(From the right, Zory enters. He crooks his back, screens his eyes with his hand, and walks feebly.)
Zory— "O dear! my eyes!
Rosa, is the moon up, dear?" Ha, ha! Zory! Zory!
(He takes up the sword from the floor, and using it as a cane, walks unsteadily.)
Zip—Steal into the abbey, will they?
Kilo— No, no.
He's down in the village. At break of day
I saw the blur of his big black gown
In the mountain mists as he made his way.
To-night he will come from the little town.
Then Suk and Gimel—the road runs by
Where some wild vines dangle.
(As though jerking them.) And far below,
The waters gurgle.
Zory— They will? Ho, ho!
Kilo— (Huskily, nodding toward the dwarf.)
The spy of Woden.
Zory—(Dropping his voice.) If that's the plan,
Then the old dame with her gimlet eye
Sees farther than Woden's ravens can.
At dusk I crept over behind the town.
Some boys were up on the mountain side
Running a cow they were driving down,
With puff-balls pelting her brindled hide.
On a slope of heather I knew a sink
Where a brown backed bunny was wont to squat,
To warm his fur in the sun and wink
At the shadows darkening a cabbage plot.
Says I: "Now Zory will have some fun.
He'll start the hare for the village boys
And hear them hollo and see them run."
With barking of dogs and a hue and a cry
They will soon be off, and, flying the noise,
Wat will go bobbing across the down.
I'm off for the heather when lo, I hear,
Behind the sallows that fringe the foss,
A sneeze and a sigh and then, "O dear!"
Some women are trying to get across.
I hide in the dock. The dames pass by
With baskets of bennet. I hear one say:
"With our dear Lord hanging upon the tree,
And oh, such a beautiful, beautiful cross
No one ever saw, so the people say
Who have peered in the window. And think, la me!
In another day and another day
My every prayer will have been fulfilled.
May the Virgin spare us." The other sighs
And, scanning the shadowy mountain side:
"I fear he will never complete it, Clotilde.
He climbs that dreadful mountain at night.
Can you see him now? Oh, I fear, I fear
Those awful rocks where the devils hide!
It seems so dark. Rosa, is the moon up, dear?"
To see the old dame as she—
(Mimicing with the sword for a cane.) daddled on
With her skirt in her hand, through the dewy grass,
Her little whisket of herbs on her arm
To keep off the devils, and mumbling a mass
And snuffling and moaning and sighing, "O dear!
It's a wicked world."
(He laughs till he falls to the floor where he continues to laugh. Kilo steals to the fire and is about to snap a coal toward Zory when Suk rushes in right.)
Suk—Granny! O Granny!