[Voices in the tent. A tumult.
Seize the rascal! Lay on! lay on!
PEASANT'S VOICE
Help! – mercy – help!
OTHERS
Peace! peace! begone!
FIRST YAGER
Deuce take me, but yonder the swords are out!
SECOND YAGER
Then I must be off, and see what 'tis about.
[Yagers enter the tent.
SUTLER-WOMAN (comes forward)
A scandalous villain! – a scurvy thief!
TRUMPETER
Good hostess, the cause of this clamorous grief?
SUTLER-WOMAN
A cut-purse! a scoundrel! the-villain I call.
That the like in my tent should ever befall!
I'm disgraced and undone with the officers all.
SERGEANT
Well, coz, what is it?
SUTLER-WOMAN
Why, what should it be?
But a peasant they've taken just now with me —
A rogue with false dice, to favor his play.
TRUMPETER
See I they're bringing the boor and his son this way.
SCENE X
Soldiers dragging in the peasant, bound.
FIRST YAGER
He must hang!
SHARPSHOOTERS and DRAGOONS
To the provost, come on!
SERGEANT
'Tis the latest order that forth has gone.
SUTLER-WOMAN
In an hour I hope to behold him swinging!
SERGEANT
Bad work bad wages will needs be bringing.
FIRST ARQUEBUSIER (to the others)
This comes of their desperation. We
First ruin them out and out, d'ye see;
Which tempts them to steal, as it seems to me.
TRUMPETER
How now! the rascal's cause would you plead?
The cur! the devil is in you indeed!
FIRST ARQUEBUSIER
The boor is a man – as a body may say.
FIRST YAGER (to the Trumpeter)
Let 'em go! they're of Tiefenbach's corps, the railers,
A glorious train of glovers and tailors!
At Brieg, in garrison, long they lay;
What should they know about camps, I pray?
SCENE XI
The above. – Cuirassiers.