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"Fair Mistress Dorothy"
by
(He faints. She binds up his ankle.)
Enter Lord Carey with two soldiers.
~Carey.~ Arrest this traitor! (Roger is led away by the soldiers.)
~Dorothy~ (stretching out her hands to him). Roger! (She sinks into a chair.)
~Carey~ (choosing quite the wrong moment for a proposal). Dorothy, I love you! Think no more of this traitor, for he will surely hang. ‘Tis your father’s wish that you and I should wed.
~Dorothy~ (refusing him). Go, lest I call in the grooms to whip you.
~Carey.~ By heaven—- (Thinking better of it.) I go to fetch your father.
(Exit.)
Enter Roger by secret door L.
~Dorothy.~ Roger! You have escaped.
~Roger.~ Knowest not the secret passage from the wine cellar, where we so often played as children? ‘Twas in that same cellar the thick-skulled knaves immured me.
~Dorothy.~ Roger, you must fly! Wilt wear a cloak of mine to elude our enemies?
~Roger~ (missing the point rather). Nay, if I die, let me die like a man, not like a puling girl. Yet, sweetheart—-
Enter Lord Carey by ordinary door.
~Carey~ (forgetting himself in his confusion). Odds my zounds, dod sink me! What murrain is this?
~Roger~ (seizing Sir Thomas’s sword, which had been accidentally left behind on the table, as I ought to have said before, and advancing threateningly). It means, my lord, that a villain’s time has come. Wilt say a prayer?
(They fight, and Carey is disarmed before they can hurt each other.)
~Carey~ (dying game). Strike, Master Dale!
~Roger.~ Nay, I cannot kill in cold blood.
(He throws down his sword. Lord Carey exhibits considerable emotion at this, and decides to turn over an entirely new leaf.)
[Enter two soldiers.]
~Carey.~ Arrest that man! (Roger is seized again.) Mistress Dorothy, it is for you to say what shall be done with the prisoner.
~Dorothy~ (standing up if she was sitting down, and sitting down if she was standing up). Ah, give him to me, my lord!
~Carey~ (joining the hands of Roger and Dorothy). I trust to you, sweet mistress, to see that the prisoner does not escape again.
(Dorothy and Roger embrace each other, if they can do it without causing a scandal in the neighbourhood, and the curtain goes down.)