A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Xi Part 11

SCENE II.

_Music. Enter with table-napkins_, COUNT FREDERICK, SIR JOHN WORLDLY, NEVILL, PENDANT, SIR INNOCENT NINNY, LADY NINNY, SIR ABRAHAM. _Servants with wine, plate, tobacco, and pipes._

SIR J. WOR. Sir, had you borne us company to church, You had been the better welcome.

C. FRED. Faith, you had; I must needs say so too.

PEN. And I must needs say as my lord says.

NEV. Sir John, I thank you and my honour'd lord: But I am sorry for this other news Concerning Mistress Kate and my good friend.

SIR J. WOR. Tis certain true: he keeps his word well too!

He said he would come to dinner.

L. NIN. All we cannot get Mistress Katherine out of her chamber.

SIR J. WOR. O good old woman, she is top-shackled.

L. NIN. 'Tis pestilence sack and cruel claret: knight, stand to me, knight, I say: up, a cold stomach! give me my aqua-vitae bottle.

SIR INN. O Guiniver! as I am a justice of peace and quorum, 'twere a good deed to commit thee. Fie, fie, fie!

ABRA. Why, alas! I cannot help this, and I should be hanged: she'll be as drunk as a porter. I'll tell you, my lord, I have seen her so be-p.i.s.s the rushes, as she has danced at a wedding. Her belly and that aqua-vitae bottle have almost undone my father. Well, I think in conscience she is not my natural-begotten mother.

OMNES. Ha, ha, ha!

NEV. Well said, my wise Sir Abraham.[34]

C. FRED. O, this music And good wine is the soul of all the world.

SIR J. WOR. Come, will your lordship make one at primero, Until your bride come forth?

NEV. You can play well, my lord.

C. FRED. Who, I?

PEN. Who? my lord? the only player at primero i' the court.

ABRA. I'd rather play at bowls.

PEN. My lord's for you for that, too: the only bowler in London that is not a churchwarden.

NEV. Can he fence well, too, Master Pendant?

PEN. Who? my lord? the only fencer in Christendom. He'll hit you.

ABRA. He shall not hit me, I a.s.sure you, now.

NEV. Is he good at the exercise of drinking, sir?

PEN. Who? my lord? the only drunkard i' th' world--drinker, I would say.

ABRA. G.o.d-a-mercy for that.

NEV. I would he heard him.

ABRA. I know a better wh.o.r.emaster than he.

NEV. O fie! no: none so good as my lord.

PEN. Hardly, by'r Lady, hardly.

C. FRED. How now! who's this?

_Enter_ SCUDMORE, _like a servingman, with a letter_.

SIR J. WOR. What would you?

SCUD. I would speak with the Lady Bellafront from the young Lady Lucy.

SIR J. WOR. You had best send in your letter; she is withdrawn.

SCUD. My lady gave me charge of the delivery, And I must do't myself, or carry it back.

SIR J. WOR. A trusty servant. That way leads you to her.

C. FRED. This trust in servants is a jewel. Come, Let us to bowls i' th' garden. [_Exeunt._

SCUD. Blessed fate!

[SCUDMORE _pa.s.seth one door, and entereth the other, where_ BELLAFRONT _sits asleep in a chair, under a taffata canopy_.

SCUD. O thou, whose words and actions seem'd to me As innocent as this smooth sleep which hath Lock'd up thy powers! Would thou hadst slept, when first Thou sent'st and profferedst me beauty and love!

I had been ignorant, then, of such a loss.

Happy's that wretch, in my opinion, That never own'd scarce jewels or bright sums: He can lose nothing but his constant wants; But speakless is his plague, that once had store, And from superfluous state falls to be poor.

Such is my h.e.l.l-bred hap! could nature make So fair a superficies to enclose So false a heart? This is like gilded tombs, Compacted of jet pillars, marble stones, Which hide from 's stinking flesh and rotten bones.

Pallas so sat (methinks) in Hector's tent.

But time, so precious and so dangerous, Why do I lose thee? Madam, my lady, madam.

BEL. Believe me, my dear friend, I was enforc'd.

Ha! I had a dream as strange as thou art, fellow.

How cam'st thou hither? what's thy business?

SCUD. That letter, madam, tells you.

BEL. Letter? ha!

What, dost thou mock me? here is nothing writ.