290
THE PHANTOM: A DRAMA.
Enter Servant.
PROVOST.
Thou wear'st a curious grin: what is the matter?
SERVANT.
The country hucksters and the market wives
Have quarrell'd, and are now at deadly strife,
With all the brats and schoolboys of the town
Shouting and bawling round them.
PROVOST.
Good sooth! whenever those wives with hands and tongue
Join in the fray, the matter must be look'd to. I will be with them soon.
[Exit Servant.
To think now of those creatures!
Ev'n at the time when death is in the city
Doing his awful work, and our sad streets
Blacken'd with funerals, that they must quarrel
About their worldly fractions! Woe is me!
For all our preachings and our Sabbath worship,
We are, I fear, but an ungodly race.
Enter another Servant.
