A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Ix Part 107

[_Exeunt_.

LORD. Why, now I see: what I heard of, I believed not, Your kinsman lives--

SIR WIL. Like to a swine.

LORD. A perfect Epythite,[398] he feeds on draff, And wallows in the mire, to make men laugh: I pity him.

SIR WIL. No pity's fit for him.

LORD. Yet we'll advise him.

SIR WIL. He is my kinsman.

LORD. Being in the pit, where many do fall in, We will both comfort him and counsel him.

[_Exeunt_.

ACT IV.

_A noise within, crying Follow, follow, follow! then enter_ BUTLER, THOMAS _and_ JOHN SCARBOROW, _with money-bags_.

THOM. What shall we do now, butler?

BUT. A man had better line a good handsome pair of gallows before his time, than be born to do these sucklings good, their mother's milk not wrung out of their nose yet; they know no more how to behave themselves in this honest and needful calling of pursetaking, than I do to piece stockings.

WITHIN. This way, this way, this way!

BOTH. 'Sfoot, what shall we do now?

BUT. See if they do not quake like a trembling asp-leaf, and look more miserable than one of the wicked elders pictured in the painted cloth.[399] Should they but come to the credit to be arraigned for their valour before a worshipful bench, their very looks would hang 'em, and they were indicted but for stealing of eggs.

WITHIN. Follow, follow! This way! Follow!

THOM. Butler.

JOHN. Honest butler.

BUT. Squat, heart, squat, creep me into these bushes, and lie me as close to the ground as you would do to a wench.

THOM. How, good butler? show us how.

BUT. By the moon, patroness of all pursetakers, who would be troubled with such changelings? squat, heart, squat.

THOM. Thus, butler?

BUT. Ay so, suckling, so; stir not now: if the peering rogues chance to go over you, yet stir not: younger brothers call you them, and have no more forecast, I am ashamed of you. These are such whose fathers had need leave them money, even to make them ready withal; for, by these hilts, they have not wit to b.u.t.ton their sleeves without teaching: close, squat, close. Now if the lot of hanging do fall to my share, so; then the old father's[400] man drops for his young masters. If it chance, it chances; and when it chances, heaven and the sheriff send me a good rope! I would not go up the ladder twice for anything: in the meantime preventions, honest preventions do well, off with my skin; so; you on the ground, and I to this tree, to escape the gallows.

[_Ascends a tree_.]

WITHIN. Follow, follow, follow!

BUT. Do: follow. If I do not deceive you, I'll bid a pox of this wit, and hang with a good grace.

_Enter_ SIR JOHN HARCOP, _with two or three others with him_.

HAR. Up to this wood they took: search near, my friends, I am this morn robbed of three hundred pound.

BUT. I am sorry there was not four to make even money. Now, by the devil's horns, 'tis Sir John Harcop.

HAR. Leave not a bush unbeat nor tree unsearch'd; As sure as I was robb'd, the thieves went this way.

BUT. There's n.o.body, I perceive, but may lie at some time, for one of them climbed this way.

1ST MAN. Stand, I hear a voice; and here's an owl in an ivy-bush.

BUT. You lie, 'tis an old servingman in a nut-tree.

2D MAN. Sirrah, sir, what make you in that tree?

BUT. Gathering of nuts, that such fools as you are may crack the sh.e.l.ls, and I eat the kernels.

HAR. What fellow's that?

BUT. Sir John Harcop, my n.o.ble knight; I am glad of your good health; you bear your age fair, you keep a good house, I have fed at your board, and been drunk in your b.u.t.tery.

HAR. But sirrah, sirrah, what made you in that tree?

My man and I, at foot of yonder hill, Were by three knaves robb'd of three hundred pound.

BUT. A shrewd loss, by'r Lady, sir; but your good worship may now see the fruit of being miserable: you will ride but with one man to save horse-meat and man's meat at your inn at night, and lose three hundred pound in a morning.

HAR. Sirrah, I say I have lost three hundred pound.

BUT. And I say, sir, I wish all miserable knights might be served so; for had you kept half a dozen tall fellows, as a man of your coat should do, they would have helped now to keep your money.

HAR. But tell me, sir, why lurked you in that tree?

BUT. Marry, I will tell you, sir. Coming to the top of the hill where you (right worshipful) were robbed at the bottom, and seeing some a-scuffling together, my mind straight gave me there were knaves abroad: now, sir, I knowing myself to be old, tough, and unwieldy, not being able to do as I would, as much as to say rescue you (right worshipful)--I, like an honest man, one of the king's liege people, and a good subject--

SER. But he says well, sir.

BUT. Got me up to the top of that tree: the tree (if it could speak) would bear me witness, that there I might see which way the knaves took, then to tell you of it, and you right worshipfully to send hue and[401]

cry after them.

HAR. Was it so?

BUT. Nay, 'twas so, sir.