coming.

LIEUT. [to CROWD] Away with ye! Clear the rabble.

[GUARDS push CROWD off, and go off with them]

Now, my girl, who are you, and what do you here?

ELSIE May it please you, sir, we are two strolling players,
Jack Point and I, Elsie Maynard, at your worship's
service. We go from fair to fair, singing, and
dancing, and playing brief interludes; and so we make
a poor living.

LIEUT. You two, eh? Are ye man and wife?

POINT No, sir; for though I'm a fool, there is a limit to my
folly. Her mother, old Bridget Maynard, travels with
us (for Elsie is a good girl), but the old woman is a-
bed with fever, and we have come here to pick up some
silver to buy an electuary for her.

LIEUT. Hark ye, my girl! Your mother is ill?

ELSIE Sorely ill, sir.

LIEUT. And needs good food, and many things that thou canst
not buy?

ELSIE Alas! sir, it is too true.

LIEUT. Wouldst thou earn an hundred crowns?

ELSIE An hundred crowns! They might save her life!

LIEUT. Then listen! A worthy but unhappy gentleman is to be
beheaded in an hour on this very spot. For sufficient
reasons, he desires to marry before he dies, and he
hath asked me to find him a wife. Wilt thou be that
wife?

ELSIE The wife of a man I have never seen!

POINT Why, sir, look you, I am concerned in this; for though
I am not yet wedded to Elsie Maynard, time works
wonders, and there's no knowing what may be in store
for us. Have we your worship's word for it that this
gentleman will die to-day?

LIEUT. Nothing is more certain, I grieve to say.

POINT And that the maiden will be allowed to depart the very
instant the ceremony is at an end?

LIEUT. The very instant. I pledge my honour that it shall be
so.

POINT An hundred crowns?

LIEUT. An hundred crowns!

POINT For my part, I consent. It is for Elsie to speak.

No. 8. How say you, maiden, will you wed
(TRIO)
Elsie, Point, and Lieutenant

LIEUT. How say you, maiden, will you wed
A man about to lose his head?
For half