brought on by an illness, run quickly and fetch some doctors. (Exit
Eric.) Oh, my lord, pray drive such thoughts from your head. His
lordship will otherwise strike fear into the whole household. Does
not my lord know me?

JEPPE. I don't even know myself, so how should I know you?

VALET. Is it possible that I should hear such words from my gracious
lord's mouth and see him in such a plight! Alas, our unlucky house,
to be plagued with an evil spell! Does not my lord remember what he
did yesterday, when he went out hunting?

JEPPE. I have never done any hunting or poaching, for I know that's
a thing that will get a man hard labor; no living soul can prove
that I ever hunted as much as a hare in my lord's woods.

VALET. Why, my gracious lord, I was out hunting with you myself
yesterday.

JEPPE. Yesterday I was at Jacob Shoemaker's, and I drank twelve
pennyworth of brandy, so how could I have been hunting?

VALET. Oh, I beg his gracious lordship on my bare knees to stop
talking such nonsense. Eric! have the doctors been sent for?

ERIC. Yes, they are coming immediately.

VALET. Then let us put on his lordship's dressing-gown, for perhaps
he might feel better if we took him out into the open air. Will my
lord be so good as to put on his dressing-gown?