A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Xiv Part 87

JOLLY. You'll be able to say so one day, upon your wife's report.

I would he were gelt, and all that hold his opinion: by this good day, they get more souls than they save.

SAD. And what think you of the knight's son? I hope he's a fine gentleman, when his green suit and his blue stockings are on; and the welcomest thing to Mistress Abigail, but Tib and Tom in the stock.[205]

JOLLY. Who, Master Jeffrey? Hobbinol the second! By this life, 'tis a very veal, and he licks his nose like one of them. By his discourse you'd guess he had eaten nothing but hay. I wonder he doth not go on all four too, and hold up his leg when he stales.

He talks of nothing but the stable. The cobbler's blackbird at the corner has more discourse. He has not so much as the family jest which these Corydons use to inherit. I posed him in Booker's prophecies,[206] till he confessed he had not mastered his almanac yet.

CON. But what was that you whispered to him in the hall?

JOLLY. Why, the butler and I, by the intercession of Marchbeer, had newly reconciled him to his dad's old codpiece corslet in the hall, which, when his zeal was up, he would needs throw down, because it hung upon a cross.

CON. But what think you of my neighbour? I hope her charity takes you.

JOLLY. Yes, and her old waiting-woman's devotion: she sighed in the pew behind me. A Dutch skipper belches not so loud or so sour. My lady's miserable sinner with the white eyes, she does so squeeze out her prayers, and so wring out, _Have mercy upon us_.

I warrant her she has a waiting-woman's sting in her conscience.

She looks like a dirty-souled bawd.

CON. Who? is this my Lady Freedom's woman that he describes?

JOLLY. The same, the independent lady. I have promised to send her a cripple or two by the next carrier. Her subject-husband would needs show me his house one morning. I never visited such an hospital: it stank like Bedlam, and all the servants were carrying poultices, juleps, and glisters, and several remedies for all diseases but his. The man sighed to see his estate crumbling away. I counselled him either to give or take an ounce of ratsbane, to cure his mind.

CON. She is my cousin; but he made such a complaint to me, I thought he had married the company of Surgeons' Hall: for his directions to me for several things for his wife's use were fitter for an apothecary's shop than a lady's closet.

JOLLY. I advised him to settle no jointure but her old stills and a box of instruments upon her. She hates a man with all his limbs: a wooden leg, a crutch, and _fistula in ano_, wins her heart. Her gentleman-usher broke his leg last dogdays merely to have the honour to have her set it. A foul, rank rogue! and so full of salt humours, that he posed a whole college of old women with a gangrene, which spoiled the jest, and his ambling before my lady, by applying a handsaw to his gart'ring-place; and now the rogue wears booted bed-staves, and destroys all the young ashes to make him legs.

SAD. I never saw such a nasty affection: she would ha' done well in the incurable--a handmaid to have waited on the cripples.

JOLLY. She converses with naked men, and handles all their members, though never so ill affected, and calls the fornication charity. All her discourse to me was flat bawdry, which I could not chide, but spoke as flat as she, till she rebuked me, calling mine beastliness, and hers natural philosophy. By this day, if I were to marry, I would as soon have chosen a drawn wh.o.r.e out of mine own hospital, and cure the sins of her youth, as marry a she-chirurgeon--one that, for her sins in her first husband's days, cures all the crimes of her s.e.x in my time. I would have him call her Chiron, the Centaur's own daughter: a chirurgeon by sire and dam, Apollo's own colt. She's red-haired too, like that bonny beast with the golden mane and flaming tail.

SAD. You had a long discourse with her, Jolly: what was't about?

JOLLY. I was advising her to be divorced, and marry the man in the almanac: 'twould be fine pastime for her to lick him whole.

SAD. By this day, I never saw such a mule as her husband is, to bear with her madness. The house is a good house, and well furnished.

JOLLY. Yes; but 'tis such a sight to see great French beds full of found children, sons of bachelors, priests' heirs, Bridewell orphans: there they lie by dozens in a bed, like sucking rabbits in a dish, or a row of pins; and then they keep a whole dairy of milch-wh.o.r.es to suckle them.

SAD. She is successful; and that spoils her, and makes her deaf to counsel. I bad him poison two or three, to disgrace her; for the vanity and pride of their remedies make those women more diligent than their charity.

JOLLY. I asked him why he married her; and he confessed, if he had been sound, he had never had her.

CON. He confessed she cured him of three claps before he married her.

JOLLY. Yes, and I believe some other member (though then ill-affected) pleaded more than his tongue; and the rogue is like to find her business still, for he flies at all. My G.o.d, I owe thee thanks for many things; but 'tis not the least I am not her husband nor a country gentleman, whither, I believe, you cannot easily seduce me again, unless you can persuade London to stand in the country. To Hyde Park, or so, I may venture upon your Lady-fair days, when the filly foals of fifteen come kicking in, with their manes and tails tied up in ribands, to see their eyes roll and neigh, when the spring makes their blood p.r.i.c.k them: so far I am with you, by the way of a country gentleman and a beer-drinker.

SAD. For all this dislike, Master Jolly, your greatest acquaintance lies amongst country gentlemen.

JOLLY. Ay, at London: there your country gentlemen are good company; where to be seen with them is a kind of credit. I come to a mercer's shop in your coach: _Boy, call your master_: he comes bare; I whisper him, _Do you know the Constants and the Sads of Norfolk_? _Yes, yes_, he replies, and strokes his beard.

_They are good men_, cry I. _Yes, yes. No more; cut me off three suits of satin._ He does it, and in the delivery whispers, _Will these be bound? Pis.h.!.+ drive on, coachman; speak with me to-morrow._

CON. And what then?

JOLLY. What then? why, come again next day.

SAD. And what if the country gentleman will not be bound?

JOLLY. Then he must fight.

SAD. I would I had known that, before I had signed your bond: I would have set my sword sooner than my seal to it.

JOLLY. Why, if thou repent, there's no harm done: fight rather than pay it.

SAD. Why, do you think I dare not fight?

JOLLY. Yes, but I think thou hast more wit than to fight with me; for if I kill thee, 'tis a fortune to me, and others will sign in fear: and if thou shouldst kill me, anybody that knows us would swear 'twere very strange, and cry, There's G.o.d's just judgment now upon that lewd youth, and thou procur'st his hangman's place at the rate of thy estate.

CON. By this hand, he is in the right; and, for mine, I meant to pay when I signed. Hang it, never put good fellows to say, _Prythee, give me a hundred pounds._

SAD. 'Tis true, 'tis a good janty[207] way of begging; yet, for being killed if I refuse it--would there were no more danger in the widow's unkindness than in your fighting, I would not mistrust my design.

JOLLY. Why, ay, there's a point now in nicety of honour. I should kill you for her, for you know I pretended first; and it may be, if I had writ sad lines to her, and hid myself in my cloak, and haunted her coach--it may be in time she would have sought me.

Not I, by this hand, I'll not trouble myself for a wench; and married widows are but customary authorised wenches.

CON. Being of that opinion, how canst thou think of marrying one?

JOLLY. Why, faith, I know not: I thought to rest me, for I was run out of breath with pleasure, and grew so acquainted with sin, I would have been good, for variety: in these thoughts 'twas my fortune to meet with this widow--handsome, and of a clear fame.

CON. Didst love her?

JOLLY. Yes, faith: I had love, but not to the disease that makes men sick; and I could have loved her still, but that I was angry to have her refuse me for a fault I told her of myself; so I went no more.

SAD. Did she forbid you but once?

JOLLY. Faith, I think I slipped a fair opportunity: a handsome wench and three thousand pounds _per annum_ in certainty, besides the possibility of being saved.

CON. Which now you think desperate?

[WIDOW _and_ PLEASANT _looking out at a window_.

PLEA. That is you: cross or pile, will you have him yet, or no?

WID. Peace! observe them.

JOLLY. Faith, no, I do not despair; but I cannot resolve.

_Enter_ WILD, CARELESS, _and the_ CAPTAIN, _going in haste; he comes in at the middle door_.

WID. Who are those?