_Taig: (Sitting down.)_ Go call her to me.

_Nurse_: Who is it I will call her for?

_Taig_: For myself. You know who I am.

_Nurse_: My grief that I do not!

_Taig_: I am the King of Sorcha.

_Nurse_: If you say that lie again there will blisters rise up on your face.

_Taig_: Take care what you are saying, you hag!

_Nurse_: I know well what I am saying. I have good judgment between the n.o.ble and the mean blood of the world.

_Taig_: The Kings of Sorcha have high, n.o.ble blood.

_Nurse_: If they have, there is not so much of it in you as would redden a rib of scutch-gra.s.s.

_Taig_: You are crazed with folly and age.

_Nurse_: No, but I have my wits good enough.

You ought to be as slippery as a living eel, I'll get satisfaction on you yet! I'll show out who you are!

_Taig_: Who am I so?

_Nurse_: That is what I have to get knowledge of, if I must ask it at the mouth of cold h.e.l.l!

_Taig_: Do your best! I dare you!

_Nurse_: I will save my darling from you as sure as there's rocks on the strand! A girl that refused sons of the kings of the world!

_Taig_: And I will drag your darling from you as sure as there's foxes in Oughtmana!

_Nurse_: Oughtmana ...Is that now your living place?

_Taig_: It is not.... I told you I came from the far-off kingdom of Sorcha. Look at my cloak that has on it the sign of the risen sun!

_Nurse_: Cloaks and suits and fringes. You have a great deal of talk of them.... Have you e'er a needle around you, or a shears?

_Taig: (His hand goes to breast of coat, but he withdraws it quickly.)_ Here ...no ...What are you talking about? I know nothing at all of such things.

_Nurse_: In my opinion you do. Hearken now.

I know where is the real King of Sorcha!

_Taig_: Bring him before me now till I'll down him!

_Nurse_: Say that the time you will come face to face with him! Well, I'm under bonds to tell out nothing about him, but I have liberty to make known all I will find out about yourself.

_Taig_: Hurry on so. Little I care when once I'm wed with the King's daughter!

_Nurse_: That will never be!

_Taig_: The Queen is befriending me and in dread of losing me. I will threaten her if there is any delay I'll go look for another girl of a wife.

_Nurse_: I will make no delay. I'll have my story and my testimony before the white dawn of the morrow.

_Taig_: Do so and welcome! Before the yellow light of this evening I'll be the King's son-in-law!

Bring your news, then, and little thanks you'll get for it! The King and Queen must keep up my name then for their own credit's sake. _(Makes a face at her as King comes in with Dall Glic, and servants with cushions. Nurse goes out, shaking her fist.) (Rises.)_ I was just asking to see you, King, to say there is a hurry on me....

_King: (Sitting down on window seat while Servant arranges cushions about him.)_ Keep your business a while. It's a poor thing to be going through business the very minute the dinner is ended.

_Taig_: I wouldn't but that it is pressing.

_King_: Go now to the Queen, in her parlour, and be chatting and whistling to the birds. I give you my word since I rose up from the table I am going here and there, up and down, craving and striving to find a place where I'll get leave to lay my head on the cushions for one little minute.

_(Taig goes reluctantly.)_

_Dall Glic: (Taking cushions from servants.)_ Let you go now and leave the King to his rest.

_(They go out.)_

_King_: I don't know in the world why anyone would consent to be a king, and never to be left to himself, but to be worried and wearied and interfered with from dark to daybreak and from morning to the fall of night.

_Dall Glic_: I will be going out now. I have but one word only to say....

_King_: Let it be a short word! I would be better pleased to hear the sound of breezes in the sycamores, and the humming of bees in the hive and the crooning and sleepy sounds of the sea!

_Dall Glic_: There is one thing only could cause me to annoy you.

_King_: It should be a queer big thing that wouldn't wait till I have my rest taken.

_Dall Glic_: So it is a big matter, and a weighty one.

_King_: Not to be left in quiet and all I am after using! Food that was easy to eat! Drink that was easy to drink! That's the dinner that _was_ a dinner. That cook now is a wonder!

_Dall Glic_: That is now the very one I am wishful to speak about.

_King_: I give you my word, I'd sooner have one goose dressed by him than seven dressed by any other one!

_Dall Glic_: The Queen that was urging me for to put my mind to make out some way to get quit of him.

_King_: Isn't it a hard thing the very minute I find a lad can dress a dinner to my liking, I must be made an attack on to get quit of him?

_Dall Glic_: It is on the head of the Princess Nu.

_King_: Tell me this, Dall Glic. Supposing, now, he was ...in spite of me ...to wed with her ...against my will ...and it might be unknownst to me.

_Dall Glic_: Such a thing must not happen.