Eastward Ho!

1 [To Quicksilver]And whither with you now? What loose action are you bound for? Come, what comrades are you to meet withal? Where’s the supper? Where’s the rendezvous?

2Indeed, and in very good sober truth, sir –

3‘Indeed, and in very good sober truth, sir’! Behind my back thou wilt swear faster than a French footboy and talk more bawdily than a common midwife, and now ‘indeed, and in very good sober truth, sir’! But if a privy search should be made, with what furniture are you rigged now? Sirrah, I tell thee I am thy master, William Touchstone, goldsmith, and thou my prentice, Francis Quicksilver, and I will see whither you are running. Work upon that now!

4Why, sir, I hope a man may use his recreation with his master’s profit.

5Prentices’ recreations are seldom with their masters’ profit. Work upon that now! You shall give up your cloak, though you be no alderman. (Touchstone uncloaks Quicksilver.)Heyday, Ruffians’ Hall! Sword, pumps, here’s a racket indeed.

6Work upon that now!

7Thou shameless varlet, dost thou jest at thy lawful master contrary to thy indentures?

8Why, ’sblood, sir, my mother’s a gentlewoman and my father a Justice of Peace and of Quorum, and though I am a younger brother and a prentice, yet I hope I am my father’s son; and by God’s lid, ’tis for your worship and for your commodity that I keep company. I am entertained among gallants, true. They call me cousin Frank, right. I lend them moneys, good. They spend it, well. But when they are spent, must not they strive to get more? Must not their land fly? And to whom? Shall not Your Worship ha’ the refusal? Well, I am a good member of the city if I were well considered. How would merchants thrive, if gentlemen would not be unthrifts? How could gentlemen be unthrifts if their humours were not fed? How should their humours be fed but by white meat and cunning secondings? Well, the city might consider us. I am going to an ordinary now: the gallants fall to play; I carry light gold with me; the gallants call, ‘Cousin Frank, some gold for silver!’; I change, gain by it; the gallants lose the gold and then call ‘Cousin Frank, lend me some silver.’ Why –

9Why? I cannot tell. Seven score pound art thou out in the cash, but look to it, I will not be gallanted out of my moneys. And as for my rising by other men’s fall, God shield me! Did I gain my wealth by ordinaries? No. By exchanging of gold? No. By keeping of gallants company? No. I hired me a little shop, fought low, took small gain, kept no debt book, garnished my shop, for want of plate, with good wholesome thrifty sentences, as ‘Touchstone, keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee’; ‘Light gains makes heavy purses’; ‘’Tis good to be merry and wise.’ And when I was wived, having something to stick to, I had the horn of suretyship ever before my eyes. You all know the device of the horn, where the young fellow slips in at the butt end and comes squeezed out at the buccal. And I grew up, and, I praise Providence, I bear my brows now as high as the best of my neighbours. But thou – well, look to the accounts; your father’s bond lies for you; seven score pound is yet in the rear.

10Why, ’slid, sir, I have as good, as proper, gallants’ words for it as any are in London, gentlemen of good phrase, perfect language, passingly behaved, gallants that wear socks and clean linen and call me ‘kind cousin Frank’, ‘good cousin Frank’, for they know my father. And by God’s lid, shall not I trust ’em? Not trust?

11What do ye lack, sir? What is’t you’ll buy, sir?

12Ay, marry, sir, there’s a youth of another piece. There’s thy fellow prentice, as good a gentleman born as thou art, nay, and better meaned. But does he pump it or racket it? Well, if he thrive not, if he outlast not a hundred such crackling bavins as thou art, God and men neglect industry.

13 (To the Page)It is his shop, and here my master walks.

14With me, boy?

15My master, Sir Petronel Flash, recommends his love to you and will instantly visit you.

16To make up the match with my eldest daughter, my wife’s dilling, whom she longs to call madam. He shall find me unwillingly ready, boy. Exit Page. There’s another affliction, too. As I have two prentices, the one of a boundless prodigality, the other of a most hopeful industry, so have I only two daughters, the eldest of a proud ambition and nice wantonness, the other of a modest humility and comely soberness. The one must be ladified, forsooth, and be attired just to the court cut and long tail. So far is she ill-natured to the place and means of my preferment and fortune that she throws all the contempt and despite hatred itself can cast upon it. Well, a piece of land she has, ’twas her grandmother’s gift: let her, and her Sir Petronel, flash out that. But as for my substance, she that scorns me as I am a citizen and tradesman shall never pamper her pride with my industry, shall never use me as men do foxes: keep themselves warm in the skin and throw the body that bare it to the dunghill. I must go entertain this Sir Petronel. [To Golding]Golding, my utmost care’s for thee, and only trust in thee. Look to the shop. [To Quicksilver]As for you, Master Quicksilver, think of husks, for thy course is running directly to the prodigal’s hogs’ trough. Husks, sirrah! Work upon that now.

17Marry faugh, goodman flat cap! ’Sfoot, though I am a prentice I can give arms, and my father’s a justice o’ peace by descent, and ’sblood –

18Fie, how you swear!

19’Sfoot, man, I am a gentleman, and may swear by my pedigree, God’s my life. Sirrah Golding, wilt be ruled by a fool? Turn good fellow, turn swaggering gallant, and ‘let the welkin roar, and Erebus also’. Look not westward to the fall of Don Phoebus, but to the east – eastward ho!

We are both gentlemen, and therefore should be no coxcombs. Let’s be no longer fools to this flat cap Touchstone. Eastward, bully! This satin-belly and canvas-backed Touchstone – ’slife, man, his father was a maltman and his mother sold gingerbread in Christ Church.

20What would ye ha’ me do?

21Why, do nothing; be like a gentleman, be idle. The curse of man is labour. Wipe thy bum with testons and make ducks and drakes with shillings. What, eastward ho! Wilt thou cry, ‘What is’t ye lack?’, stand with a bare pate and a dropping nose under a wooden penthouse, and art a gentleman? Wilt thou bear tankards and mayst bear arms? Be ruled, turn gallant, eastward ho! [He sings.]‘Ta lirra, lirra, ro.’ [He declaims.]‘Who calls Jeronimo? Speak, here I am.’ God’s so, how like a sheep thou look’st! O’my conscience, some cowherd begot thee. Thou Golding of Golding Hall, ha, boy?

22Go, ye are a prodigal coxcomb. I a cowherd’s son because I turn not a drunken whore-hunting rakehell like thyself?

23Rakehell? Rakehell?

24Pish! In soft terms ye are a cowardly bragging boy. I’ll ha’ you whipped.

25Whipped? That’s good, i’faith. Untruss me?

26No, thou wilt undo thyself. Alas, I behold thee with pity, not with anger. Thou common shot-clog, gull of all companies, methinks I see thee already walking in Moorfields without a cloak, with half a hat, without a band, a doublet with three buttons, without a girdle, a hose with one point and no garter, with a cudgel under thine arm, borrowing and begging threepence.

27Nay, ’slife, take this and take all. As I am a gentleman born, I’ll be drunk, grow valiant, and beat thee.

28Go, thou most madly vain, whom nothing can recover but that which reclaims atheists and makes great persons sometimes religious: calamity. As for my place and life, thus I have read:

1For the passion of patience, look if Sir Petronel approach, that sweet, that fine, that delicate, that – for love’s sake tell me if he come. Oh, sister Mil, though my father be a low-capped tradesman, yet I must be a lady, and, I praise God, my mother must call me medam. Does he come? Off with this gown, for shame’s sake, off with this gown! Let not my knight take me in the city cut in any hand. Tear’t, pax on’t! Does he come? Tear’t off.

2Lord, sister, with what an immodest impatiency and disgraceful scorn do you put off your city tire! I am sorry to think you imagine to right yourself in wronging that which hath made both you and us.

3I tell you I cannot endure it. I must be a lady. Do you wear your coif with a London licket, your stammel petticoat with two guards, the buffin gown with the tuftaffety cape and the velvet lace. I must be a lady, and I will be a lady. I like some humours of the city dames well: to eat cherries only at an angel a pound, good; to dye rich scarlet black, pretty; to line a grogram gown clean through with velvet, tolerable. Their pure linen, their smocks of three pound a smock are to be borne withal. But your mincing niceries, taffeta pipkins, durance petticoats, and silver bodkins – God’s my life, as I shall be a lady I cannot endure it. Is he come yet? Lord, what a long knight ’tis!

and yet I knew one longer –

4Well, sister, those that scorn their nest oft fly with a sick wing.

5Bow-bell!

6Where titles presume to thrust before fit means to second them, wealth and respect often grow sullen and will not follow. For sure, in this I would for your sake I spake not truth. ‘Where ambition of place goes before fitness of birth, contempt and disgrace follow.’ I heard a scholar once say that Ulysses, when he counterfeited himself mad, yoked cats and foxes and dogs together to draw his plough, whilst he followed and sowed salt. But sure I judge them truly mad that yoke citizens and courtiers, tradesmen and soldiers, a goldsmith’s daughter and a knight. Well, sister, pray God my father sow not salt too.

7Alas, poor Mil! When I am a lady I’ll pray for thee yet, i’faith. Nay, and I’ll vouchsafe to call thee sister Mil still, for though thou art not like to be a lady as I am, yet sure thou art a creature of God’s making, and mayst peradventure to be saved as soon as I. – Does he come? –

Now lady’s my comfort, what a profane ape’s here! Tailor, Poldavis, prithee fit it, fit it! Is this a right Scot? Does it clip close and bear up round?

8Fine and stiffly, i’faith. ’Twill keep your thighs so cool and make your waist so small! Here was a fault in your body, but I have supplied the defect with the effect of my steel instrument, which, though it have but one eye, can see to rectify the imperfection of the proportion.

9Most edifying tailor! I protest, you tailors are most sanctified members and make many crooked things go upright. How must I bear my hands? Light? Light?

10Oh, ay, now you are in the lady fashion you must do all things light. Tread light, light. Ay, and fall so; that’s the court amble.

11Has the court ne’er a trot?

12No, but a false gallop, lady.

14The knight’s come, forsooth.

15Is my knight come? Oh, the lord, my band! Sister, do my cheeks look well? Give me a little box o’the ear that I may seem to blush. Now, now! So, there, there, there! Here he is. O my dearest delight! Lord, lord, and how does my knight?

16Fie, with more modesty!

17Modesty! Why, I am no citizen now. Modesty! Am I not to be married? You’re best to keep me modest now I am to be a lady.

18Boldness is good fashion, and court-like.

19Ay, in a country lady I hope it is, as I shall be. And how chance ye came no sooner, knight?

20Faith, I was so entertained in the progress with one Count Epernoum, a Welsh knight. We had a match at balloon, too, with my Lord Whachum, for four crowns.

21At baboon? Jesu! You and I will play at baboon in the country, knight.

22Oh, sweet lady, ’tis a strong play with the arm.

23With arm, or leg, or any other member, if it be a court sport. And when shall ’s be married, my knight?

24I come now to consummate it, an your father may call a poor knight son-in-law.

25Sir, ye are come. What is not mine to keep I must not be sorry to forego. A hundred pound land her grandmother left her, ’tis yours. Herself (as her mother’s gift) is yours. But if you expect aught from me, know, my hand and mine eyes open together; I do not give blindly. Work upon that now.

26Sir, you mistrust not my means? I am a knight.

27Sir, sir, what I know not, you will give me leave to say I am ignorant of.

28Yes, that he is a knight! I know where he had money to pay the gentlemen ushers and heralds their fees. Ay, that he is a knight, and so might you have been, too, if you had been aught else than an ass, as well as some of your neighbours. An I thought you would not ha’ been knighted, as I am an honest woman I would ha’ dubbed you myself. I praise God I have wherewithal. But as for you, daughter –

29Ay, mother. I must be a lady tomorrow, and by your leave, mother – I speak it not without my duty, but only in the right of my husband – I must take place of you, mother.

30That you shall, lady-daughter, and have a coach as well as I, too.

31Yes, mother. But by your leave, mother – I speak it not without my duty, but only in my husband’s right – my coach horses must take the wall of your coach horses.

32Come, come, the day grows low, ’tis supper time. Use my house; the wedding solemnity is at my wife’s cost. Thank me for nothing but my willing blessing, for – I cannot feign – my hopes are faint. And sir, respect my daughter; she has refused for you wealthy and honest matches, known good men, well monied, better traded, best reputed.

33Body o’truth, chitizens, chitizens! Sweet knight, as soon as ever we are married, take me to thy mercy out of this miserable chitty; presently carry me out of the scent of Newcastle coal and the hearing of Bow-bell. I beseech thee, down with me, for God’s sake!

34Well, daughter, I have read that old wit sings:

Work upon that now! (All but Touchstone, Mildred, and Golding depart.) No, no; yond stand my hopes. – Mildred, come hither, daughter. And how approve you your sister’s fashion? How do you fancy her choice? What dost thou think?

35I hope, as a sister, well.

36Nay, but, nay, but, how dost thou like her behaviour and humour? Speak freely.

37I am loath to speak ill, and yet – I am sorry of this – I cannot speak well.

38Well, very good. As I would wish, a modest answer. – Golding, come hither; hither, Golding. [Golding comes forward.] How dost thou like the knight, Sir Flash? Does he not look big? How lik’st thou the elephant? He says he has a castle in the country.

39Pray heaven the elephant carry not his castle on his back.

40’Fore heaven, very well! But seriously, how dost repute him?

41The best I can say of him is, I know him not.

42Ha, Golding! I commend thee, I approve thee, and will make it appear my affection is strong to thee. My wife has her humour, and I will ha’ mine. Dost thou see my daughter here? She is not fair, well-favoured, or so – indifferent – which modest measure of beauty shall not make it thy only work to watch her, nor sufficient mischance to suspect her. Thou art towardly, she is modest; thou art provident, she is careful. She’s now mine. Give me thy hand; she’s now thine. Work upon that now!

43Sir, as your son I honour you, and as your servant obey you.

44Sayest thou so? – Come hither, Mildred. Do you see yond fellow? He is a gentleman, though my prentice, and has somewhat to take to; a youth of good hope, well friended, well parted. Are you mine? You are his. Work you upon that now!

45Sir, I am all yours. Your body gave me life, your care and love happiness of life. Let your virtue still direct it, for to your wisdom I wholly dispose myself.

46Say’st thou so? Be you two better acquainted. Lip her, lip her, knave! [Golding kisses Mildred.] So, shut up shop; in. We must make holiday.

1Quicksilver! Master Francis Quicksilver! Master Quicksilver!

2Here, sir. (Ump!)

3So, sir. Nothing but flat Master Quicksilver, without any familiar addition, will fetch you. Will you truss my points, sir?

4Ay, forsooth. (Ump!)

5How now, sir? The drunken hiccup so soon this morning?

6’Tis but the coldness of my stomach, forsooth.

7What? Have you the cause natural for it? You’re a very learned drunkard; I believe I shall miss some of my silver spoons with your learning. The nuptial night will not moisten your throat sufficiently, but the morning likewise must rain her dews into your gluttonous weasand.

8An’t please you, sir, we did but drink (ump!) to the coming off of the knightly bridegroom.

9To the coming off o’him?

10Ay, forsooth. We drunk to his coming on (ump!) when we went to bed, and now we are up we must drink to his coming off. For that’s the chief honour of a soldier, sir, and therefore we must drink so much the more to it, forsooth. (Ump!)

11A very capital reason. So that you go to bed late and rise early to commit drunkenness? You fulfil the scripture very sufficient wickedly, forsooth.

12The knight’s men, forsooth, be still o’their knees at it, (ump!) and because ’tis for your credit, sir, I would be loath to flinch.

13I pray, sir, e’en to ’em again then. You’re one of the separated crew, one of my wife’s faction, and my young lady’s, with whom and with their great match I will have nothing to do.

14So, sir. Now I will go keep my (ump!) credit with ’em, an’t please you, sir.

15In any case, sir, lay one cup of sack more o’your cold stomach, I beseech you.

16Yes, forsooth.

17This is for my credit! Servants ever maintain drunkenness in their master’s house ‘for their master’s credit’; a good idle servingman’s reason. I thank Time the night is past; I ne’er waked to such cost. I think we have stowed more sorts of flesh in our bellies than ever Noah’s ark received. And for wine, why, my house turns giddy with it, and more noise in it than at a conduit. Ay me, even beasts condemn our gluttony. Well, ’tis our city’s fault, which, because we commit seldom, we commit the more sinfully. We lose no time in our sensuality, but we make amends for it. Oh, that we would do so in virtue and religious negligences! (Enter GOLDING and MILDRED, [opening the shop and] sitting on either side of the stall.) But see, here are all the sober parcels my house can show. I’ll eavesdrop, hear what thoughts they utter this morning.

18 [To Mildred]But is it possible that you, seeing your sister preferred to the bed of a knight, should contain your affections in the arms of a prentice?

19I had rather make up the garment of my affections in some of the same piece than like a fool wear gowns of two colours or mix sackcloth with satin.

20And do the costly garments – the title and fame of a lady, the fashion, observation, and reverence proper to such preferment – no more inflame you than such convenience as my poor means and industry can offer to your virtues?

21I have observed that the bridle given to those violent flatteries of fortune is seldom recovered. They bear one headlong in desire from one novelty to another, and where those ranging appetites reign, there is ever more passion than reason; no stay, and so no happiness. These hasty advancements are not natural. Nature hath given us legs to go to our objects, not wings to fly to them.

22How dear an object you are to my desires I cannot express, whose fruition, would my master’s absolute consent and yours vouchsafe me, I should be absolutely happy. And though it were a grace so far beyond my merit that I should blush with unworthiness to receive it, yet thus far both my love and my means shall assure your requital: you shall want nothing fit for your birth and education; what increase of wealth and advancement the honest and orderly industry and skill of our trade will afford in any, I doubt not will be aspired by me; I will ever make your contentment the end of my endeavours; I will love you above all; and only your grief shall be my misery, and your delight, my felicity.

23[Aside]Work upon that now! By my hopes, he woos honestly and orderly; he shall be anchor of my hopes. Look, see the ill-yoked monster, his fellow.

24Eastward ho! ‘Holla, ye pampered jades of Asia!’

25[Aside]Drunk now downright, o’my fidelity!

26(Ump!) Pulldo, pulldo! ‘Showse’, quoth the caliver.

27Fie, fellow Quicksilver, what a pickle are you in?

28Pickle? Pickle in thy throat! Zounds, pickle? Wa ha ho! Good morrow, Knight Petronel; ’morrow, lady goldsmith. Come off, knight, with a counterbuff, for the honour of knighthood.

29Why, how now, sir? Do ye know where you are?

30Where I am? Why, ’sblood, you jolthead, where I am?

31Go to, go to! For shame, go to bed and sleep out this immodesty; thou sham’st both my master and his house.

32Shame? What shame? I thought thou wouldst show thy bringing up. An thou wert a gentleman as I am, thou wouldst think it no shame to be drunk. Lend me some money, save my credit; I must dine with the servingmen and their wives – and their wives, sirrah!

33E’en who you will. I’ll not lend thee threepence.

34’Sfoot, lend me some money. ‘Hast thou not Hiren here?’

35 [Coming forward]Why, how now, sirrah? What vein’s this, hah?

36‘Who cries on murder? Lady, was it you?’ How does our master? Pray thee, cry, ‘Eastward ho!’

37Sirrah, sirrah, you’re past your hiccup now; I see you’re drunk.

38’Tis for your credit, master.

39And hear you keep a whore in town.

40’Tis for your credit, master.

41And what you are out in cash, I know.

42So do I. My father’s a gentleman; work upon that now! Eastward ho!

43Sir, ‘Eastward, ho!’ will make you go ‘Westward, ho!’ I will no longer dishonest my house nor endanger my stock with your licence. There, sir, there’s your indenture. [He hands him a document.]All your apparel – that I must know – is on your back, and from this time my door is shut to you. From me be free, but for other freedom and the moneys you have wasted, ‘Eastward ho!’ shall not serve you.

44Am I free o’my fetters? Rent, fly with a duck in thy mouth! And now I tell thee, Touchstone –

45Good sir.

47Well said. Change your gold ends for your play ends.

49What then, sir?

51Good master Don Andrea, will you march?

52Sweet Touchstone, will you lend me two shillings?

53Not a penny.

54Not a penny? I have friends, and I have acquaintance. I will piss at thy shop posts and throw rotten eggs at thy sign. Work upon that now!

55 [To Golding]Now, sirrah, you! Hear you! You shall serve me no more neither, not an hour longer.

56What mean you, sir?

57I mean to give thee thy freedom, and with thy freedom my daughter, and with my daughter a father’s love. And with all these such a portion as shall make Knight Petronel himself envy thee. You’re both agreed, are ye not?

58 [Kneeling]With all submission, both of thanks and duty.

59 [Raising them]Well, then, the great power of heaven bless and confirm you! And, Golding, that my love to thee may not show less than my wife’s love to my eldest daughter, thy marriage feast shall equal the knight’s and hers.

60Let me beseech you, no, sir. The superfluity and cold meat left at their nuptials will with bounty furnish ours. The grossest prodigality is superfluous cost of the belly. Nor would I wish any invitement of states or friends; only your reverend presence and witness shall sufficiently grace and confirm us.

61Son to mine own bosom, take her and my blessing! The nice fondling, my lady sir-reverence, that I must not now presume to call daughter, is so ravished with desire to hansel her new coach and see her knight’s eastward castle that the next morning will sweat with her busy setting forth. Away will she and her mother, and while their preparation is making, ourselves, with some two or three other friends, will consummate the humble match we have in God’s name concluded.

1My privy guest, lusty Quicksilver, has drunk too deep of the bridebowl, but with a little sleep he is much recovered and I think is making himself ready to be drunk in a gallanter likeness. My house is, as ’twere, the cave where the young outlaw hoards the stolen vails of his occupation; and here, when he will revel it in his prodigal similitude, he retires to his trunks and – I may say softly – his punks. He dares trust me with the keeping of both, for I am security itself; my name is Security, the famous usurer.

2Come, old Security, thou father of destruction. Th’indented sheepskin is burned wherein I was wrapped, and I am now loose to get more children of perdition into thy usurous bonds. Thou feed’st my lechery, and I thy covetousness; thou art pandar to me for my wench, and I to thee for thy cozenages. ‘Ka me, ka thee’, runs through court and country.

3Well said, my subtle Quicksilver. These K’s ope the doors to all this world’s felicity; the dullest forehead sees it. Let not master courtier think he carries all the knavery on his shoulders. I have known poor Hob in the country, that has worn hobnails on’s shoes, have as much villainy in’s head as he that wears gold buttons in’s cap.

4Why, man, ’tis the London highway to thrift; if virtue be used, ’tis but as a scrap to the net of villainy. They that use it simply, thrive simply, I warrant. Weight and fashion makes goldsmiths cuckolds.

5Here, sir, put off the other half of your prenticeship.

[To Security]But Dad, hast thou seen my running gelding dressed today?

7That I have, Frank. The ostler o’the Cock dressed him for a breakfast.

8What, did he eat him?

9No, but he eat his breakfast for dressing him, and so dressed him for breakfast.

10Oh, witty age, where age is young in wit, And all youth’s words have greybeards full of it!

11But, alas, Frank, how will all this be maintained now? Your place maintained it before.

12Why, and I maintained my place. I’ll to the court – another manner of place for maintenance, I hope, than the silly city. I heard my father say, I heard my mother sing, an old song and a true: ‘Thou art a she fool, and know’st not what belongs to our male wisdom.’ I shall be a merchant, forsooth! Trust my estate in a wooden trough as he does? What are these ships but tennis balls for the winds to play withal? Tossed from one wave to another, now under line, now over the house; sometimes brick-walled against a rock, so that the guts fly out again; sometimes struck under the wide hazard, and farewell Master Merchant.

13Well, Frank, well, the seas, you say, are uncertain. But he that sails in your court seas shall find ’em ten times fuller of hazard, wherein to see what is to be seen is torment more than a free spirit can endure. But when you come to suffer, how many injuries swallow you? What care and devotion must you use to humour an imperious lord? Proportion your looks to his looks, smiles to his smiles? Fit your sails to the wind of his breath?

14Tush, he’s no journeyman in his craft that cannot do that.

15But he’s worse than a prentice that does it, not only humouring the lord, but every trencher-bearer, every groom, that by indulgence and intelligence crept into his favour and by pandarism into his chamber. He rules the roost, and when my honourable lord says, ‘It shall be thus’, my worshipful rascal, the groom of his close-stool, says, ‘It shall not be thus’, claps the door after him, and who dares enter? A prentice, quoth you? ’Tis but to learn to live, and does that disgrace a man? He that rises hardly stands firmly; but he that rises with ease, alas, falls as easily.

16A pox on you, who taught you this morality?

17’Tis ’long of this witty age, Master Francis. But indeed, Mistress Sindefy, all trades complain of inconvenience, and therefore ’tis best to have none. The merchant, he complains and says, ‘Traffic is subject to much uncertainty and loss.’ Let ’em keep their goods on dry land, with a vengeance, and not expose other men’s substances to the mercy of the winds, under protection of a wooden wall, as Master Francis says, and all for greedy desire to enrich themselves with unconscionable gain, two for one, or so; where I, and such other honest men as live by lending money, are content with moderate profit – thirty or forty i’th’hundred, so we may have it with quietness and out of peril of wind and weather, rather than run those dangerous courses of trading, as they do.

18Ay, Dad, thou mayst well be called Security, for thou takest the safest course.

19Faith, the quieter, and the more contented, and, out of doubt, the more godly. For merchants in their courses are never pleased, but ever repining against heaven. One prays for a westerly wind to carry his ship forth; another for an easterly to bring his ship home; and at every shaking of a leaf he falls into an agony to think what danger his ship is in on such a coast, and so forth. The farmer, he is ever at odds with the weather. Sometimes the clouds have been too barren; sometimes the heavens forget themselves, their harvests answer not their hopes; sometimes the season falls out too fruitful, corn will bear no price, and so forth. Th’artificer, he’s all for a stirring world; if his trade be too dull and fall short of his expectation, then falls he out of joint. Where we that trade nothing but money are free from all this. We are pleased with all weathers: let it rain or hold up, be calm or windy, let the season be whatsoever, let trade go how it will, we take all in good part, e’en what please the heavens to send us, so the sun stand not still and the moon keep her usual returns and make up days, months, and years.

20And you have good security?

21Ay, marry, Frank, that’s the special point.

22And yet, forsooth, we must have trades to live withal, for we cannot stand without legs nor fly without wings, and a number of such scurvy phrases. No, I say still, he that has wit, let him live by his wit; he that has none, let him be a tradesman.

23Witty Master Francis! ’Tis pity any trade should dull that quick brain of yours. Do but bring Knight Petronel into my parchment toils once, and you shall never need to toil in any trade, o’my credit. You know his wife’s land?

24Even to a foot, sir, I have been often there. A pretty fine seat, good land, all entire within itself.

25Well wooded?

26Two hundred pounds’ worth of wood ready to fell, and a fine sweet house that stands just in the midst on’t, like a prick in the midst of a circle. Would I were your farmer, for a hundred pound a year!

27Excellent Master Francis, how I do long to do thee good! How I do hunger and thirst to have the honour to enrich thee! Ay, even to die, that thou mightest inherit my living. Even hunger and thirst! For o’my religion, Master Francis – and so tell Knight Petronel – I do it to do him a pleasure.

28Marry, Dad, his horses are now coming up to bear down his lady. Wilt thou lend him thy stable to set ’em in?

29Faith, Master Francis, I would be loath to lend my stable out of doors. In a greater matter I will pleasure him, but not in this.

30[Aside]A pox of your ‘hunger and thirst’! – Well, Dad, let him have money. All he could any way get is bestowed on a ship now bound for Virginia, the frame of which voyage is so closely conveyed that his new lady nor any of her friends know it. Notwithstanding, as soon as his lady’s hand is gotten to the sale of her inheritance, and you have furnished him with money, he will instantly hoist sail and away.

31Now, a frank gale of wind go with him, Master Frank! We have too few such knight adventurers. Who would not sell away competent certainties to purchase, with any danger, excellent uncertainties? Your true knight venturer ever does it. Let his wife seal today; he shall have his money today.

32Tomorrow she shall, Dad, before she goes into the country; to work her to which action with the more engines, I purpose presently to prefer my sweet Sin here to the place of her gentlewoman; whom you, for the more credit, shall present as your friend’s daughter, a gentlewoman of the country, new come up with a will for a while to learn fashions, forsooth, and be toward some lady; and she shall buzz pretty devices into her lady’s ear, feeding her humours so serviceably – as the manner of such as she is you know –

33True, good Master Francis.

34That she shall keep her port open to anything she commends to her.

35O’my religion, a most fashionable project. As good she spoil the lady as the lady spoil her, for ’tis three to one of one side. Sweet Mistress Sin, how are you bound to Master Francis! I do not doubt to see you shortly wed one of the head men of our city.

36But sweet Frank, when shall my father Security present me?

37With all festination. I have broken the ice to it already, and will presently to the knight’s house, whither, my good old Dad, let me pray thee with all formality to man her.

38Command me, Master Francis; I do hunger and thirst to do thee service. – Come, sweet Mistress Sin, take leave of my Winifred, and we will instantly meet frank Master Francis at your lady’s.

39Where is my Cu there? Cu?

40Ay, Winnie.

41Wilt thou come in, sweet Cu?

42Ay, Winnie, presently.

43‘Ay, Winnie’, quod he? That’s all he can do, poor man; he may well cut off her name at Winnie. Oh, ’tis an egregious pandar! What will not an usurous knave be, so he may be rich? Oh, ’tis a notable Jew’s trump! I hope to live to see dog’s meat made of the old usurer’s flesh, dice of his bones and indentures of his skin; and yet his skin is too thick to make parchment, ’twould make good boots for a peterman to catch salmon in. Your only smooth skin to make fine vellum is your puritan’s skin; they be the smoothest and slickest knaves in a country.

1I’ll out of this wicked town as fast as my horse can trot. Here’s now no good action for a man to spend his time in. Taverns grow dead; ordinaries are blown up; plays are at a stand; houses of hospitality at a fall; not a feather waving nor a spur jingling anywhere. I’ll away instantly.

2You’d best take some crowns in your purse, knight, or else your eastward castle will smoke but miserably.

3Oh, Frank! My castle? Alas, all the castles I have are built with air, thou know’st.

4I know it, knight, and therefore wonder whither your lady is going.

5Faith, to seek her fortune, I think. I said I had a castle and land eastward, and eastward she will without contradiction; her coach and the coach of the sun must meet full butt. And the sun being outshined with Her Ladyship’s glory, she fears he goes westward to hang himself.

6And I fear, when her enchanted castle becomes invisible, Her Ladyship will return and follow his example.

7Oh, that she would have the grace, for I shall never be able to pacify her when she sees herself deceived so.

8As easily as can be. Tell her she mistook your directions, and that shortly yourself will down with her to approve it. And then, clothe but her crupper in a new gown and you may drive her any way you list. For these women, sir, are like Essex calves: you must wriggle ’em on by the tail still, or they will never drive orderly.

9But alas, sweet Frank, thou know’st my ability will not furnish her blood with those costly humours.

10Cast that cost on me, sir; I have spoken to my old pandar, Security, for money or commodity, and commodity, if you will, I know he will procure you.

11Commodity! Alas, what commodity?

12Why, sir, what say you to figs and raisins?

13A plague of figs and raisins and all such frail commodities! We shall make nothing of ’em.

14Why, then, sir, what say you to forty pound in roasted beef?

15Out upon’t, I have less stomach to that than to the figs and raisins. I’ll out of town, though I sojourn with a friend of mine, for stay here I must not; my creditors have laid to arrest me, and I have no friend under heaven but my sword to bail me.

16God’s me, knight, put ’em in sufficient sureties rather than let your sword bail you. Let ’em take their choice, either the King’s Bench or the Fleet, or which of the two Counters they like best, for, by the Lord, I like none of ’em.

17Well, Frank, there is no jesting with my earnest necessity; thou know’st if I make not present money to further my voyage begun, all’s lost, and all I have laid out about it.

18Why, then, sir, in earnest: if you can get your wise lady to set her hand to the sale of her inheritance, the bloodhound Security will smell out ready money for you instantly.

19There spake an angel! To bring her to which conformity, I must feign myself extremely amorous, and, alleging urgent excuses for my stay behind, part with her as passionately as she would from her foisting hound.

20You have the sow by the right ear, sir. I warrant there was never child longed more to ride a cockhorse or wear his new coat than she longs to ride in her new coach. She would long for everything when she was a maid, and now she will run mad for ’em. I lay my life she will have every year four children; and what charge and change of humour you must endure while she is with child, and how she will tie you to your tackling till she be with child, a dog would not endure. Nay, there is no turnspit dog bound to his wheel more servilely than you shall be to her wheel. For as that dog can never climb the top of his wheel but when the top comes under him, so shall you never climb the top of her contentment but when she is under you.

21’Slight, how thou terrifiest me!

22Nay, hark you, sir. What nurses, what midwives, what fools, what physicians, what cunning women must be sought for – fearing sometimes she is bewitched, sometimes in a consumption – to tell her tales, to talk bawdy to her, to make her laugh, to give her glisters, to let her blood under the tongue and betwixt the toes; how she will revile and kiss you, spit in your face and lick it off again; how she will vaunt you are her creature, she made you of nothing; how she could have had thousand mark jointures; she could have been made a lady by a Scotch knight and never ha’ married him; she could have had panadas in her bed every morning; how she set you up, and how she will pull you down – you’ll never be able to stand of your legs to endure it.

23Out of my fortune, what a death is my life bound face-to-face to! The best is, a large, time-fitted conscience is bound to nothing. Marriage is but a form in the school of policy, to which scholars sit fastened only with painted chains. Old Security’s young wife is ne’er the further off with me.

24Thereby lies a tale, sir. The old usurer will be here instantly with my punk Sindefy, whom you know your lady has promised me to entertain for her gentlewoman, and he – with a purpose to feed on you – invites you most solemnly by me to supper.

25It falls out excellently fitly. I see desire of gain makes jealousy venturous. (Enter GERTRUDE. ) See, Frank, here comes my lady. Lord, how she views thee! She knows thee not, I think, in this bravery.

26How now? Who be you, I pray?

27One Master Francis Quicksilver, an’t please Your Ladyship.

28[Aside]God’s my dignity! As I am a lady, if he did not make me blush so that mine eyes stood a-water! Would I were unmarried again. [Aloud]Where’s my woman, I pray?

29See, madam, she now comes to attend you.

30God save my honourable knight and his worshipful lady!

31You’re very welcome. You must not put on your hat yet.

32No, madam, till I know Your Ladyship’s further pleasure I will not presume.

33And is this a gentleman’s daughter new come out of the country?

34She is, madam, and one that her father hath a special care to bestow in some honourable lady’s service, to put her out of her honest humours, forsooth, for she had a great desire to be a nun, an’t please you.

35A nun? What nun? A nun substantive or a nun adjective?

36A nun substantive, madam, I hope, if a nun be a noun. But I mean, lady, a vowed maid of that order.

37I’ll teach her to be a maid of the order, I warrant you. [To Sindefy]And can you do any work belongs to a lady’s chamber?

38What I cannot do, madam, I would be glad to learn.

39Well said. Hold up, then; hold up your head, I say. Come hither a little.

40I thank Your Ladyship.

41And hark you – [To Security]Good man, you may put on your hat now, I do not look on you – I must have you of my faction now, not of my knight’s, maid.

42No, forsooth, madam, of yours.

43And draw all my servants in my bow, and keep my counsel, and tell me tales, and put me riddles, and read on a book sometimes when I am busy, and laugh at country gentlewomen, and command anything in the house for my retainers, and care not what you spend, for it is all mine; and in any case be still a maid, whatsoever you do, or whatsoever any man can do unto you.

44I warrant Your Ladyship for that.

45Very well. You shall ride in my coach with me into the country tomorrow morning. – Come, knight, pray thee let’s make a short supper, and to bed presently.

46Nay, good madam, this night I have a short supper at home waits on His Worship’s acceptation.

47By my faith, but he shall not go, sir; I shall swoon an he sup from me.

48Pray thee, forbear. Shall he lose his provision?

49Ay, by’r Lady, sir, rather than I lose my longing. Come in, I say. As I am a lady, you shall not go!

50[Aside to Security]I told him what a bur he had gotten.

51If you will not sup from your knight, madam, let me entreat Your Ladyship to sup at my house with him.

52No, by my faith, sir, then we cannot be abed soon enough after supper.

53What a medicine is this! Well, Master Security, you are new married as well as I; I hope you are bound as well. We must honour our young wives, you know.

54[Aside to Security]In policy, Dad, till tomorrow she has sealed.

55I hope in the morning yet your knighthood will breakfast with me?

56As early as you will, sir.

57Thank Your good Worship; I do hunger and thirst to do you good, sir.

58Come, sweet knight, come. I do hunger and thirst to be abed with thee.

1Thanks for our feastlike breakfast, good Master Security. I am sorry, by reason of my instant haste to so long a voyage as Virginia, I am without means by any kind amends to show how affectionately I take your kindness, and to confirm by some worthy ceremony a perpetual league of friendship betwixt us.

2Excellent knight, let this be a token betwixt us of inviolable friendship. I am new married to this fair gentlewoman, you know, and, by my hope to make her fruitful, though I be something in years, I vow faithfully unto you to make you godfather, though in your absence, to the first child I am blest withal. And henceforth call me gossip, I beseech you, if you please to accept it.

3In the highest degree of gratitude, my most worthy gossip. For confirmation of which friendly title, let me entreat my fair gossip, your wife here, to accept this diamond and keep it as my gift to her first child, wheresoever my fortune in event of my voyage shall bestow me.

4How now, my coy wedlock, make you strange of so noble a favour? Take it, I charge you, with all affection, and, by way of taking your leave, present boldly your lips to our honourable gossip.

5[Aside]How vent’rous he is to him, and how jealous to others!

6 [Kissing Winifred]Long may this kind touch of our lips print in our hearts all the forms of affection! – And now, my good gossip, if the writings be ready to which my wife should seal, let them be brought this morning before she takes coach into the country, and my kindness shall work her to dispatch it.

7The writings are ready, sir. My learned counsel here, Master Bramble the lawyer, hath perused them, and within this hour I will bring the scrivener with them to your worshipful lady.

8Good Master Bramble, I will here take my leave of you, then. God send you fortunate pleas, sir, and contentious clients!

9And you foreright winds, sir, and a fortunate voyage!

10Sir Petronel, here are three or four gentlemen desire to speak with you.

11What are they?

12They are your followers in this voyage, knight, Captain Seagull and his associates. I met them this morning and told them you would be here.

13 [To the Messenger]Let them enter, I pray you. [Exit Messenger.]I know they long to be gone, for their stay is dangerous.

14God save my honourable Colonel!

15Welcome, good Captain Seagull, and worthy gentlemen! If you will meet my friend Frank here, and me, at the Blue Anchor Tavern by Billingsgate this evening, we will there drink to our happy voyage, be merry, and take boat to our ship with all expedition.

16Defer it no longer, I beseech you, sir; but as your voyage is hitherto carried closely and in another knight’s name, so for your own safety and ours let it be continued, our meeting and speedy purpose of departing known to as few as is possible , lest your ship and goods be attached.

17Well advised, Captain. Our colonel shall have money this morning to dispatch all our departures. Bring those gentlemen at night to the place appointed, and with our skins full of vintage we’ll take occasion by the vantage, and away.

18We will not fail but be there, sir.

19Good morrow, good Captain, and my worthy associates. [To Winifred]Health and all sovereignty to my beautiful gossip! [To Security]For you, sir, we shall see you presently with the writings.

20With writings and crowns to my honourable gossip. I do hunger and thirst to do you good, sir! Exeunt.

1Here’s a stir when citizens ride out of town, indeed, as if all the house were afire! ’Slight, they will not give a man leave to eat ’s breakfast afore he rises.

2What, Coachman! My lady’s coach, for shame! Her Ladyship’s ready to come down.

3’Sfoot, Hamlet, are you mad? Whither run you now? You should brush up my old mistress!

4What, Potkin! You must put off your tankard and put on your blue coat and wait upon Mistress Touchstone into the country.

5I will, forsooth, presently.

6Come, sweet Mistress Gazer, let’s watch here and see my Lady Flash take coach.

7O’my word, here’s a most fine place to stand in. Did you see the new ship launched last day, Mistress Fond?

8Oh, God, and we citizens should lose such a sight!

9I warrant, here will be double as many people to see her take coach as there were to see it take water.

10Oh, she’s married to a most fine castle i’th’country, they say.

11But there are no giants in the castle, are there?

12Oh, no, they say her knight killed ’em all, and therefore he was knighted.

13Would to God Her Ladyship would come away!

14She comes, she comes, she comes!

15Pray heaven bless Your Ladyship!

16Thank you, good people. My coach, for the love of heaven, my coach! In good truth, I shall swoon else.

17Coach, coach, my lady’s coach! Exit.

18As I am a lady, I think I am with child already, I long for a coach so. May one be with child afore they are married, mother?

19Ay, by’r lady, madam, a little thing does that. I have seen a little prick no bigger than a pin’s head swell bigger and bigger till it has come to an ancome, and e’en so ’tis in these cases.

20Your coach is coming, madam.

21That’s well said. Now, heaven! Methinks I am e’en up to the knees in preferment.

22But must this young man, an’t please you, madam, run by your coach all the way afoot?

23Ay, by my faith, I warrant him. He gives no other milk, as I have another servant does.

24Alas! ’Tis e’en pity, methinks. For God’s sake, madam, buy him but a hobby-horse; let the poor youth have something betwixt his legs to ease ’em. Alas, we must do as we would be done to.

25Go to, hold your peace, dame. You talk like an old fool, I tell you.

26Wilt thou be gone, sweet honeysuckle, before I can go with thee?

27I pray thee, sweet knight, let me; I do so long to dress up thy castle afore thou com’st. But I mar’l how my modest sister occupies herself this morning, that she cannot wait on me to my coach as well as her mother.

28Marry, madam, she’s married by this time to prentice Golding. Your father, and someone more, stole to church with ’em in all the haste, that the cold meat left at your wedding might serve to furnish their nuptial table.

29There’s no base fellow, my father, now, but he’s e’en fit to father such a daughter. He must call me daughter no more now, but ‘madam’, and ‘please you, madam’, and ‘please Your Worship, madam’, indeed. Out upon him! Marry his daughter to a base prentice!

30What should one do? Is there no law for one that marries a woman’s daughter against her will? How shall we punish him, madam?

31As I am a lady, an’t would snow, we’d so pebble ’em with snowballs as they come from church! But sirrah, Frank Quicksilver –

32Ay, madam.

33Dost remember since thou and I clapped what-d’ye-call’ts in the garret?

34I know not what you mean, madam.

36[Aside]Was there ever such a lady?

37See, madam, the bride and bridegroom!

38God’s my precious! God give you joy, Mistress What-lack-you! Now out upon thee, baggage, my sister married in a taffeta hat? Marry, hang you! Westward with a wanion t’ye! Nay, I have done wi’ye, minion, then, i’faith; never look to have my count’nance any more, nor anything I can do for thee. Thou ride in my coach? Or come down to my castle? Fie upon thee! I charge thee in My Ladyship’s name, call me sister no more.

39An’t please Your Worship, this is not your sister. This is my daughter, and she calls me father, and so does not Your Ladyship, an’t please Your Worship, madam.

40No, nor she must not call thee father by heraldry, because thou mak’st thy prentice thy son as well as she. [To Golding]Ah, thou misproud prentice, dar’st thou presume to marry a lady’s sister?

41It pleased my master, forsooth, to embolden me with his favour. And though I confess myself far unworthy so worthy a wife (being in part her servant, as I am your prentice) yet (since I may say it without boasting) I am born a gentleman, and by the trade I have learned of my master (which I trust taints not my blood) able with mine own industry and portion to maintain your daughter, my hope is, heaven will so bless our humble beginning that in the end I shall be no disgrace to the grace with which my master hath bound me his double prentice.

42‘Master’ me no more, son, if thou think’st me worthy to be thy father.

43‘Son’! Now, good lord, how he shines, an you mark him! He’s a gentleman!

44Ay, indeed, madam, a gentleman born.

45Never stand o’your gentry, master bridegroom. If your legs be no better than your arms, you’ll be able to stand upon neither shortly.

46An’t please Your good Worship, sir, there are two sorts of gentlemen.

47What mean you, sir?

48Bold to put off my hat to Your Worship –

49Nay, pray forbear, sir, and then forth with your two sorts of gentlemen.

50If Your Worship will have it so, I say there are two sorts of gentlemen. There is a gentleman artificial, and a gentleman natural. Now, though Your Worship be a gentleman natural – Work upon that, now!

51Well said, old Touchstone; I am proud to hear thee enter a set speech, i’faith. Forth, I beseech thee.

52Cry you mercy, sir, Your Worship’s a gentleman I do not know. If you be one of my acquaintance you’re very much disguised, sir.

53Go to, old quipper! Forth with thy speech, I say.

54What, sir, my speeches were ever in vain to Your gracious Worship, and therefore till I speak to you gallantry indeed I will save my breath for my broth anon. – Come, my poor son and daughter, let us hide ourselves in our poor humility and live safe. Ambition consumes itself with the very show. Work upon that now!

55Let him go, let him go, for God’s sake. Let him make his prentice his son, for God’s sake; give away his daughter, for God’s sake; and when they come a-begging to us, for God’s sake, let’s laugh at their good husbandry, for God’s sake! Farewell, sweet knight; pray thee make haste after.

56What shall I say? I would not have thee go.

This ditty, knight, do I see in thy looks in capital letters.

Tell truth, knight, and shame all dissembling lovers: does not your pain lie on that side?

58If it do, canst thou tell me how I may cure it?

59Excellent easily: divide yourself in two halves, just by the girdlestead; send one half with your lady, and keep the tother yourself. Or else do as all true lovers do: part with your heart and leave your body behind. I have seen’t done a hundred times. ’Tis as easy a matter for a lover to part without a heart from his sweetheart, and he ne’er the worse, as for a mouse to get from a trap and leave his tail behind him. See, here comes the writings.

60Good morrow to My worshipful Lady! I present Your Ladyship with this writing, to which if you please to set your hand, with your knight’s, a velvet gown shall attend your journey, o’my credit.

61What writing is it, knight?

62The sale, sweetheart, of the poor tenement I told thee of, only to make a little money to send thee down furniture for my castle, to which my hand shall lead thee.

63Very well. Now give me your pen, I pray.

64[Aside]It goes down without chewing, i’faith.

65Your Worships deliver this as your deed?

66We do.

67So now, knight, farewell till I see thee.

68All farewell to my sweetheart!

69God b’ye, son knight.

70Farewell, my good mother.

71Farewell, Frank. I would fain take thee down if I could.

72I thank Your good Ladyship. Farewell, Mistress Sindefy.

73Oh, tedious voyage, whereof there is no end! What will they think of me?

74Think what they list. They longed for a vagary into the country, and now they are fitted. So a woman marry to ride in a coach, she cares not if she ride to her ruin. ’Tis the great end of many of their marriages. This is not the first time a lady has rid a false journey in her coach, I hope.

75Nay, ’tis no matter; I care little what they think. He that weighs men’s thoughts has his hands full of nothing. A man in the course of this world should be like a surgeon’s instrument: work in the wounds of others and feel nothing himself. The sharper and subtler, the better.

76As it falls out now, knight, you shall not need to devise excuses or endure her outcries when she returns; we shall now be gone before where they cannot reach us.

77 [To Security]Well, my kind compeer, you have now th’assurance we both can make you. Let me now entreat you the money we agreed on may be brought to the Blue Anchor near to Billingsgate by six o’clock, where I and my chief friends, bound for this voyage, will with feasts attend you.

78The money, my most honourable compeer, shall without fail observe your appointed hour.

112Ay, by th’Mass, your word! That’s a proper staff

1Come, Drawer, pierce your neatest hogsheads, and let’s have cheer not fit for your Billingsgate tavern but for our Virginian colonel; he will be here instantly.

2You shall have all things fit, sir. Please you have any more wine?

3More wine, slave? Whether we drink it or no, spill it, and draw more.

4Fill all the pots in your house with all sorts of liquor, and let ’em wait on us here like soldiers in their pewter coats. And though we do not employ them now, yet we will maintain ’em till we do.

5Said like an honourable captain. You shall have all you can command, sir.

6Come, boys, Virginia longs till we share the rest of her maidenhead.

7Why, is she inhabited already with any English?

8A whole country of English is there, man, bred of those that were left there in ’79. They have married with the Indians and make ’em bring forth as beautiful faces as any we have in England, and therefore the Indians are so in love with ’em that all the treasure they have, they lay at their feet.

9But is there such treasure there, Captain, as I have heard?

10I tell thee, gold is more plentiful there than copper is with us, and for as much red copper as I can bring, I’ll have thrice the weight in gold. Why, man, all their dripping pans and their chamber pots are pure gold; and all the chains with which they chain up their streets are massy gold; all the prisoners they take are fettered in gold. And for rubies and diamonds, they go forth on holidays and gather ’em by the seashore to hang on their children’s coats and stick in their caps, as commonly as our children wear saffron-gilt brooches and groats with holes in ’em.

11And is it a pleasant country withal?

12As ever the sun shined on; temperate and full of all sorts of excellent viands. Wild boar is as common there as our tamest bacon is here, venison as mutton. And then you shall live freely there, without sergeants, or courtiers, or lawyers, or intelligencers; only a few industrious Scots, perhaps, who indeed are dispersed over the face of the whole earth. But as for them, there are no greater friends to Englishmen and England, when they are out on’t, in the world than they are. And for my part, I would a hundred thousand of ’em were there, for we are all one countrymen now, ye know, and we should find ten times more comfort of them there than we do here. Then for your means to advancement there, it is simple and not preposterously mixed: you may be an alderman there and never be scavenger; you may be a nobleman and never be a slave. You may come to preferment enough and never be a pander; to riches and fortune enough and have never the more villainy nor the less wit.

13God’s me! And how far is it thither?

14Some six weeks’ sail, no more, with any indifferent good wind. And if I get to any part of the coast of Africa, I’ll sail thither with any wind. Or when I come to Cape Finisterre, there’s a foreright wind continually wafts us till we come at Virginia. See, our colonel’s come.

15Well met, good Captain Seagull, and my noble gentlemen! Now the sweet hour of our freedom is at hand. Come, Drawer. Fill us some carouses, and prepare us for the mirth that will be occasioned presently. [Drawer pours wine.] [Exit Drawer.] Here will be a pretty wench, gentlemen, that will bear us company all our voyage.

16Whatsoever she be, here’s to her health, noble Colonel, both with cap and knee.

17Thanks, kind Captain Seagull. She’s one I love dearly, and must not be known till we be free from all that know us. And so, gentlemen, here’s to her health!

18Let it come, worthy Colonel! We do hunger and thirst for it.

19Afore heaven, you have hit the phrase of one that her presence will touch from the foot to the forehead, if ye knew it.

20Why, then, we will join his forehead with her health, sir. And Captain Scapethrift, here’s to ’em both.

21See, see, Master Bramble! ’Fore heaven, their voyage cannot but prosper; they are o’their knees for success to it.

22And they pray to God Bacchus.

23God save my brave colonel, with all his tall captains and corporals! See, sir, my worshipful learned counsel, Master Bramble, is come to take his leave of you.

24 [As he and the sailors rise.]Worshipful Master Bramble, how far do you draw us into the sweet briar of your kindness? Come, Captain Seagull, another health to this rare Bramble, that hath never a prick about him.

25I pledge his most smooth disposition, sir. Come, Master Security, bend your supporters and pledge this notorious health here.

26Bend you yours likewise, Master Bramble, for it is you shall pledge me.

27Not so, Master Security; he must not pledge his own health.

28No, Master Captain?

29Why, then, here’s one is fitly come to do him that honour.

30 [To Petronel]Here’s the gentlewoman your cousin, sir, whom with much entreaty I have brought to take her leave of you in a tavern; ashamed whereof, you must pardon her if she put not off her mask.

31Pardon me, sweet cousin. My kind desire to see you before I went made me so importunate to entreat your presence here.

32How now, Master Francis? Have you honoured this presence with a fair gentlewoman?

33Pray, sir, take you no notice of her, for she will not be known to you.

34But my learned counsel, Master Bramble here, I hope may know her.

35No more than you, sir, at this time; his learning must pardon her.

36Well, God pardon her for my part, and I do, I’ll be sworn. And so, Master Francis, here’s to all that are going eastward tonight, towards Cuckold’s Haven; and so to the health of Master Bramble.

37 [Kneeling]I pledge it, sir. Hath it gone round, captains?

38It has, sweet Frank, and the round closes with thee.

39Well, sir, here’s to all eastward and toward cuckolds, and so to famous Cuckold’s Haven so fatally remembered.

40 [To Winifred]Nay, pray thee, coz, weep not. – Gossip Security?

41Ay, my brave gossip?

42A word, I beseech you, sir. [Aside to Security]Our friend, Mistress Bramble here, is so dissolved in tears that she drowns the whole mirth of our meeting. Sweet gossip, take her aside and comfort her.

43[Aside to Winifred]Pity of all true love, Mistress Bramble. What, weep you to enjoy your love? What’s the cause, lady? Is’t because your husband is so near, and your heart earns to have a little abused him? Alas, alas, the offence is too common to be respected. So great a grace hath seldom chanced to so unthankful a woman, to be rid of an old jealous dotard, to enjoy the arms of a loving young knight that, when your prickless Bramble is withered with grief of your loss, will make you flourish afresh in the bed of a lady.

44Sir Petronel, here’s one of your watermen come to tell you it will be flood these three hours, and that ’twill be dangerous going against the tide. For the sky is overcast, and there was a porpoise even now seen at London Bridge, which is always the messenger of tempests, he says.

45A porpoise? What’s that to th’purpose? Charge him, if he love his life, to attend us. Can we not reach Blackwall, where my ship lies, against the tide and in spite of tempests? – Captains and gentlemen, we’ll begin a new ceremony at the beginning of our voyage, which I believe will be followed of all future adventurers.

46What’s that, good Colonel?

47This, Captain Seagull. We’ll have our provided supper brought aboard Sir Francis Drake’s ship, that hath compassed the world, where with full cups and banquets we will do sacrifice for a prosperous voyage. My mind gives me that some good spirits of the waters should haunt the desert ribs of her and be auspicious to all that honour her memory, and will with like orgies enter their voyages.

48Rarely conceited! One health more to this motion, and aboard to perform it. He that will not this night be drunk, may he never be sober!

49Sir Petronel and his honourable captains, in these young services we old servitors may be spared. We only came to take our leaves, and with one health to you all I’ll be bold to do so. Here, neighbour Security, to the health of Sir Petronel and all his captains!

50You must bend then, Master Bramble. [Bramble and Security kneel.] So, now I am for you. I have one corner of my brain, I hope, fit to bear one carouse more. – Here, lady, to you that are encompassed there and are ashamed of our company. [They drink and rise.] Ha, ha, ha! By my troth, my learned counsel Master Bramble, my mind runs so of Cuckold’s Haven tonight that my head runs over with admiration.

51[Aside to Security]But is not that your wife, neighbour?

52[Aside to Bramble]No, by my troth, Master Bramble. Ha, ha, ha! A pox of all Cuckold’s Havens, I say.

53[Aside to Security]O’my faith, her garments are exceeding like your wife’s.

54[Aside to Bramble]Cucullus non facit monachum, my learned counsel; all are not cuckolds that seem so, nor all seem not that are so. Give me your hand, my learned counsel; you and I will sup somewhere else than at Sir Francis Drake’s ship tonight. [To Petronel]Adieu, my noble gossip.

55Good fortune, brave captains; fair skies God send ye!

56Farewell, my hearts, farewell!

57Gossip, laugh no more at Cuckold’s Haven, gossip.

58I have done, I have done, sir. Will you lead, Master Bramble? Ha, ha, ha!

59Captain Seagull, charge a boat.

60A boat, a boat, a boat!

61You’re in a proper taking, indeed, to take a boat, especially at this time of night, and against tide and tempest. They say yet, ‘Drunken men never take harm’; this night will try the truth of that proverb.

1What, Winnie! Wife, I say! Out of doors at this time? Where should I seek the gadfly? Billingsgate, Billingsgate, Billingsgate! She’s gone with the knight, she’s gone with the knight; woe be to thee, Billingsgate. A boat, a boat, a boat, a full hundred marks for a boat!

1All hail, fair haven of married men only! For there are none but married men cuckolds. For my part, I presume not to arrive here but in my master’s behalf, a poor butcher of Eastcheap, who sends me to set up – in honour of Saint Luke – these necessary ensigns of his homage. And up I got this morning, thus early, to get up to the top of this famous tree that is all fruit and no leaves, to advance this crest of my master’s occupation. Up, then! [He climbs the pole.]Heaven and Saint Luke bless me, that I be not blown into the Thames as I climb, with this furious tempest! ’Slight, I think the devil be abroad in likeness of a storm, to rob me of my horns. Hark how he roars! Lord, what a coil the Thames keeps! She bears some unjust burden, I believe, that she kicks and curvets thus to cast it. Heaven bless all honest passengers that are upon her back now! For the bit is out of her mouth, I see, and she will run away with ’em. [He attaches the horns.]So, so, I think I have made it look the right way; it runs against London Bridge, as it were, even full butt. And now, let me discover from this lofty prospect what pranks the rude Thames plays in her desperate lunacy. Oh, me, here’s a boat has been cast away hard by. Alas, alas, see one of her passengers labouring for his life to land at this haven here; pray heaven he may recover it! His next land is even just under me; hold out yet a little, whatsoever thou art, pray, and take a good heart to thee., ’Tis a man; take a man’s heart to thee. Yet a little further; get up o’thy legs, man, now ’tis shallow enough. So, so, so! Alas, he’s down again! Hold thy wind, father. ’Tis a man in a nightcap. So! Now he’s got up again; now he’s past the worst. Yet thanks be to heaven, he comes towards me pretty and strongly.

2Heaven, I beseech thee, how have I offended thee? Where am I cast ashore now, that I may go a righter way home by land? Let me see. Oh, I am scarce able to look about me. Where is there any sea-mark that I am acquainted withal?

3Look up, father. Are you acquainted with this mark?

4What! Landed at Cuckold’s Haven? Hell and damnation! I will run back and drown my self.

5Poor man, how weak he is! The water has washed away his strength.

6Landed at Cuckold’s Haven? If it had not been to die twenty times alive, I should never have scaped death. I will never arise more; I will grovel here and eat dirt till I be choked; I will make the gentle earth do that which the cruel water has denied me.

7Alas, good father, be not so desperate. Rise, man; if you will, I’ll come presently and lead you home.

8Home? Shall I make any know my home that has known me thus abroad? How low shall I crouch away, that no eye may see me? I will creep on the earth while I live and never look heaven in the face more.

9What young planet reigns now, trow, that old men are so foolish? What desperate young swaggerer would have been abroad such a weather as this, upon the water? Ay me, see another remnant of this unfortunate shipwreck, or some other! A woman, i’faith, a woman! Though it be almost at Saint Katherine’s, I discern it to be a woman, for all her body is above the water, and her clothes swim about her most handsomely. Oh, they bear her up most bravely! Has not a woman reason to love the taking up of her clothes the better while she lives, for this? Alas, how busy the rude Thames is about her! A pox o’that wave. It will drown her, i’faith, ’twill drown her. Cry God mercy, she has scaped it! I thank heaven she has scaped it. Oh, how she swims like a mermaid! Some vigilant body look out and save her. That’s well said; just where the priest fell in, there’s one sets down a ladder and goes to take her up. God’s blessing o’thy heart, boy. Now take her up in thy arms and to bed with her. She’s up, she’s up! She’s a beautiful woman, I warrant her; the billows durst not devour her.

10How fare you now, lady?

11Much better, my good friend, than I wish: as one desperate of her fame, now my life is preserved.

12Comfort yourself; that power that preserved you from death can likewise defend you from infamy, howsoever you deserve it. Were not you one that took boat, late this night, with a knight and other gentlemen at Billingsgate?

13Unhappy that I am, I was.

14I am glad it was my good hap to come down thus far after you, to a house of my friend’s here in Saint Katherine’s, since I am now happily made a mean to your rescue from the ruthless tempest; which, when you took boat, was so extreme, and the gentleman that brought you forth so desperate and unsober, that I feared long ere this I should hear of your shipwreck, and therefore (with little other reason) made thus far this way. And this I must tell you, since perhaps you may make use of it: there was left behind you at our tavern, brought by a porter hired by the young gentleman that brought you, a gentlewoman’s gown, hat, stockings, and shoes, which if they be yours, and you please to shift you, taking a hard bed here in this house of my friend, I will presently go fetch you.

15Thanks, my good friend, for your more than good news. The gown, with all things bound with it, are mine; which if you please to fetch as you have promised, I will boldly receive the kind favour you have offered till your return – entreating you, by all the good you have done in preserving me hitherto, to let none take knowledge of what favour you do me, or where such a one as I am bestowed, lest you incur me much more damage in my fame than you have done me pleasure in preserving my life.

16Come in, lady, and shift yourself. Resolve that nothing but your own pleasure shall be used in your discovery.

17Thank you, good friend. The time may come I shall requite you.

18See, see, see! I hold my life, there’s some other a-taking up at Wapping, now! Look, what a sort of people cluster about the gallows there! In good troth, it is so. Oh, me! A fine young gentleman! What, and taken up at the gallows? Heaven grant he be not one day taken down there. O’my life, it is ominous. Well, he is delivered for the time. I see the people have all left him; yet will I keep my prospect awhile, to see if any more have been shipwrecked.

20Zounds, Captain, I tell thee we are cast up o’the coast of France. ’Sfoot, I am not drunk still, I hope! Dost remember where we were last night?

21No, by my troth, knight, not I. But methinks we have been a horrible while upon the water, and in the water.

22Ay me, we are undone for ever! Hast any money about thee?

23Not a penny, by heaven.

24Not a penny betwixt us, and cast ashore in France?

25Faith, I cannot tell that; my brains nor mine eyes are not mine own yet.

26’Sfoot, wilt not believe me? I know’t by th’elevation of the pole, and by the altitude and latitude of the climate. See, here comes a couple of French gentlemen; I knew we were in France. Dost thou think our Englishmen are so frenchified that a man knows not whether he be in France or in England when he sees ’em? What shall we do? We must e’en to ’em and entreat some relief of ’em. Life is sweet, and we have no other means to relieve our lives now but their charities.

27Pray you, do you beg on ’em, then; you can speak French.

28Monsieur, plaît-il d’avoir pitié de nôtre grand infortunes? Je suis un pauvre chevalier d’Angleterre qui a souffri l’infortune de naufrage.

29Un pauvre chevalier d’Angleterre?

30Oui, monsieur, il est trop vrai; mais vous savez bien, nous sommes touts suject à fortune.

31A poor knight of England? A poor knight of Windsor, are you not? Why speak you this broken French, when you’re a whole Englishman? On what coast are you, think you?

32On the coast of France, sir.

33On the coast of Dogs, sir. You’re i’ th’Isle o’Dogs, I tell you. I see you’ve been washed in the Thames here, and I believe ye were drowned in a tavern before, or else you would never have took boat in such a dawning as this was. Farewell, farewell, we will not know you for shaming of you. [To Second Gentleman]I ken the man weel, he’s one of my thirty pound knights.

34No, no, this is he that stole his knighthood o’ the grand day for four pound, giving to a page all the money in’s purse, I wot well.

35Death, Colonel, I knew you were overshot.

36Sure I think now, indeed, Captain Seagull, we were something overshot. (Enter QUICKSILVER.) What, my sweet Frank Quicksilver! Dost thou survive to rejoice me? But what, nobody at thy heels, Frank? Ay me, what is become of poor Mistress Security?

37Faith, gone quite from her name, as she is from her fame, I think; I left her to the mercy of the water.

38Let her go, let her go. Let us go to our ship at Blackwall and shift us.

39Nay, by my troth, let our clothes rot upon us, and let us rot in them. Twenty to one our ship is attached by this time. If we set her not under sail this last tide, I never looked for any other. Woe, woe is me, what shall become of us? The last money we could make the greedy Thames has devoured, and if our ship be attached there is no hope can relieve us.

40’Sfoot, knight, what an unknightly faintness transports thee! Let our ship sink, and all the world that’s without us be taken from us, I hope I have some tricks in this brain of mine shall not let us perish.

41Well said, Frank, i’faith. O my nimble-spirited Quicksilver, ’fore God would thou hadst been our colonel!

42I like his spirit rarely, but I see no means he has to support that spirit.

43Go to, knight, I have more means than thou art aware of. I have not lived amongst goldsmiths and goldmakers all this while but I have learned something worthy of my time with ’em. And, not to let thee stink where thou stand’st, knight, I’ll let thee know some of my skill presently.

44Do, good Frank, I beseech thee.

45I will blanch copper so cunningly that it shall endure all proofs but the test: it shall endure malleation, it shall have the ponderosity of Luna, and the tenacity of Luna, by no means friable.

46’Slight, where learn’st thou these terms, trow?

47Tush, knight, the terms of this art every ignorant quacksalver is perfect in. But I’ll tell you how yourself shall blanch copper thus cunningly. Take arsenic, otherwise called realga, which indeed is plain ratsbane; sublime him three or four times; then take the sublimate of this realga and put him into a glass, into chymia, and let him have a convenient decoction natural, four-and-twenty hours, and he will become perfectly fixed. Then take this fixed powder and project him upon well-purged copper, et habebis magisterium.

48Excellent, Frank, let us hug thee!

49Nay, this I will do besides: I’ll take you off twelvepence from every angel, with a kind of aquafortis, and never deface any part of the image.

50But then it will want weight.

51You shall restore that thus: take your sal achyme prepared, and your distilled urine, and let your angels lie in it but four-and-twenty hours, and they shall have their perfect weight again. Come on, now, I hope this is enough to put some spirit into the livers of you; I’ll infuse more another time. We have saluted the proud air long enough with our bare sconces. Now will I have you to a wench’s house of mine at London, there make shift to shift us, and after take such fortunes as the stars shall assign us.

52Notable Frank! We will ever adore thee.

53Now, sweet friend, you have brought me near enough your tavern, which I desired that I might with some colour be seen near, inquiring for my husband; who, I must tell you, stale thither last night with my wet gown we have left at your friend’s – which, to continue your former honest kindness, let me pray you to keep close from the knowledge of any. And so, with all vow of your requital, let me now entreat you to leave me to my woman’s wit and fortune.

54All shall be done you desire; and so, all the fortune you can wish for attend you!

55I will once more to this unhappy tavern before I shift one rag of me more, that I may there know what is left behind, and what news of their passengers. I have bought me a hat and band with the little money I had about me, and made the streets a little leave staring at my nightcap.

56O my dear husband! Where have you been tonight? All night abroad at taverns? Rob me of my garments? And fare as one run away from me? Alas! Is this seemly for a man of your credit? Of your age and affection to your wife?

57What should I say? How miraculously sorts this? Was not I at home and called thee last night?

58Yes, sir, the harmless sleep you broke; and my answer to you would have witnessed it, if you had had the patience to have stayed and answered me. But your so sudden retreat made me imagine you were gone to Master Bramble’s, and so rested patient and hopeful of your coming again till this your unbelieved absence brought me abroad, with no less than wonder, to seek you where the false knight had carried you.

59Villain and monster that I was, how have I abused thee! I was suddenly gone indeed, for my sudden jealousy transferred me. I will say no more but this, dear wife: I suspected thee.

60Did you suspect me?

61Talk not of it, I beseech thee; I am ashamed to imagine it. I will home, I will home, and every morning on my knees ask thee heartily forgiveness.

62 [Climbing down]Now will I descend my honourable prospect, the farthest seeing sea-mark of the world. No marvel then if I could see two miles about me. I hope the red tempest’s anger be now overblown, which sure I think heaven sent as a punishment for profaning holy Saint Luke’s memory with so ridiculous a custom. Thou dishonest satire, farewell to honest married men; farewell to all sorts and degrees of thee! Farewell, thou horn of hunger that call’st th’ Inns o’Court to their manger; farewell, thou horn of abundance that adornest the headsmen of the commonwealth; farewell, thou horn of direction that is the city lantern; farewell, thou horn of pleasure, the ensign of the huntsman; farewell, thou horn of destiny, th’ensign of the married man; farewell, thou horn tree that bearest nothing but stone fruit!

1Ha, sirrah! Thinks my knight adventurer we can no point of our compass? Do we not know north-north-east, north-east-and-by-east, east-and-by-north, nor plain eastward? Ha! Have we never heard of Virginia, nor the Cavallaria, nor the Colonoria? Can we discover no discoveries? Well, mine errant Sir Flash, and my runagate Quicksilver, you may drink drunk, crack cans, hurl away a brown dozen of Monmouth caps or so in sea-ceremony to your bon voyage, but for reaching any coast save the coast of Kent or Essex with this tide or with this fleet, I’ll be your warrant for a Gravesend toast. There’s that gone afore will stay your admiral and vice-admiral and rear- admiral, were they all – as they are – but one pinnace and under sail, as well as a remora, doubt it not; and from this sconce, without either powder or shot. Work upon that now! Nay, an you’ll show tricks, we’ll vie with you a little. My daughter, his lady, was sent eastward, by land, to a castle of his i’the air – in what region I know not – and, as I hear, was glad to take up her lodging in her coach, she and her two waiting-women, her maid and her mother, like three snails in a shell, and the coachman atop on ’em, I think. Since they have all found the way back again by Weeping Cross. But I’ll not see ’em. And for two on ’em, madam and her malkin, they are like to bite o’the bridle for William, as the poor horses have done all this while that hurried ’em, or else go graze o’the common. So should my Dame Touchstone too, but she has been my cross these thirty years, and I’ll now keep her to fright away sprites, i’faith. I wonder I hear no news of my son Golding. He was sent for to the Guildhall this morning betimes, and I marvel at the matter. If I had not laid up comfort and hope in him, I should grow desperate of all. See, he is come, i’my thought. (Enter GOLDING.) How now, son? What news at the Court of Aldermen?

2Troth, sir, an accident somewhat strange, else it hath little in it worth the reporting.

3What? It is not borrowing of money, then?

4No, sir. It hath pleased the worshipful commoners of the city to take me one i’their number at presentation of the inquest –

5Ha!

6And the alderman of the ward wherein I dwell to appoint me his deputy –

7How!

8In which place, I have had an oath ministered me since I went.

9Now my dear and happy son! Let me kiss Thy new Worship, and a little boast mine own happiness in thee. What a fortune was it, or rather my judgement, indeed, for me first to see that in his disposition, which a whole city so conspires to second! Ta’en into the livery of his company the first day of his freedom! Now, not a week married, chosen commoner and alderman’s deputy in a day! Note but the reward of a thrifty course. The wonder of his time! Well, I will honour Master Alderman for this act as becomes me, and shall think the better of the Common Council’s wisdom and worship while I live, for thus meeting, or but coming after me, in the opinion of his desert. Forward, my sufficient son, and as this is the first, so esteem it the least step to that high and prime honour that expects thee.

10Sir, as I was not ambitious of this, so I covet no higher place; it hath dignity enough if it will but save me from contempt. And I had rather my bearing in this or any other office should add worth to it, than the place give the least opinion to me.

11Excellently spoken! This modest answer of thine blushes as if it said, ‘I will wear scarlet shortly.’ Worshipful son! I cannot contain myself; I must tell thee I hope to see thee one o’the monuments of our city, and reckoned among her worthies to be remembered the same day with the Lady Ramsey and grave Gresham, when the famous fable of Whittington and his puss shall be forgotten, and thou and thy acts become the posies for hospitals; when thy name shall be written upon conduits, and thy deeds played i’thy lifetime by the best companies of actors, and be called their get-penny. This I divine. This I prophesy.

12Sir, engage not your expectation farther than my abilities will answer. I, that know mine own strengths, fear ’em; and there is so seldom a loss in promising the least, that commonly it brings with it a welcome deceit. I have other news for you, sir.

13None more welcome, I am sure?

14They have their degree of welcome, I dare affirm. The Colonel and all his company, this morning putting forth drunk from Billingsgate, had like to have been cast away o’this side Greenwich; and (as I have intelligence, by a false brother) are come dropping to town like so many masterless men, i’their doublets and hose, without hat, or cloak, or any other –

15A miracle! The justice of heaven! Where are they? Let’s go presently and lay for ’em.

16I have done that already, sir, both by constables and other officers, who shall take ’em at their old Anchor, and with less tumult or suspicion than if yourself were seen in’t, under colour of a great press that is now abroad, and they shall here be brought afore me.

17Prudent and politic son! Disgrace ’em all that ever thou canst; their ship I have already arrested. How to my wish it falls out, that thou hast the place of a justicer upon ’em! I am partly glad of the injury done to me, that thou mayst punish it. Be severe i’thy place, like a new officer o’the first quarter, unreflected. You hear how our lady is come back with her train from the invisible castle?

18No. Where is she?

19Within, but I ha’ not seen her yet, nor her mother, who now begins to wish her daughter undubbed, they say, and that she had walked a foot-pace with her sister. Here they come; stand back. [Enter] MISTRESS TOUCHSTONE, GERTRUDE, MILDRED, SINDEFY. [To Gertrude]God save Your Ladyship; ’save Your good Ladyship! Your Ladyship is welcome from your enchanted castle; so are your beauteous retinue. I hear your knight errant is travelled on strange adventures. Surely in my mind, Your Ladyship hath ‘fished fair and caught a frog’, as the saying is.

20Speak to your father, madam, and kneel down.

21Kneel? I hope I am not brought so low yet. Though my knight be run away and has sold my land, I am a lady still.

22Your Ladyship says true, madam, and it is fitter and a greater decorum that I should curtsy to you, that are a knight’s wife and a lady, than you be brought o’your knees to me, who am a poor cullion and your father.

23La! My father knows his duty.

24Oh, child!

25And therefore I do desire Your Ladyship, my good Lady Flash, in all humility, to depart my obscure cottage and return in quest of your bright and most transparent castle, however presently concealed to mortal eyes. And as for one poor woman of your train here, [Taking Mistress Touchstone by the hand]I will take that order she shall no longer be a charge unto you nor help to spend your ladyship; she shall stay at home with me, and not go abroad, nor put you to the pawning of an odd coach-horse, or three wheels, but take part with the Touchstone. If we lack, we will not complain to Your Ladyship. And so, good madam, with your demoiselle here, please you to let us see your straight backs in equipage; for truly, here is no roost for such chickens as you are or birds o’your feather, if it like Your Ladyship.

26Marry, fist o’your kindness! I thought as much. – Come away, Sin, we shall as soon get a fart from a dead man as a farthing of court’sy here.

27Oh, good sister!

28Sister, sir-reverence? [To Sindefy]Come away, I say. Hunger drops out at his nose.

29Oh, madam, fair words never hurt the tongue.

30How say you by that? You come out with your gold ends now!

31Stay, lady daughter. – Good husband –

32Wife, no man loves his fetters, be they made of gold. I list not ha’ my head fastened under my child’s girdle; as she has brewed, so let her drink, i’God’s name. She went witless to wedding; now she may go wisely a- begging. It’s but honeymoon yet with Her Ladyship: she has coach-horses, apparel, jewels, yet left; she needs care for no friends nor take knowledge of father, mother, brother, sister, or anybody. When those are pawned, or spent, perhaps we shall return into the list of her acquaintance.

33I scorn it, i’faith. – Come, Sin.

34Oh, madam, why do you provoke your father thus?

35Nay, nay, e’en let pride go afore. Shame will follow after, I warrant you. [To Mistress Touchstone]Come, why dost thou weep now? Thou art not the first good cow hast had an ill calf, I trust. (Enter CONSTABLE [whispering to GOLDING].) What’s the news with that fellow?

36Sir, the knight and your man Quicksilver are without. Will you ha’ ’em brought in?

37Oh, by any means. [Exit Constable.] And son, here’s a chair; appear terrible unto ’em on the first interview. Let them behold the melancholy of a magistrate and taste the fury of a citizen in office.

38Why, sir, I can do nothing to ’em except you charge ’em with somewhat.

39I will charge ’em and recharge ’em, rather than authority should want foil to set it off.

40No, good sir, I will not.

41Son, it is your place; by any means.

42Believe it, I will not, sir.

43How misfortune pursues us still in our misery!

44Would it had been my fortune to have been trussed up at Wapping, rather than ever ha’come here!

45Or mine, to have famished in the island!

46Must Golding sit upon us?

47You might carry an M under your girdle to Master Deputy’s Worship.

48What are those, Master Constable?

49An’t please Your Worship, a couple of masterless men I pressed for the Low Countries, sir.

50Why do you not carry ’em to Bridewell, according to your order, they may be shipped away?

51An’t please Your Worship, one of ’em says he is a knight, and we thought good to show him to Your Worship for our discharge.

52Which is he?

53This, sir.

54And what’s the other?

55A knight’s fellow, sir, an’t please you.

56What? A knight and his fellow thus accoutred? Where are their hats and feathers, their rapiers and their cloaks?

57 [To Petronel]Oh, they mock us.

58Nay, truly, sir, they had cast both their feathers and hats, too, before we see ’em. Here’s all their furniture, an’t please you, that we found. They say knights are now to be known without feathers, like cock’rels by their spurs, sir.

59What are their names, say they?

60[Aside]Very well, this. He should not take knowledge of ’em in his place, indeed.

61This is Sir Petronel Flash.

62How!

63And this Francis Quicksilver.

64 [To Petronel]Is’t possible? I thought Your Worship had been gone for Virginia, sir. You are welcome home, sir. Your Worship has made a quick return, it seems, and no doubt a good voyage. Nay, pray you be covered, sir. How did your biscuit hold out, sir? Methought I had seen this gentleman afore. – Good Master Quicksilver! How a degree to the southward has changed you!

65Do you know ’em, father? [To Petronel and Quicksilver, who attempt to speak]Forbear your offers a little; you shall be heard anon.

66Yes, Master Deputy. I had a small venture with them in the voyage, a thing called a son-in-law, or so. – Officers, you may let ’em stand alone; they will not run away, I’ll give my word for them. A couple of very honest gentlemen. One of ’em was my prentice, Master Quicksilver, here, and when he had two year to serve kept his whore and his hunting nag; would play his hundred pound at gresco or primero as familiarly (and all o’my purse) as any bright piece of crimson on ’em all; had his changeable trunks of apparel standing at livery, with his mare, his chest of perfumed linen, and his bathing-tubs, which when I told him of, why he – he was a gentleman, and I a poor Cheapside groom. The remedy was, we must part. Since when he hath had the gift of gathering up some small parcels of mine, to the value of five hundred pound, dispersed among my customers, to furnish this his Virginian venture, wherein this knight was the chief, Sir Flash – one that married a daughter of mine, ladyfied her, turned two thousand pounds’ worth of good land of hers into cash within the first week, bought her a new gown and a coach, sent her to seek her fortune by land whilst himself prepared for his fortune by sea, took in fresh flesh at Billingsgate for his own diet, to serve him the whole voyage – the wife of a certain usurer called Security, who hath been the broker for ’em in all this business. Please, Master Deputy, work upon that now!

67If my worshipful father have ended –

68I have, it shall please Master Deputy.

69Well then, under correction –

70[Aside to Golding]Now, son, come over ’em with some fine gird, as thus, ‘Knight, you shall be encountered’, that is, had to the Counter; or ‘Quicksilver, I will put you in a crucible’, or so.

71Sir Petronel Flash, I am sorry to see such flashes as these proceed from a gentleman of your quality and rank. For mine own part, I could wish I could say I could not see them; but such is the misery of magistrates and men in place that they must not wink at offenders. [To the Officers]Take him aside. [To Petronel]I will hear you anon, sir.

72[Aside]I like this well. Yet there’s some grace i’the knight left; he cries.

73Francis Quicksilver, would God thou hadst turned quacksalver rather than run into these dissolute and lewd courses. It is great pity. Thou art a proper young man, of an honest and clean face, somewhat near a good one – God hath done his part in thee; but thou hast made too much and been too proud of that face, with the rest of thy body; for maintenance of which in neat and garish attire, only to be looked upon by some light housewives, thou hast prodigally consumed much of thy master’s estate, and being by him gently admonished, at several times, hast returned thyself haughty and rebellious in thine answers, thund’ring out uncivil comparisons, requiting all his kindness with a coarse and harsh behaviour, never returning thanks for any one benefit, but receiving all as if they had been debts to thee and no courtesies. I must tell thee, Francis, these are manifest signs of an ill nature, and God doth often punish such pride and outrecuidance with scorn and infamy, which is the worst of misfortune. – My worshipful father, what do you please to charge them withal? – From the press I will free ’em, Master Constable.

74Then I’ll leave Your Worship, sir.

75No, you may stay; there will be other matters against ’em.

76Sir, I do charge this gallant, Master Quicksilver, on suspicion of felony; and the knight as being accessary, in the receipt of my goods.

77Oh, God, sir!

78Hold thy peace, impudent varlet, hold thy peace! With what forehead or face dost thou offer to chop logic with me, having run such a race of riot as thou hast done? Does not the sight of this worshipful man’s fortune and temper confound thee, that was thy younger fellow in household, and now come to have the place of a judge upon thee? Dost not observe this? Which of all thy gallants and gamesters, thy swearers and thy swaggerers, will come now to moan thy misfortune or pity thy penury? They’ll look out at a window as thou rid’st in triumph to Tyburn and cry, ‘Yonder goes honest Frank, mad Quicksilver.’ ‘He was a free boon companion when he had money’, says one. ‘Hang him, fool’, says another, ‘He could not keep it when he had it.’ ‘A pox o’the cullion his master’, says a third, ‘He has brought him to this.’ When their pox of pleasure and their piles of perdition would have been better bestowed upon thee, that hast ventured for ’em with the best, and by the clew of thy knavery brought thyself weeping to the cart of calamity.

79 [Pleadingly]Worshipful master –

80Offer not to speak, crocodile, I will not hear a sound come from thee. Thou hast learnt to whine at the play yonder. – Master Deputy, pray you commit ’em both to safe custody till I be able farther to charge ’em.

81Oh, me, what an infortunate thing am I!

82 [To Touchstone]Will you not take security, sir?

83Yes, marry, will I, Sir Flash, if I can find him and charge him as deep as the best on you. He has been the plotter of all this; he is your engineer, I hear. Master Deputy, you’ll dispose of these? In the meantime I’ll to my Lord Mayor and get his warrant to seize that serpent Security into my hands, and seal up both house and goods to the King’s use, or my satisfaction.

84Officers, take ’em to the Counter.

85Oh, God!

86Nay, on, on. You see the issue of your sloth. Of sloth cometh pleasure, of pleasure cometh riot, of riot comes whoring, of whoring comes spending, of spending comes want, of want comes theft, of theft comes hanging; and there is my Quicksilver fixed.

1Ah, Sin! Hast thou ever read i’ the chronicle of any lady and her waiting-woman driven to that extremity that we are, Sin?

2Not I, truly, madam, and if I had, it were but cold comfort should come out of books, now.

3Why, good faith, Sin, I could dine with a lamentable story now. [Sings.]‘O hone, hone, o no nera, etc.’ Canst thou tell ne’er a one, Sin?

4None but mine own, madam, which is lamentable enough. First to be stolen from my friends, which were worshipful and of good account, by a prentice in the habit and disguise of a gentleman, and here brought up to London and promised marriage, and now likely to be forsaken, for he is in possibility to be hanged.

5Nay, weep not, good Sin. My Petronel is in as good possibility as he. Thy miseries are nothing to mine, Sin. I was more than promised marriage, Sin: I had it, Sin, and was made a lady, and by a knight, Sin, which is now as good as no knight, Sin. And I was born in London, which is more than brought up, Sin; and already forsaken, which is past likelihood, Sin; and instead of land i’the country, all my knight’s living lies i’the Counter, Sin. There’s his castle now!

6Which he cannot be forced out of, madam.

7Yes, if he would live hungry a week or two. ‘Hunger’, they say, ‘breaks stone walls.’ But he is e’en well enough served, Sin, that so soon as ever he had got my hand to the sale of my inheritance run away from me, an I had been his punk, God bless us. Would the Knight o’the Sun, or Palmerin of England, have used their ladies so, Sin, or Sir Lancelot, or Sir Tristram?

8I do not know, madam.

9Then thou know’st nothing, Sin. Thou art a fool, Sin. The knighthood nowadays are nothing like the knighthood of old time. They rid a-horseback, ours go afoot. They were attended by their squires, ours by their lackeys. They went buckled in their armour, ours muffled in their cloaks. They travelled wildernesses and deserts, ours dare scarce walk the streets. They were still pressed to engage their honour, ours still ready to pawn their clothes. They would gallop on at sight of a monster, ours run away at sight of a sergeant. They would help poor ladies, ours make poor ladies.

10Ay, madam, they were knights of the Round Table at Winchester that sought adventures, but these of the square table at ordinaries, that sit at hazard.

11True, Sin, let him vanish. And tell me, what shall we pawn next?

12Ay, marry, madam, a timely consideration, for our hostess – profane woman! – has sworn by bread and salt she will not trust us another meal.

13Let it stink in her hand, then; I’ll not be beholding to her. Let me see: my jewels be gone, and my gowns, and my red velvet petticoat that I was married in, and my wedding silk stockings, and all thy best apparel, poor Sin. Good faith, rather than thou shouldest pawn a rag more, I’ d lay my ladyship in lavender, if I knew where.

14Alas, madam, your ladyship?

15Ay, why? You do not scorn my ladyship, though it is in a waistcoat? God’s my life, you are a peat indeed! Do I offer to mortgage my ladyship for you and for your avail, and do you turn the lip and the ‘Alas’ to my ladyship?

16No, madam, but I make question who will lend anything upon it?

17Who? Marry, enough, I warrant you, if you’ll seek ’em out. I’m sure I remember the time when I would ha’ given a thousand pound, if I had had it, to have been a lady, and I hope I was not bred and born with that appetite alone. Some other gentle-born o’the city have the same longing, I trust. And for my part, I would afford ’em a penn’orth; my ladyship is little the worse for the wearing, and yet I would bate a good deal of the sum. I would lend it – let me see – for forty pound in hand, Sin, – that would apparel us – and ten pound a year. That would keep me and you, Sin, with our needles, and we should never need to be beholding to our scurvy parents. Good Lord, that there are no fairies nowadays, Sin!

18Why, madam?

19To do miracles and bring ladies money. Sure, if we lay in a cleanly house, they would haunt it, Sin. I’ll try. I’ll sweep the chamber soon at night, and set a dish of water o’the hearth. A fairy may come and bring a pearl or a diamond; we do not know, Sin. Or there may be a pot of gold hid o’the backside, if we had tools to dig for’t. Why may not we two rise early i’the morning, Sin, afore anybody is up, and find a jewel i’the streets worth a hundred pound? May not some great court lady, as she comes from revels at midnight, look out of her coach as ’tis running, and lose such a jewel, and we find it? Ha?

20They are pretty waking dreams, these.

21Or may not some old usurer be drunk overnight, with a bag of money, and leave it behind him on a stall? For God’s sake, Sin, let’s rise tomorrow by break of day and see. I protest, la, if I had as much money as an alderman, I would scatter some on’t i’th’streets for poor ladies to find when their knights were laid up. And now I remember my song o’the Golden Shower. Why may not I have such a fortune? I’ll sing it, and try what luck I shall have after it.

Oh, here’s my mother! Good luck, I hope. – Ha’ you brought any money, mother? Pray you, mother, your blessing. [She kneels.]Nay, sweet mother, do not weep.

22God bless you! [She weeps.]I would I were in my grave!

23Nay, dear mother, can you steal no more money from my father? [She rises.]Dry your eyes and comfort me. Alas, it is my knight’s fault, and not mine, that I am in a waistcoat and attired thus simply.

24Simply? ’Tis better than thou deserv’st. Never whimper for the matter. Thou shouldst have looked before thou hadst leaped. Thou wert afire to be a lady, and now your ladyship and you may both blow at the coal, for aught I know. Self do, self have. ‘The hasty person never wants woe’, they say.

25Nay, then, mother, you should ha’ looked to it. A body would think you were the older. I did but my kind, I. He was a knight, and I was fit to be a lady. ’Tis not lack of liking but lack of living that severs us. And you talk like yourself and a citiner in this, i’faith. You show what husband you come on, iwis. You smell the Touchstone – he that will do more for his daughter that has married a scurvy gold-end man and his prentice than he will for his tother daughter that has wedded a knight and his customer. By this light, I think he is not my legitimate father.

26Oh, good madam, do not take up your mother so.

27Nay, nay, let her e’en alone. Let Her Ladyship grieve me still with her bitter taunts and terms. I have not dole enough to see her in this miserable case, I, without her velvet gowns, without ribbons, without jewels, without French wires, or cheatbread, or quails, or a little dog, or a gentleman usher, or anything indeed, that’s fit for a lady –

28[Aside]Except her tongue.

29And I not able to relieve her, neither, being kept so short by my husband. Well, God knows my heart. I did little think that ever she should have had need of her sister Golding.

30Why, mother, I ha’ not yet. Alas, good mother, be not intoxicate for me; I am well enough. I would not change husbands with my sister, I. The leg of a lark is better than the body of a kite.

31I know that. But –

32What, sweet mother, what?

33It’s but ill food when nothing’s left but the claw.

34That’s true, mother. Ay me!

35Nay, sweet ladybird, sigh not. Child, madam! Why do you weep thus? Be of good cheer. I shall die if you cry and mar your complexion thus.

36Alas, mother, what should I do?

37Go to thy sister’s, child; she’ll be proud Thy Ladyship will come under her roof. She’ll win thy father to release thy knight, and redeem thy gowns and thy coach and thy horses, and set thee up again.

38But will she get him to set my knight up, too?

39That she will, or anything else thou’lt ask her.

40I will begin to love her, if I thought she would do this.

41Try her, good chuck, I warrant thee.

42 [To Sindefy]Dost thou think she’ll do’t?

43Ay, madam, and be glad you will receive it.

44That’s a good maiden; she tells you true. Come, I’ll take order for your debts i’the alehouse.

45Go, Sin, and pray for thy Frank, as I will for my Pet.

1I will receive no letters, Master Wolf; you shall pardon me.

2Good father, let me entreat you.

3Son Golding, I will not be tempted. I find mine own easy nature, and I know not what a well-penned subtle letter may work upon it. There may be tricks, packing, do you see? [To Wolf]Return with your packet, sir.

4Believe it, sir, you need fear no packing here. These are but letters of submission, all.

5Sir, I do look for no submission. I will bear myself in this like blind justice. Work upon that now. When the Sessions come, they shall hear from me.

6From whom come your letters, Master Wolf?

7An’t please you, sir, one from Sir Petronel, another from Francis Quicksilver, and a third from old Security, who is almost mad in prison. There are two to Your Worship: one from Master Francis, sir, another from the knight.

8I do wonder, Master Wolf, why you should travail thus in a business so contrary to kind or the nature o’your place. That you, being the keeper of a prison, should labour the release of your prisoners! Whereas methinks it were far more natural and kindly in you to be ranging about for more, and not let these scape you have already under the tooth. But they say you wolves, when you ha’ sucked the blood once that they are dry, you ha’ done.

9Sir, Your Worship may descant as you please o’my name, but I protest I was never so mortified with any men’s discourse or behaviour in prison. Yet I have had of all sorts of men i’the kingdom under my keys, and almost of all religions i’the land, as papist, Protestant, puritan, Brownist, Anabaptist, Millenary, Family o’Love, Jew, Turk, infidel, atheist, good fellow, etc.

10And which of all these, thinks Master Wolf, was the best religion?

11Troth, Master Deputy, they that pay fees best. We never examine their consciences farther.

12I believe you, Master Wolf. [He reads his letters.]Good faith, sir, here’s a great deal of humility i’these letters.

13Humility, sir? Ay, were Your Worship an eyewitness of it, you would say so. The knight will i’the Knights’ Ward, do what we can, sir, and Master Quicksilver would be i’the Hole if we would let him. I never knew or saw prisoners more penitent or more devout. They will sit you up all night singing of psalms and edifying the whole prison. Only Security sings a note too high, sometimes, because he lies i’the Twopenny Ward, far off, and cannot take his tune. The neighbours cannot rest for him, but come every morning to ask what godly prisoners we have.

14Which on ’em is’t is so devout, the knight or the tother?

15Both, sir, but the young man especially. I never heard his like. He has cut his hair, too. He is so well given, and has such good gifts! He can tell you almost all the stories of The Book of Martyrs, and speak you all The Sick Man’s Salve without book.

16Ay, if he had had grace; he was brought up where it grew, iwis. On, Master Wolf.

17And he has converted one Fangs, a sergeant, a fellow could neither write nor read. He was called the bandog o’the Counter, and he has brought him already to pare his nails and say his prayers, and ’tis hoped he will sell his place shortly and become an intelligencer.

18No more, I am coming already. If I should give any farther ear I were taken. Adieu, good Master Wolf. – Son, I do feel mine own weaknesses; do not importune me. Pity is a rheum that I am subject to, but I will resist it. – Master Wolf, fish is cast away that is cast in dry pools. Tell hypocrisy it will not do; I have touched and tried too often. I am yet proof, and I will remain so. When the Sessions come, they shall hear from me. In the meantime, to all suits, to all entreaties, to all letters, to all tricks, I will be deaf as an adder and blind as a beetle; lay mine ear to the ground and lock mine eyes i’my hand, against all temptations.

19You see, Master Wolf, how inexorable he is. There is no hope to recover him. Pray you commend me to my brother knight and to my fellow Francis; present ’em with this small token of my love. [He gives money.]Tell ’em I wish I could do ’em any worthier office, but in this ’tis desperate. Yet I will not fail to try the uttermost of my power for ’em. And, sir, as far as I have any credit with you, pray you let ’em want nothing – though I am not ambitious they should know so much.

20Sir, both your actions and words speak you to be a true gentleman. They shall know only what is fit, and no more.

1Who would you speak with, sir?

2I would speak with one Security that is prisoner here.

3You’re welcome, sir. Stay there; I’ll call him to you. [He calls.]Master Security!

4Who calls?

5Here’s a gentleman would speak with you.

6What is he? Is’t one that grafts my forehead, now I am in prison, and comes to see how the horns shoot up and prosper?

7 [To Bramble]You must pardon him, sir. The old man is a little crazed with his imprisonment.

8What say you to me, sir? Look you here. [Bramble approaches the grate.]My learned counsel, Master Bramble! Cry you mercy, sir. When saw you my wife?

9She is now at my house, sir, and desired me that I would come to visit you and inquire of you your case, that we might work some means to get you forth.

10My case, Master Bramble, is stone walls and iron grates. You see it; this is the weakest part on’t. And, for getting me forth, no means but hang myself and so to be carried forth, from which they have here bound me in intolerable bands.

11Why, but what is’t you are in for, sir?

12For my sins, for my sins, sir, whereof marriage is the greatest. Oh, had I never married I had never known this purgatory, to which hell is a kind of cool bath in respect. My wife’s confederacy, sir, with old Touchstone, that she might keep her jubilee and the feast of her new moon. Do you understand me, sir?

13 [To Bramble]Good sir, go in and talk with him. The light does him harm, and his example will be hurtful to the weak prisoners. – Fie, father Security, that you’ll be still so profane! Will nothing humble you?

14What’s he?

15Oh, he is a rare young man. Do you not know him?

16Not I. I never saw him I can remember.

17Why, it is he that was the gallant prentice of London, Master Touchstone’s man.

18Who, Quicksilver?

19Ay, this is he.

20Is this he? They say he has been a gallant indeed.

21Oh, the royallest fellow that ever was bred up i’the city! He would play you his thousand pound a night at dice; keep knights and lords company; go with them to bawdy-houses; had his six men in a livery; kept a stable of hunting horses, and his wench in her velvet gown and her cloth of silver. Here’s one knight with him here in prison.

22And how miserably he is changed!

23Oh, that’s voluntary in him; he gave away all his rich clothes as soon as ever he came in here, among the prisoners, and will eat o’ the basket for humility.

24Why will he do so?

25Alas, he has no hope of life. He mortifies himself. He does but linger on till the Sessions.

26Oh, he has penned the best thing, that he calls his ‘Repentance’ or his ‘Last Farewell’, that ever you heard. He is a pretty poet, and for prose – you would wonder how many prisoners he has helped out, with penning petitions for ’em, and not take a penny. Look, this is the knight, in the rug gown. Stand by.

27Sir, for Security’s case, I have told him. Say he should be condemned to be carted or whipped for a bawd, or so, why, I’ll lay an execution on him o’two hundred pound; let him acknowledge a judgement – he shall do it in half an hour – they shall not all fetch him out without paying the execution, o’my word.

28But can we not be bailed, Master Bramble?

29Hardly. There are none of the judges in town, else you should remove yourself, in spite of him, with a habeas corpus. But if you have a friend to deliver your tale sensibly to some justice o’the town, that he may have feeling of it, do you see, you may be bailed. For as I understand the case, ’tis only done in terrorem, and you shall have an action of false imprisonment against him when you come out, and perhaps a thousand pound costs.

30How now, Master Wolf? What news? What return?

31Faith, bad all. Yonder will be no letters received. He says the Sessions shall determine it. Only, Master Deputy Golding commends him to you, and with this token wishes he could do you other good.

32I thank him. Good Master Bramble, trouble our quiet no more; do not molest us in prison thus with your winding devices. Pray you depart. [Exit Bramble.] For my part, I commit my cause to Him that can succour me; let God work his will. Master Wolf, I pray you let this be distributed among the prisoners and desire ’em to pray for us.

33It shall be done, Master Francis.

34An excellent temper!

35Now God send him good luck!

36But what said my father-in-law, Master Wolf?

37Here’s one would speak with you, sir.

38I’ll tell you anon, Sir Petronel. [Exit Sir Petronel.] [To Holdfast]Who is’t?

39A gentleman, sir, that will not be seen.

40Where is he? Master Deputy! Your Worship is welcome –

41Peace!

42 [To Holdfast]Away, sirrah!

43Good faith, Master Wolf, the estate of these gentlemen, for whom you were so late and willing a suitor, doth much affect me. And because I am desirous to do them some fair office, and find there is no means to make my father relent so likely as to bring him to be a spectator of their miseries, I have ventured on a device, which is to make myself your prisoner, entreating you will presently go report it to my father, and, feigning an action at suit of some third person, pray him by this token [giving a ring] that he will presently and with all secrecy come hither for my bail. Which train, if any, I know will bring him abroad, and then having him here, I doubt not but we shall be all fortunate in the event.

44Sir, I will put on my best speed to effect it. Please you come in.

45Yes, and let me rest concealed, I pray you.

46See here a benefit truly done, when it is done timely, freely, and to no ambition.

1I will sail by you and not hear you, like the wise Ulysses.

2 [Kneeling]Dear father!

3 [Kneeling]Husband!

4 [Kneeling]Father!

5 [Kneeling]Master Touchstone!

6Away, sirens! I will immure myself against your cries and lock myself up to your lamentations.

7Gentle husband, hear me.

8Father, it is I, father, my Lady Flash. My sister and I am friends.

9Good father!

10Be not hardened, good Master Touchstone.

11I pray you, sir, be merciful.

12I am deaf, I do not hear you; I have stopped mine ears with shoemaker’s wax and drunk Lethe and mandragora to forget you. All you speak to me I commit to the air.

13How now, Master Wolf?

14Where’s Master Touchstone? I must speak with him presently. I have lost my breath for haste.

15What’s the matter, sir? Pray all be well!

16Master Deputy Golding is arrested upon an execution and desires him presently to come to him forthwith.

17Ay me! [Calling]Do you hear, father?

18 [Within]Tricks, tricks, confederacy, tricks! I have ’em in my nose, I scent ’em.

19Who’s that? Master Touchstone?

20 [Calling]Why, it is Master Wolf himself, husband.

21 [Calling]Father!

22 [Within]I am deaf still, I say. I will neither yield to the song of the siren nor the voice of the hyena, the tears of the crocodile nor the howling o’the wolf. Avoid my habitation, monsters!

23 [Calling]Why, you are not mad, sir? I pray you look forth and see the token I have brought you, sir.

24Ha! What token is it?

25 [He shows the ring.]Do you know it, sir?

26My son Golding’s ring! Are you in earnest, Master Wolf?

27Ay, by my faith, sir. He is in prison and required me to use all speed and secrecy to you.

28My cloak there! [To the women]Pray you be patient; I am plagued for my austerity. – My cloak! – At whose suit, Master Wolf?

29I’ll tell you as we go, sir.

1Why, but is his offence such as he cannot hope of life?

2Troth, it should seem so; and ’tis great pity, for he is exceeding penitent.

3They say he is charged but on suspicion of felony yet.

4Ay, but his master is a shrewd fellow. He’ll prove great matter against him.

5I’d as lief as anything I could see his ‘Farewell’.

6Oh, ’tis rarely written! Why, Toby may get him to sing it to you; he’s not curious to anybody.

7Oh, no. He would that all the world should take knowledge of his repentance, and thinks he merits in’t the more shame he suffers.

8 [To Second Prisoner]Pray thee, try what thou canst do.

9I warrant you he will not deny it, if he be not hoarse with the often repeating of it

10You never saw a more courteous creature than he is, and the knight too. The poorest prisoner of the house may command ’em. You shall hear a thing admirably penned.

11Is the knight any scholar too?

12No, but he will speak very well, and discourse admirably of running horses, and Whitefriars, and against bawds, and of cocks, and talk as loud as a hunter, but is none.

13Please you stay here, sir, I’ll call His Worship down to you.

14See, he has brought him, and the knight too. Salute him, I pray. [To Quicksilver]Sir, this gentleman, upon our report, is very desirous to hear some piece of your ‘Repentance’.

15Sir, with all my heart, and as I told Master Toby, I shall be glad to have any man a witness of it. And the more openly I profess it, I hope it will appear the heartier and the more unfeigned.

16[Aside]Who is this? My man Francis? And my son-in-law?

17Sir, it is all the testimony I shall leave behind me to the world and my master that I have so offended.

18Good sir!

19I writ it when my spirits were oppressed.

20Ay, I’ll be sworn for you, Francis.

21It is in imitation of Mannington’s, he that was hanged at Cambridge, that cut off the horse’s head at a blow.

22So, sir.

23To the tune of ‘I wail in woe, I plunge in pain.’

24An excellent ditty it is, and worthy of a new tune.

26Excellent! Excellent well.

27[Aside to Wolf, who moves towards Touchstone]Oh, let him alone! He is taken already.

29I thank you, Francis.

31[Aside]This cannot be feigned, sure. Heaven pardon my severity! The ragged colt may prove a good horse.

32[Aside to Wolf]How he listens and is transported! He has forgot me.

34 [Starting to come forward]And I will do it, Francis.

35[Aside to Golding]Stay him, Master Deputy; now is the time; we shall lose the song else.

36 [To Quicksilver]I protest, it is the best that ever I heard.

37How like you it, gentlemen?

38Oh, admirable, sir!

39This stanza now following alludes to the story of Mannington, from whence I took my project for my invention.

40Pray you go on, sir.

42Admirable, sir, and excellently conceited.

43Alas, sir.

44[Aside to Golding and Wolf]Son Golding and Master Wolf, I thank you. The deceit is welcome, [To Golding] especially from thee whose charitable soul in this hath shown a high point of wisdom and honesty. Listen! I am ravished with his ‘Repentance’, and could stand here a whole prenticeship to hear him.

45Forth, good sir.

46This is the last, and the ‘Farewell’.

47 [He comes forward.]And scape them shalt thou, my penitent and dear Francis!

48Master!

49Father!

50I can no longer forbear to do your humility right. Arise, and let me honour your ‘Repentance’ with the hearty and joyful embraces of a father and friend’s love. Quicksilver, thou hast eat into my breast, Quicksilver, with the drops of thy sorrow, and killed the desperate opinion I had of thy reclaim.

51 [Rising]Oh, sir, I am not worthy to see your worshipful face.

52 [Rising]Forgive me, father.

53Speak no more; all former passages are forgotten, and here my word shall release you. Thank this worthy brother and kind friend, Francis. – Master Wolf, I am their bail.

54Master Touchstone! Master Touchstone!

55Who’s that?

56Security, sir.

57Pray you, sir, if you’ll be won with a song, hear my lamentable tune, too.

58Bring him forth, Master Wolf, and release his bands. [Exit Wolf.] [WOLF returns with SECURITY.]This day shall be sacred to mercy and the mirth of this encounter in the Counter. – See, we are encountered with more suitors. Enter MISTRESS TOUCHSTONE, GERTRUDE, MILDRED, SINDEFY, [and] WINIFRED.Save your breath, save your breath! All things have succeeded to your wishes, and we are heartily satisfied in their events.

59 [To Petronel]Ah, runaway, runaway, have I caught you? And how has my poor knight done all this while?

60Dear lady-wife, forgive me!

61As heartily as I would be forgiven, knight. [She kneels.]Dear father, give me your blessing and forgive me, too. I ha’ been proud and lascivious, father, and a fool, father; and being raised to the state of a wanton coy thing called a lady, father, have scorned you, father, and my sister, and my sister’s velvet cap, too; and would make a mouth at the city as I rid through it, and stop mine ears at Bow-bell. I have said your beard was a base one, father; and that you looked like Twierpipe, the taborer; and that my mother was but my midwife.

62Now God forgi’ you, child madam!

63No more repetitions. [Gertrude rises.] What is else wanting to make our harmony full?

64Only this, sir, that my fellow Francis make amends to mistress Sindefy with marriage.

65With all my heart.

66And Security give her a dower, which shall be all the restitution he shall make of that huge mass he hath so unlawfully gotten.

67Excellently devised! A good motion. What says Master Security?

68I say anything, sir, what you’ll ha’ me say. Would I were no cuckold!

69Cuckold, husband? Why, I think this wearing of yellow has infected you.

70Why, Master Security, that should rather be a comfort to you than a corrosive. If you be a cuckold, it’s an argument you have a beautiful woman to your wife. Then you shall be much made of; you shall have store of friends; never want money; you shall be eased of much o’your wedlock pain; others will take it for you. Besides, you being a usurer and likely to go to hell, the devils will never torment you; they’ll take you for one o’ their own race. Again, if you be a cuckold and know it not, you are an innocent; if you know it and endure it, a true martyr.

71I am resolved, sir. Come hither, Winnie.

72Well, then, all are pleased, or shall be anon. Master Wolf, you look hungry, methinks. Have you no apparel to lend Francis to shift him?

73No, sir, nor I desire none, but here make it my suit that I may go home through the streets in these, as a spectacle, or rather an example, to the children of Cheapside.