Page:A Series of Plays on the Passions Volume 3.pdf/282

250

Bar. Anything you please but stun us with such frantic clamour. Get off to your laundries and your store-rooms, and your dressing closets, and don't encrease the confusion here.

( Maids, clamouring and wringing their hands.)

Liv. You are rough with those poor creatures; they are very much frightened.

Bar. Not half so frightened as those who make less noise. They think it necessary to raise an out-cry, because they are women, and it is expected from them. I have been long enough duped in this way; I have no patience with it now.—But I must go to the walls and try to be of use. (going.)

(Voice without.) Succour! succour!

Liv. Ha! there is a welcome cry.

Succour did they say?

Jean. Yes, my lady: a band of men come to relieve us; and their leader is charging the enemy so furiously sword in hand!—the Chevalier, they said, fought like a devil; but he fights like forty devils. We have been looking down upon them by torch-light from the walls; and their swords flash, and their plumes nod, and their eyes glare in the light so gallantly, I could almost sally out myself and take about with them.

Bar. (to Jean.) Aye, Minx; thou'rt forward enough to do any thing.