]
KURT
[to Jacobus]
Drive out those mountebanks! 'T is ever so.
Admit them to the town and you must pay
Their single show with riotings a week.--
Look yonder at your daughter.
[BARBARA lingers by the Ark-Tent, gazing with girlish
interest at MICHAEL, who gazes at her, his bear-head
in his band for the moment.]
JACOBUS
Barbara!
[She turns back, with an angry glance at KURT.]
AXEL the Smith
[doggedly to them]
By your leave. Masters! I would like to know,
How did Saint Willibald prevail with the rats?--
That would I like to know. I, who ha' made
Of strong wrought traps, two hundred, thirty-nine,
Two hundred, thirty-nine.
REYNARD
[calling]
And so would I!
HANS the Butcher
So please your worships, may it please the Crier,
Now we be here,--to cry the Piping Man--
PETER the Cobbler
A stranger-man, gay-clad,--in divers colors!
Because he, with said piping--
HANS the Butcher
--Drave away
The horde of rats!
PETER the Cobbler
[sagely]
To our great benefit;
And we be all just men.
OTHERS
Ay, ay!--Amen!
WOMEN
Amen, Our Lady and the blessed Saints!
JACOBUS
Why, faith, good souls, if ye will have him cried,
So be it.--But the ways of Heaven are strange!
Mark how our angel of deliverance came,--
Or it may be. Saint Willibald himself,--
Most piedly clothed, even as the vilest player!--
And straight ascended from us, to the clouds!
But cry him, if you will.
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