[Aside.
Mis. O. Thou’st struck ten thousand daggers through my heart!
Open. Not I, by heaven, sweet wife!
Mis. O. Go, devil, go; that which thou swear’st by damns thee!
Gos. ’S heart, will you undo me?
Mis. O. Why stay you here? the star by which you sail
Shines yonder above Chelsea; you lose your shore;
If this moon light you, seek out your light whore.
Open. Ha!
Mis. G. Push,[1114] your western pug![1115]
Gos. Zounds, now hell roars!
Mis. O. With whom you tilted in a pair of oars
This very morning.
Open. Oars?
Mis. O. At Brainford, sir.
Open. Rack not my patience.—Master Goshawk,
Some slave has buzz’d this into her, has he not?
I run a tilt in Brainford with a woman?
’Tis a lie!
What old bawd tells thee this? ’s death, ’tis a lie!
Mis. O. ’Tis one [who] to thy face shall justify
All that I speak.
Open. Ud’soul, do but name that rascal!
Mis. O. No, sir, I will not.
Gos. Keep thee there, girl, then! [Aside.
Open.[1116] Sister, know you this varlet?
Mis. G. Yes.
Open. Swear true;
Is there a rogue so low damn’d? a second Judas?—
A common hangman, cutting a man’s throat,
Does it to his face,—bite me behind my back?
A cur dog? swear if you know this hell-hound.
Mis. G. In truth, I do.
Open. His name?
Mis. G. Not for the world;
To have you to stab him.
Gos. O brave girls, worth gold![1117] [Aside.
Open. A word, honest master Goshawk.
[Drawing his sword.
Gos. What do you mean, sir?
Open. Keep off, and if the devil can give a name
To this new fury, holla it through my ear,
Or wrap it up in some hid character.
I’ll ride to Oxford, and watch out mine eyes,
But I will hear the Brazen Head[1118] speak, or else
Shew me but one hair of his head or beard,
That I may sample it. If the fiend I meet
In mine own house, I’ll kill him; [in] the street,
Or at the church-door,—there, ’cause he seeks t’ untie
The knot God fastens, he deserves most to die.
Mis. O. My husband titles him!
Open. Master Goshawk, pray, sir,
Swear to me that you know him, or know him not,
Who makes me at Brainford to take up a petticoat
Besides my wife’s.
Gos. By heaven, that man I know not!
Mis. O. Come, come, you lie!
Gos. Will you not have all out?
By heaven, I know no man beneath the moon
Should do you wrong, but if I had his name,
I’d print it in text letters.
Mis. O. Print thine own then:
Did’st not thou swear to me he kept his whore?
Mis. G. And that in sinful Brainford they’d commit
That which our lips did water at, sir,—ha?
Mis. O. Thou spider that hast woven thy cunning web
In mine own house t’ ensnare me! hast not thou
Suck’d nourishment even underneath this roof,
And turn’d it all to poison, spitting it
On thy friend’s face, my husband, (he as ’twere sleeping,)
Only to leave him ugly to mine eyes,
That they might glance on thee?
Mis. G. Speak, are these lies?
Gos. Mine own shame me confounds!
Open.[1119] No more; he’s stung.
Who’d think that in one body there could dwell
Deformity and beauty, heaven and hell?
Goodness I see is but outside; we all set
In rings of gold stones that be counterfeit:
I thought you none.
Gos. Pardon me!
Open. Truth I do:
This blemish grows in nature, not in you;
For man’s creation stick[s] even moles in scorn
On fairest cheeks.—Wife, nothing’s perfect born.
Mis. O. I thought you had been born perfect.
Open. What’s this whole world but a gilt rotten pill?
For at the heart lies the old core still.
I’ll tell you, master Goshawk, ay, in your eye
I have seen wanton fire; and then, to try
The soundness of my judgment, I told you
I kept a whore, made you believe ’twas true,
Only to feel how your pulse beat; but find
The world can hardly yield a perfect friend.
Come, come, a trick of youth, and ’tis forgiven;
This rub put by, our love shall run more even.
Mis. O. You’ll deal upon men’s wives no more?
Gos. No; you teach me
A trick for that.
Mis. O. Troth, do not; they’ll o’erreach thee.
Open. Make my house yours, sir, still.
Gos. No.
Open. I say you shall:
Seeing thus besieg’d it holds out, ’twill never fall.
Enter Gallipot, followed by Greenwit disguised as a sumner;[1120] and Laxton muffled aloof off.[1121]

Open.
Gos., &c.[1122] } How now?

Gal. With me, sir?

Green. You, sir. I have gone snuffling[1123] up and down by your door this hour, to watch for you.

Mis. G. What’s the matter, husband?

Green. I have caught a cold in my head, sir, by sitting up late in the Rose tavern; but I hope you understand my speech.

Gal. So, sir.

Green. I cite you by the name of Hippocrates Gallipot, and you by the name of Prudence Gallipot, to appear upon Crastino,—do you see?—Crastino sancti Dunstani, this Easter term, in Bow Church.

Gal. Where, sir? what says he?

Green. Bow, Bow Church, to answer to a libel of precontract on the part and behalf of the said Prudence and another: you’re best, sir, take a copy of the citation, ’tis but twelvepence.

Open.
Gos., &c. } A citation!

Gal. You pocky-nosed rascal, what slave fees you to this?

Lax. [coming forward] Slave? I ha’ nothing to do with you; do you hear, sir?

Gos. Laxton, is’t not? What fagary[1124] is this?

Gal. Trust me, I thought, sir, this storm long ago
Had been full laid, when, if you be remember’d,[1125]
I paid you the last fifteen pound, besides
The thirty you had first; for then you swore——
Lax. Tush, tush, sir, oaths,—
Truth, yet I’m loath to vex you—tell you what,
Make up the money I had an hundred pound,
And take your bellyful of her.

Gal. An hundred pound?

Mis. G. What, a hundred pound? he gets none: what, a hundred pound?

Gal. Sweet Pru, be calm; the gentleman offers thus:
If I will make the moneys that are past
A hundred pound, he will discharge all courts,
And give his bond never to vex us more.
Mis. G. A hundred pound? ’Las, take, sir, but threescore!
Do you seek my undoing?
Lax. I’ll not ’bate one sixpence.—
I’ll maul you, puss, for spitting.
Mis. G. Do thy worst.—
Will fourscore stop thy mouth?
Lax. No.
Mis. G. You’re a slave;
Thou cheat, I’ll now tear money from thy throat.—
Husband, lay hold on yonder tawny-coat.[1126]

Green. Nay, gentlemen, seeing your women are so hot, I must lose my hair[1127] in their company, I see.

[Takes off his false hair.

Mis. O. His hair sheds off, and yet he speaks not so much in the nose as he did before.

Gos. He has had the better chirurgeon.—Master Greenwit, is your wit so raw as to play no better a part than a sumner’s?

Gal. I pray, who plays A knack to know an honest man,[1128] in this company?

Mis. G. Dear husband, pardon me, I did dissemble,
Told thee I was his precontracted wife,
When letters came from him for thirty pound:
I had no shift but that.
Gal. A very clean shift,
But able to make me lousy: on.
Mis. G. Husband, I pluck’d,
When he had tempted me to think well of him,
Gelt feathers[1129] from thy wings, to make him fly
More lofty.
Gal. A’ the top of you, wife: on.
Mis. G. He having wasted them, comes now for more,
Using me as a ruffian doth his whore,
Whose sin keeps him in breath. By heaven, I vow,
Thy bed he ne’er wrong’d more than he does now!
Gal. My bed? ha, ha! like enough; a shop-board will serve
To have a cuckold’s coat cut out upon:
Of that we’ll talk hereafter.—You’re a villain.
Lax. Hear me but speak, sir, you shall find me none.

Open.
Gos., &c. } Pray, sir, be patient, and hear him.

Gal. I’m muzzl’d for biting, sir; use me how you will.
Lax. The first hour that your wife was in my eye,
Myself with other gentlemen sitting by
In your shop tasting smoke, and speech being us’d,
That men who’ve fairest wives are most abus’d,
And hardly scape[1130] the horn, your wife maintain’d
That only such spots in city dames were stain’d
Justly but by men’s slanders: for her own part,
She vow’d that you had so much of her heart,
No man, by all his wit, by any wile
Never so fine-spun, should yourself beguile
Of what in her was yours.
Gal. Yet, Pru, ’tis well.—
Play out your game at Irish,[1131] sir: who wins?
Mis. O. The trial is when she comes to bearing.[1132]
Lax. I scorn’d one woman thus should brave all men,
And, which more vex’d me, a she-citizen;
Therefore I laid siege to her: out she held,
Gave many a brave repulse, and me compell’d
With shame to sound retreat to my hot lust:
Then, seeing all base desires rak’d up in dust,
And that[1133] to tempt her modest ears, I swore
Ne’er to presume again: she said, her eye
Would ever give me welcome honestly;
And, since I was a gentleman, if’t run low,
She would my state relieve, not to o’erthrow
Your own and hers: did so; then seeing I wrought
Upon her meekness, me she set at nought;
And yet to try if I could turn that tide,
You see what stream I strove with; but, sir, I swear
By heaven, and by those hopes men lay up there,
I neither have nor had a base intent
To wrong your bed! what’s done, is merriment:
Your gold I pay back with this interest,
When I’d most power to do’t, I wrong’d you least.
Gal. If this no gullery be, sir——

Open.
Gos., &c. } No, no, on my life!

Gal. Then, sir, I am beholden—not to you, wife,—
But, master Laxton, to your want of doing
Ill, which it seems you have not.—Gentlemen,
Tarry and dine here all.
Open. Brother, we’ve a jest,
As good as yours, to furnish out a feast.
Gal. We’ll crown our table with’t.—Wife, brag no more
Of holding out: who most brags is most whore.
[Exeunt.

ACT V. SCENE I.

A Street.
Enter Jack Dapper, Moll, Sir Beauteous Ganymede, and Sir Thomas Long.

J. Dap. But, prithee, master captain Jack, be plain and perspicuous with me; was it your Meg of Westminster’s courage[1134] that rescued me from the Poultry puttocks[1135] indeed?

Moll. The valour of my wit, I ensure you, sir, fetched you off bravely, when you were i’ the forlorn hope among those desperates. Sir Beauteous Ganymede here, and sir Thomas Long, heard that cuckoo, my man Trapdoor, sing the note of your ransom from captivity.

S. Beau. Uds so, Moll, where’s that Trapdoor?

Moll. Hanged, I think, by this time: a justice in this town, that speaks nothing but make a mittimus, away with him to Newgate, used that rogue like a firework,[1136] to run upon a line betwixt him and me.

All. How, how?

Moll. Marry, to lay trains of villany to blow up my life: I smelt the powder, spied what linstock[1137] gave fire to shoot against the poor captain of the galley-foist,[1138] and away slid I my man like a shovel-board shilling.[1139] He strouts[1140] up and down the suburbs, I think, and eats up whores, feeds upon a bawd’s garbage.

S. Tho. Sirrah, Jack Dapper——

J. Dap. What sayst, Tom Long?

S. Tho. Thou hadst a sweet-faced boy, hail-fellow with thee, to your little Gull: how is he spent?

J. Dap. Troth, I whistled the poor little buzzard off a’ my fist, because, when he waited upon me at the ordinaries, the gallants hit me i’ the teeth still, and said I looked like a painted alderman’s tomb, and the boy at my elbow like a death’s head.—Sirrah Jack, Moll——

Moll. What says my little Dapper?

S. Beau. Come, come; walk and talk, walk and talk.

J. Dap. Moll and I’ll be i’ the midst.

Moll. These knights shall have squires’ places belike then: well, Dapper, what say you?

J. Dap. Sirrah captain, mad Mary, the gull my own father, Dapper Sir Davy, laid these London boot-halers,[1141] the catchpolls, in ambush to set upon me.

All. Your father? away, Jack!

J. Dap. By the tassels of this handkercher, ’tis true: and what was his warlike stratagem, think you? he thought, because a wicker cage tames a nightingale, a lousy prison could make an ass of me.

All. A nasty plot!

J. Dap. Ay, as though a Counter, which is a park in which all the wild beasts of the city run head by head, could tame me!

Moll. Yonder comes my lord Noland.

Enter Lord Noland.

All. Save you, my lord.

L. Nol. Well met, gentlemen all.—Good sir Beauteous Ganymede, sir Thomas Long,—and how does master Dapper?

J. Dap. Thanks, my lord.

Moll. No tobacco, my lord?

L. Nol. No, faith, Jack.

J. Dap. My lord Noland, will you go to Pimlico with us? we are making a boon voyage to that nappy land of spice-cakes.

L. Nol. Here’s such a merry ging,[1142] I could find in my heart to sail to the world’s end with such company: come, gentlemen, let’s on.

J. Dap. Here’s most amorous weather, my lord.

All. Amorous weather! [They walk.

J. Dap. Is not amorous a good word?

Enter Trapdoor disguised as a poor soldier with a patch over one eye, and Tearcat all in tatters.

Trap. Shall we set upon the infantry, these troops of foot? Zounds, yonder comes Moll, my whorish master and mistress! would I had her kidneys between my teeth!

Tear. I had rather have a cow-heel.

Trap. Zounds, I am so patched up, she cannot discover me: we’ll on.

Tear. Alla corago[1143] then!

Trap. Good your honours and worships, enlarge the ears of commiseration, and let the sound of a hoarse military organ-pipe penetrate your pitiful bowels, to extract out of them so many small drops of silver as may give a hard straw-bed lodging to a couple of maimed soldiers.

J. Dap. Where are you maimed?

Tear. In both our nether limbs.

Moll. Come, come, Dapper, let’s give ’em something: ’las, poor men! what money have you? by my troth, I love a soldier with my soul.

S. Beau. Stay, stay; where have you served?

S. Tho. In any part of the Low Countries?

Trap. Not in the Low Countries, if it please your manhood, but in Hungary against the Turk at the siege of Belgrade.

L. Nol. Who served there with you, sirrah?

Trap. Many Hungarians, Moldavians, Vallachians, and Transylvanians, with some Sclavonians; and retiring home, sir, the Venetian galleys took us prisoners, yet freed us, and suffered us to beg up and down the country.

J. Dap. You have ambled all over Italy, then?

Trap. O sir, from Venice to Roma, Vecchia, Bononia,[1144] Romagna, Bologna, Modena, Piacenza, and Tuscana, with all her cities, as Pistoia, Volterra,[1145] Montepulciano, Arezzo; with the Siennois, and divers others.

Moll. Mere rogues! put spurs to ’em once more.

J. Dap. Thou lookest like a strange creature, a fat butter-box, yet speakest English: what art thou?

Tear. Ich, mine here? ich bin den ruffling Tearcat, den brave soldado; ich bin dorich all Dutchlant gereisen; der schellum das meer ine beasa ine woert gaeb, ich slaag um stroakes on tom cop; dastich den hundred touzun divel halle, frollich, mine here.

S. Beau. Here, here; let’s be rid of their jobbering.[1146]

[About to give money.

Moll. Not a cross,[1147] sir Beauteous.—You base rogues, I have taken measure of you better than a tailor can; and I’ll fit you, as you, monster with one eye, have fitted me.

Trap. Your worship will not abuse a soldier?

Moll. Soldier? thou deservest to be hanged up by that tongue which dishonours so noble a profession: soldier? you skeldering[1148] varlet! hold, stand; there should be a trapdoor here abouts.

[Pulls off his patch.

Trap. The balls of these glasiers[1149] of mine, mine eyes, shall be shot up and down in any hot piece of service for my invincible mistress.

J. Dap. I did not think there had been such knavery in black patches[1150] as now I see.

Moll. O sir, he hath been brought up in the Isle of Dogs,[1151] and can both fawn like a spaniel, and bite like a mastiff, as he finds occasion.

L. Nol. What are you, sirrah? a bird of this feather too?

Tear. A man beaten from the wars, sir.

S. Tho. I think so, for you never stood to fight.

J. Dap. What’s thy name, fellow soldier?

Tear. I am called by those that have seen my valour, Tearcat.

All. Tearcat?

Moll. A mere whip-jack,[1152] and that is, in the commonwealth of rogues, a slave that can talk of sea-fight, name all your chief pirates, discover more countries to you than either the Dutch, Spanish, French, or English ever found out; yet indeed all his service is by land, and that is to rob a fair, or some such venturous exploit. Tearcat? ’foot, sirrah, I have your name, now I remember me, in my book of horners; horns for the thumb,[1153] you know how.

Tear. No indeed, captain Moll, for I know you by sight, I am no such nipping Christian,[1154] but a maunderer upon the pad,[1155] I confess; and meeting with honest Trapdoor here, whom you had cashiered from bearing arms, out at elbows, under your colours, I instructed him in the rudiments of roguery, and by my map made him sail over any country you can name, so that now he can maunder better than myself.

J. Dap. So, then, Trapdoor, thou art turned soldier now?

Trap. Alas, sir, now there’s no wars, ’tis the safest course of life I could take!

Moll. I hope, then, you can cant, for by your cudgels, you, sirrah, are an upright man.[1156]

Trap. As any walks the highway, I assure you.

Moll. And, Tearcat, what are you? a wild rogue,[1157] an angler,[1158] or a ruffler?[1159]

Tear. Brother to this upright man, flesh and blood; ruffling Tearcat is my name, and a ruffler is my style, my title, my profession.

Moll. Sirrah, where’s your doxy? halt not with me.

All. Doxy, Moll? what’s that?

Moll. His wench.

Trap. My doxy? I have, by the salomon,[1160] a doxy that carries a kinchin mort in her slate[1161] at her back, besides my dell and my dainty wild dell,[1162] with all whom I’ll tumble this next darkmans in the strommel,[1163] and drink ben baufe, and eat a fat gruntling cheat, a cackling cheat, and a quacking cheat.

J. Dap. Here’s old[1164] cheating!

Trap. My doxy stays for me in a bousing ken,[1165] brave captain.

Moll. He says his wench stays for him in an ale-house.—You are no pure rogues![1166]

Tear. Pure rogues? no, we scorn to be pure rogues; but if you come to our lib ken or our stalling ken,[1167] you shall find neither him nor me a queer cuffin.[1168]

Moll. So, sir, no churl of you.

Tear. No, but a ben cove, a brave cove, a gentry cuffin.

L. Nol. Call you this canting?

J. Dap. Zounds, I’ll give a school-master half-a-crown a-week, and teach me this pedlar’s French.[1169]

Trap. Do but stroll, sir, half a harvest with us, sir, and you shall gabble your bellyful.

Moll. Come, you rogue, cant with me.

S. Tho. Well said, Moll.—Cant with her, sirrah, and you shall have money, else not a penny.

Trap. I’ll have a bout, if she please.

Moll. Come on, sirrah!

Trap. Ben mort,[1170] shall you and I heave a bough, mill a ken, or nip a bung, and then we’ll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans, and there you shall wap with me, and I’ll niggle with you.

Moll. Out, you damned impudent rascal!

Trap. Cut benar[1171] whids, and hold your fambles and your stamps.

L. Nol. Nay, nay, Moll, why art thou angry? what was his gibberish?

Moll. Marry, this, my lord, says he: Ben mort, good wench, shall you and I heave a bough,[1172] mill a ken, or nip a bung? shall you and I rob a house, or cut a purse?

All. Very good.

Moll. And then we’ll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans; and then we’ll lie under a hedge.

Trap. That was my desire, captain, as ’tis fit a soldier should lie.

Moll. And there you shall wap with me, and I’ll niggle with you,—and that’s all.

S. Beau. Nay, nay, Moll, what’s that wap?

J. Dap. Nay, teach me what niggling is; I’d fain be niggling.

Moll. Wapping and niggling is all one, the rogue my man can tell you.

Trap. ’Tis fadoodling, if it please you.

S. Beau. This is excellent! One fit more, good Moll.

Moll. Come, you rogue, sing with me.

Song by Moll and Tearcat.[1173]
A gage[1174] of ben rom-bouse
In a bousing ken of Rom-vile,
Is benar than a caster,
Peck, pennam, lay, or popler,
Which we mill in deuse a vile.
O I wud lib all the lightmans,
O I wud lib all the darkmans,
By the salomon, under the ruffmans,
By the salomon, in the hartmans,
And scour the queer cramp ring,
And couch till a palliard dock’d my dell,
So my bousy nab might skew rom-bouse well.
Avast to the pad, let us bing;
Avast to the pad, let us bing.

All. Fine knaves, i’faith!

J. Dap. The grating of ten new cart-wheels, and the gruntling of five hundred hogs coming from Rumford market, cannot make a worse noise than this canting language does in my ears. Pray, my lord Noland, let’s give these soldiers their pay.

S. Beau. Agreed, and let them march.

L. Nol. Here, Moll. [Gives money.

Moll. Now I see that you are stalled to the rogue,[1175] and are not ashamed of your professions: look you, my lord Noland here and these gentlemen bestow[1176] upon you two two boards[1177] and a half, that’s two shillings sixpence.

Trap. Thanks to your lordship.

Tear. Thanks, heroical captain.

Moll. Away!

Trap. We shall cut ben whids[1178] of your masters and mistress-ship wheresoever we come.

Moll. You’ll maintain, sirrah, the old justice’s plot to his face?

Trap. Else trine me on the cheats,[1179]—hang me.

Moll. Be sure you meet me there.

Trap. Without any more maundering,[1180] I’ll do’t.—Follow, brave Tearcat.

Tear. I præ, sequor; let us go, mouse.[1181]