B. Knight. Pawn, I have spoke to the Fat Bishop for thee;
I'll get thee absolution from his own mouth.
Reach me my chair of ease, my chair of cozenage;
Seven thousand pounds in women, reach me that:
I love a' life
[740] to sit upon a bank
Of heretic gold. O, soft and gently, sirrah!
There’s a foul flaw
[741] i' the bottom of my drum, Pawn:
I ne’er shall make sound soldier, but sound treacher
[742]With any he in Europe. How now? qualm?
Thou hast the puking’st soul that e’er I met with;
It cannot bear one suckling villany:
Mine can digest a monster without crudity,
A sin as weighty as an elephant,
And never wamble for’t.
B. Kt.'s Pawn. Ay, you’ve been us’d to’t, sir;
That’s a great help. The swallow of my conscience
Hath but a narrow passage; you must think yet
It lies i' the penitent pipe, and will not down:
If I had got seven thousand pounds by offices,
And gull’d
[743] down that, the bore would have been bigger.
B. Knight. Nay, if thou prov’st facetious, I shall hug thee.
So ride upon thy conscience? I'm asham’d of thee.
Hadst thou betray’d the White House to the Black,
Beggar’d a kingdom by dissimulation,
Unjointed
[746] the fair frame of peace and traffic,
Poison’d allegiance, set faith back, and wrought
Women’s soft souls even up to masculine malice,
To pursue truth to death, if the cause rous’d ’em,
That stares
[747] and parrots are first taught to curse thee——
B. Kt.'s Pawn. Ay, marry, sir, here’s swapping sins indeed!
B. Knight. All these, and ten times trebled, hath this brain
Been parent to; they are my offsprings all.
B. Kt.'s Pawn. A goodly brood!
B. Knight. Yet I can jest as lightly,
[748]
Laugh and tell stirring stories to court-madams,
Daughters of my seducement, with alacrity
As high and hearty as youth’s time of innocence
That never knew a sin to shape a sorrow by:
I feel no tempest, not a leaf wind-stirring
To shake a fault; my conscience is becalm’d rather.
B. Kt.'s Pawn. I'm sure there is a whirlwind huffs in mine, sir.
B. Knight. Sirrah, I've sold the groom-of-the stole six times,
And receiv’d money of six several ladies
Ambitious to take place of baronets' wives:
To three
[749] old mummy matrons I have promis’d
The mothership o' the maids: I've taught our friends too
To convey White-House gold to our Black kingdom
In cold bak’d pasties, and so cozen searchers:
For venting hallow’d oil, beads, medals, pardons,
Pictures, Veronica’s heads in private presses,
That’s done by one i' th' habit of a pedlar;
Letters convey’d in rolls, tobacco-balls:
When a restraint comes, by my politic counsel,
Some of our Jesuits turn
[750] gentlemen-ushers,
Some falconers, some park-keepers, and some huntsmen;
One took the shape of an old lady’s cook once,
And despatch’d two chares
[751] on a Sunday morning,
The altar and the dresser. Pray, what use
Put I my summer-recreation to,
But more t' inform my knowledge in the state
And strength of the White Kingdom? no fortification,
Haven, creek, landing-place about the White coast,
But I got draft and platform; learn’d
[752] the depth
Of all their channels, knowledge of all sands,
Shelves, rocks, and rivers for invasion properest;
A catalogue of all the navy royal,
The burthen of each ship, the brassy murderers,
[753]The number of the men, to what cape bound:
Again, for the discovery of the inlands,
Never a shire but the state better known
To me than to her breast
[754]-inhabitants;
What power of men and horse, gentry’s revenues,
Who well affected to our side, who ill,
Who neither well nor ill, all the neutrality:
Thirty-eight thousand souls have been seduc’d, Pawn,
Since the jails
[755] vomited with the pill I gave ’em.
B. Kt.'s Pawn. Sure, you put oil of toad into
[756] that physic, sir.
B. Knight. I'm now about a masterpiece of play
T' entrap the White Knight, and with false allurements
Entice him to the Black House,—more will follow,—
Whilst our Fat Bishop sets upon the Queen;
Then will our game lie sweetly.