Gascon knight in the English service, and_ John
Curzon, _his lieutenant_.

JOHN CURZON.

Of those three prisoners, that before you came
We took down at St. John's hard by the mill,
Two are good masons; we have tools enough,
And you have skill to set them working.

SIR PETER.

So:
What are their names?

JOHN CURZON.

Why, Jacques Aquadent,
And Peter Plombiere, but,

SIR PETER.

What colour'd hair
Has Peter now? has Jacques got bow legs?

JOHN CURZON.

Why, sir, you jest: what matters Jacques' hair,
Or Peter's legs to us?

SIR PETER.

O! John, John, John!
Throw all your mason's tools down the deep well,
Hang Peter up and Jacques; They're no good,
We shall not build, man.

JOHN CURZON (_going_).

Shall I call the guard
To hang them, sir? and yet, sir, for the tools,
We'd better keep them still; sir, fare you well.
[_Muttering as he goes._
What have I done that he should jape at me?
And why not build? the walls are weak enough,
And we've two masons and a heap of tools.
[_Goes, still muttering._

SIR PETER.

To think a man should have a lump like that
For his lieutenant! I must call him back,
Or else, as surely as St. George is dead,
He'll hang our friends the masons: here, John! John!

JOHN CURZON.

At your good service, sir.

SIR PETER.

Come now, and talk
This weighty matter out; there, we've no stone
To mend our walls with, neither brick nor stone.

JOHN CURZON.

There is a quarry, sir, some ten miles off.

SIR PETER.

We are not strong enough to send ten men
Ten miles to fetch us stone enough to build.
In three hours' time they would be taken or slain,
The cursed Frenchmen ride abroad so thick.

JOHN CURZON.

But we can send some villaynes to get stone.

SIR PETER.

Alas! John, that we cannot bring them back,
They