King. We pay more. We give out bit by bit from our own souls for our lives' nakedest necessities, and pay for each mouthful with a shred of joy--if indeed there be joy in clinging like a pitiable miser to one's last vacant remnants of hopeless hope.
Hans Lorbass. If it be not happiness it is life.
King. What a life!
Hans Lorbass. Our wants are over now. I wager if I climbed up to the top of the hill, I should find not one but three ships to take us to Gotland.
King. Cook us our supper first.
Hans Lorbass. Good, good! [During the foregoing he has been fetching cooking utensils, partly from the sack and partly from the outer wall of the tower, where they lie among tree-stumps, etc.]
King. I shall come soon enough to Gotland, and soon enough shall see that refuge whence I once bore to save them those most daring wishes of my powerless youth.
Hans Lorbass. Until a heron came.
King. Hans, be still!
Hans Lorbass. How can I, here in this place, where the sea and churchyard, yes, even the sea-wind itself, that strips the boughs with knife-like tongue, all vie with each other to tell us of that day when an old doting witch-wife with her cursed chatter, betrayed thee from thy confident path, to pause and play the hero?