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ASE
- Oh, hold your tongue!
- You're as mad as mad can be.-
- Ah, and yet it's true enough,-
- something might have come of you,
- had you not been steeped for ever
- in your lies and trash and moonshine.
- Hegstad's girl was fond of you.
- Easily you could have won her
- had you wooed her with a will-
PEER
- Could I?
ASE
- The old man's too feeble
- not to give his child her way.
- He is stiff-necked in a fashion
- but at last 'tis Ingrid rules;
- and where she leads, step by step,
- stumps the gaffer, grumbling, after.
- [Begins to cry again.]
- Ah, my Peer!-a golden girl-
- land entailed on her! just think,
- had you set your mind upon it,
- you'd be now a bridegroom brave,-
- you that stand here grimed and tattered!
PEER [briskly].
- Come, we'll go a-wooing, then!
ASE
- Where?
PEER
- At Hegs