FAX [aside] True. I'm one of the family; I had forgotten!

DAME 'Tis about this Elsie Maynard. A pretty girl, Master
Leonard.

FAIRFAX Aye, fair as a peach blossom-- what then?

DAME She hath a liking for thee, or I mistake not.

FAIRFAX With all my heart. She's as dainty a little amid as
you'll find in a midsummer day's march.

DAME Then be warned in time, and give not thy heart to her.
Oh, I know what it is to give my heart to one who will
have none of it!

MERYLL [aside] Aye, she knows all about that.
[Aloud] And why is my boy to take heed of her? She's
a good girl, Dame Carruthers.

DAME Good enough, for aught I know. But she's no girl.
She's a married woman.

MERYLL A married woman! Tush, old lady-- she's promised to
Jack Point, the Lieutenant's new jester.

DAME Tush in thy teeth, old man! As my niece Kate sat by
her bedside to-day, this Elsie slept, and as she slept
she moaned and groaned, and turned this way and that
way-- and, "How shall I marry one I have never seen?"
quoth she-- then, "An hundred crowns!" quoth she--
then,"Is it certain he will die in an hour?" quoth
she-- then, "I love him not, and yet I am his wife,"
quoth she! Is it not so, Kate?

KATE Aye, aunt, 'tis even so.

FAIRFAX Art thou sure of all this?

KATE Aye, sir, for I wrote it all down on my tablets.

DAME Now, mark my words: it was of this Fairfax she spake,
and he is her husband, or I'll swallow my kirtle!

MERYLL [aside] Is it true, sir?

FAIRFAX [aside to MERYLL] True? Why, the girl was raving!
[Aloud] Why should she marry a man who had but an hour
to live?

DAME Marry? There be those who would marry but for a
minute, rather than die old maids.

MERYLL [aside] Aye, I know one of them!

No. 17. Strange adventure!
(QUARTET)
Kate, Dame, Carruthers, Fairfax and Sergeant Meryll

ALL Strange adventure! Maiden wedded
To a groom she's never seen--
Never, never, never seen!
Groom about to be beheaded,
In an hour on Tower Green!