Three Wonder Plays | Page 6

You are not. The King of Alban's daughter has hair as smooth as if a cow had licked it.
_(Princess goes_.)
_Gatekeeper_: Here is the Prince of the Marshes!
_(Enter Prince, very young and timid, an old lady on each side slightly in advance of him_.)
_King_: A great welcome before you.... And who may these be?
_Prince_: Seven aunts I have....
_First Aunt: (Interrupting.)_ If he has, there are but two of us have come along with him.
_Second Aunt_: For to care him and be company for him on his journey, it being the first time he ever quitted home.
_Queen_: This is a great honour. Will you take a chair?
_First Aunt_: Leave that for the Prince of the Marshes. It is away from the draught of the window.
_Second Aunt_: We ourselves are in charge of his health. I have here his eel-skin boots for the days that will be wet under foot.
_First Aunt_: And I have here my little bag of cures, with a cure in it that would rise the body out of the grave as whole and as sound as the time you were born.
_(Lays it down_.)
_King: (To Prince_.) It is many a day your father and myself were together in our early time. What way is he? He was farther out in age than myself.
_Prince_: He is ...
_First Aunt: (Interrupting_.) He is only middling these last years. The doctors have taken him in hand.
_King_: He was more for fowling, and I was more for horses--before I increased so much in girth. Is it for horses you are, Prince?
_Prince_: I didn't go up on one up to this.
_First Aunt_: Kings and princes are getting scarce. They are the most class is wearing away, and it is right for them keep in mind their safety.
_Second Aunt_: The Prince has no need to go upon a horse, where he has always a coach at his command.
_King_: It is fowling that suits you so?
_Prince_: I would be well pleased ...
_First Aunt_: There is great danger going out fowling with a gun that might turn on you after and take your life.
_Second Aunt_: Why would the Prince go into danger, having servants that will go following after birds?
_Queen_: He is likely waiting till his enemies will make an attack upon the country to defend it.
_First Aunt_: There is a good dyke around about the marshes, and a sort of quaking bog. It is not likely war will come till such time as it will be made by the birds of the air.
_King_: Well, we must strive to knock out some sport or some pleasure.
_Prince_: It was not on pleasure I was sent.
_First Aunt_: That's so, but on business.
_Second Aunt_: Very weighty business.
_King_: Let the lad tell it out himself.
_Prince_: I hope there is no harm in me coming hither. I would be loth to push on you ...
_First Aunt_: We thought it was right, as he was come to sensible years ...
_King_: Stop a minute, ma'am, give him his time.
_Prince_: My father ... and his counsellors ... and my seven aunts ...that said it would be right for me to join with a wife.
_Queen_: They showed good sense in that.
_Prince: (Rapidly.)_ They bade me come and take a look at your young lady of a Princess to see would she be likely to be pleasing to them.
_First Aunt_: That's it, and that is what brought ourselves along with him--to see would we be satisfied.
_King_: I don't know. The girl is young--she's young.
_First Aunt_: It is what we were saying, that might be no drawback. It might be easier train her in our own ways, and to do everything that is right.
_King_: Sure we are all wishful to do the thing that is right, but it's sometimes hard to know.
_Second Aunt_: Not in our place. What the King of the Marshes would not know, his counsellors and ourselves would know.
_Queen_: It will be very answerable to the Princess to be under such good guidance.
_First Aunt_: For low people and for middling people it is well enough to follow their own opinion and their will. But for the Prince's wife to have any choice or any will of her own, the people would not believe her to be a real princess.
_(Princess comes to door, listening unseen.)_
_King_: Ah, you must not be too strict with a girl that has life in her.
_Prince_: My seven aunts that were saying they have a great distrust of any person that is lively.
_First Aunt_: We would rather than the greatest beauty in the world get him a wife who would be content to stop in her home.
_(Princess comes in very stately and with a_ _fine dress. She curtseys. Aunts curtsey and sit down again. Prince bows uneasily and sidles away.)_
_First Aunt_: Will you sit, now, between the two of us?
_Princess_: It is more fitting