Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ACT III SCENE I Sunday Morning [Groups of men and women outside the Village Church. The bells ringing merrily.] Crone. Mercy on us ! What a clang and a clatter they do make! Up and down, down and up, and never a taking of breath. They seem to think no one has anything to say but themselves. Ist Matron. The Blessed Mother must be honoured, grannie, even if it does spoil talk a bit; and how better than by the tongues of all the belfry ? 2D Matron. Santa Klaus I Look at Elspeth! Bib and tucker, kirtle and stockings, complete. One might think she was the Rosiere. Ist Matron. And why not? I lay she's as clean as any of them, as clean even as Eve herself, if not quite so winsome. Crone. Aye, there it is! The world always veered that way, ever since I was in it. There's no such best as good looks. Your plain wench is never much, one way or t'other: too uncomely to be surmised crooked, too unheeded to have a wreath clapped on her head for perfection. Well, well, when one's old, one can go one's own way, and none heed. Ist Matron. But Eve is very good. 20 Matron. Who's to tell? I suppose Father Gabriel knows; but the Confessional is as mum as the mountains, thank God. Crone. Aye, aye; that dark box knows a thing or two the quickest don't guess. Saint Mary help us! Our feet are not always as prim as our faces. 'Twas a frisky world, when I was green; and maybe 'tis so still! Love and naughtiness are always in their teens. Ist Peasant. Have the Englishmen gone ? Guide. Yes, before the mist curled. Nothing stops those people. When they want to climb, they take the weather for a lackey, and fancy it will turnall ways to please them. Because the sun shines here, they think it will follow at their heels like a beggar, till they give it something, or tell it ...