ing
up and down. A slater is seen upon the highest part of the roof.--
All is bustle and activity.

TASKMASTER, MASON, WORKMEN, and LABORERS.

TASKMASTER (with a stick, urging on the workmen).
Up, up! You've rested long enough. To work!
The stones here, now the mortar, and the lime!
And let his lordship see the work advanced
When next he comes. These fellows crawl like snails!

[To two laborers with loads.

What! call ye that a load? Go, double it.
Is this the way ye earn your wages, laggards?

FIRST WORKMAN.
'Tis very hard that we must bear the stones,
To make a keep and dungeon for ourselves!

TASKMASTER.
What's that you mutter? 'Tis a worthless race,
And fit for nothing but to milk their cows,
And saunter idly up and down the mountains.

OLD MAN (sinks down exhausted).
I can no more.

TASKMASTER (shaking him).
Up, up, old man, to work!

FIRST WORKMAN.
Have you no bowels of compassion, thus
To press so hard upon a poor old man,
That scarce can drag his feeble limbs along?

MASTER MASON and WORKMEN.
Shame, shame upon you--shame! It cries to heaven!

TASKMASTER.
Mind your own business. I but do my duty.

FIRST WORKMAN.
Pray, master, what's to be the name of this
Same castle when 'tis built?

TASKMASTER.
The keep of Uri;
For by it we shall keep you in subjection.

WORKMEN.
The keep of Uri.

TASKMASTER.
Well, why laugh at that?

SECOND WORKMAN.
So you'll keep Uri with this paltry place!

FIRST WORKMAN.
How many molehills such as that must first
Be piled above each other ere you make
A mountain equal to the least in Uri?

[TASKMASTER retires up the stage.

MASTER MASON.
I'll drown the mallet in the deepest lake,
That served my hand on this accursed pile.

[Enter TELL and STAUFFACHER.

STAUFFACHER.
Oh, that I had not lived to see this sight!

TELL.
Here 'tis not good to be. Let us proceed.

STAUFFACHER.
Am I in Uri, in the land of freedom?

MASTER MASON.
Oh, sir, if you could only see the vaults
Beneath these towers. The man that tenants them
Will never hear the cock crow more.

STAUFFACHER.
O God!

MASTER MASON.
Look at these ramparts and these buttresses,
That seem as they were built to last forever.

TELL.
Hands can destroy whatever hands have reared.

[Pointing to the mountains.

That house of freedom God hath built for us.

[A drum is heard. People enter bearing a cap upon a
pol