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ar? PEER
- He's there still, for aught I know;-
[Snaps his fingers, turns on his heel, and adds:]
- catch him, and you're welcome to him!
ASE
- And your neck you haven't broken?
- Haven't broken both your thighs?
- and your backbone, too, is whole?
- Oh, dear Lord-what thanks, what praise,
- should be thine who helped my boy!
- There's a rent, though, in your breeches;
- but it's scarce worth talking of
- when one thinks what dreadful things
- might have come of such a leap-!
[Stops suddenly, looks at him open-mouthed and wide-eyed; cannot find words for some time, but at last bursts out:]
- Oh, you devil's story-teller,
- Cross of Christ, how you can lie!
- All this screed you foist upon me,
- I remember now, I knew it
- when I was a girl of twenty.
- Gudbrand Glesne it befell,
- never you, you-
PEER
- Me as well.
- Such a thing can happen twice.
ASE [exasperated].
- Yes, a lie, turned topsy-turvy,
- can be prinked and tinselled out,
- decked in plumage new and fine,
