4th Wrenboy:  They are lovely kind young princes.  I was near in dread they might set the dogs at us.

5th Wrenboy:  They would do that if they knew the Ogre had sent us to spy out the place for him.

1st Wrenboy:  It failed us to see what he wanted us to see.  It is likely he will beat us, when we go back, with his cat-o’-nine-tails.

2nd Wrenboy:  Wouldn’t it be good if we could do as that Jester was saying and change places with those sons of kings!  They that can lie in the sunshine on soft pillows.

3rd Wrenboy:  They that can use food when they ask it, and not have to wait till they can find it, or steal it, or get it what way they can.

3rd Wrenboy:  And not to be waiting till you’ll hear a rabbit squealing, with the teeth of a weasel in his neck.

4th Wrenboy:  And the weasel when you take it to be spitting poison at you, the same as a serpent.

5th Wrenboy:  It would be a nice thing to be eating sweet red apples in place of the green crabs.

1st Wrenboy:  Or to be maybe sucking marrow-bones.

2nd Wrenboy:  It is likely they are as airy and as careless as the blackbird singing on the bush.

3rd Wrenboy:  It’s likely they go following after foxes on horses, having huntsmen and beagles at their feet.

4th Wrenboy:  Or go out sporting and fowling with their greyhound and with their gun.

5th Wrenboy:  Or matching fighting cocks.

1st Wrenboy:  It’s likely they lead a gentleman’s life, card-playing and eating and drinking, and racing with jockeys in speckled clothes.

2nd Wrenboy:  Their brooches were shining like green fire, the same as a marten cat’s eyes.  They have everything finer than another.

3rd Wrenboy:  Their faces as clean as a linen sheet.  Their hair as if combed with a silver comb.

4th Wrenboy:  There is no one to so much as put a clean shirt on ourselves.

5th Wrenboy:  (Rubbing his hand.) I never felt uneasy at the dirt that is grinted into me till I saw them so nice.

1st Wrenboy:  That music they were playing put me in mind of some far thing.  It is dreamed to me, and it is never leaving my mind, that there is something I remember in the long ago ... music in a house that was as bright as the moon, or as the brightest night of stars.

5th Wrenboy:  Whisht!  They are coming!

(The Princes come back.)

1st Prince:  Here are coppers for you.

2nd Prince:  And white money.

3rd Prince:  And here is a piece of gold.

3rd Wrenboy:  We are thankful to you!  We’ll bury the Wren in grand style now!

4th Prince:  Have you far to go?

1st Wrenboy:  Not very far if it was a straight road.  But it is through the forest we go, beyond the lake.