A Select Collection of Old English Plays Part 104

CAPT. With me?

DRAW. No, sir, with Master Wild.

WILD. Madam, I'll wait upon you presently.

[_Exit_ WILD.

CAPT. Madam, I know my company is displeasing to you, therefore I'll take my leave. Drawer, show me another room.

[_The_ CAPTAIN _makes a turn or two; they look at each other, then he goes out_.

LOVE. O Faithful, Faithful! I am most miserably abused, and can find no way to my revenge.

FAITH. Madam, I'll give them ratsbane, and speedily too, ere they can tell; for that rascal the captain has a tongue else will proclaim you, and undo your fame for ever.

LOVE. Ay, ay, my fame, my fame, Faithful: and if it were not for mine honour, which I have kept unstained to this minute, I would not care.

FAITH. This it is: you will set your affection upon every young thing: I could but tell you on't.

LOVE. Who could have suspected they would have been so false in their loves to me, that have been so faithful to them?

_Enter_ DRAWER.

Honest friend, where is Master Wild?

DRAW. The other gentlemen carried him away with them.

LOVE. Are they all gone then?

DRAW. Yes, by this hand. These gentlemen are quickly satisfied: what an ugly wh.o.r.e they have got! how she states it.[253]

[_Aside._

LOVE. Come, let's go, wench.

[_She offers to go._

DRAW. Mistress, who pays the reckoning?

LOVE. What says he?

FAITH. He asks me who pays the reckoning?

LOVE. Who pays the reckoning! Why, what have we to do with the reckoning?

DRAW. Shut the door, d.i.c.k. [_To_ LOVEALL.] We'll have the reckoning before you go.

FAITH. Why, goodman sauce-box, you will not make my lady pay for their reckoning, will you?

DRAW. My lady! a pox of her t.i.tle, she'd need of something to make her pa.s.s.

FAITH. What do you say, sirrah?

DRAW. I say, the gentlemen paid well for their sport, and I know no reason why we should lose our reckoning.

LOVE. What do you take me for, my friend?

DRAW. In troth, I take you for nothing; but I would be loth to take you for that use I think they make s.h.i.+ft with you for.

FAITH. Madam, this is that rascally captain's plot.

LOVE. Patience, patience! O, for a bite at the slave's heart.

Friend, mistake me not, my name is Loveall, a lady: send one along with me, and you shall have your money.

DRAW. You must pardon me, madam, I am but a servant: if you be a lady, pray sit in an inner room, and send home your woman for the money: the sum is six pounds, and be pleased to remember the waiters.

LOVE. Go, Faithful, go fetch the money. O, revenge, revenge!

shall I lose my honour, and have no revenge?

[_Exeunt omnes._

ACT IV., SCENE 1.

_Enter_ WANTON, CAPTAIN, CARELESS, _and_ WILD.

WAN. By all that a longing bride hopes for, which I am not, I am better pleased with this revenge than mine own plot, which takes as I could wish. I have so anointed my high priest with sack, that he would have confuted Baal's priest; and now he does so slumber in his ale, and calls to bed already--swears the sun is set.

CAPT. Faith, wench, her abusing of me made me leave her for the reckoning.

CARE. Yes, faith, they have treated her upsey[254] wh.o.r.e, lain with her, told, and then p.a.w.ned her.

WAN. Yes, yes, you are fine things: I wonder women can endure you; for me, I expect you worse, and am armed for't.

WILD. Faith, let's send and release her; the jest is gone far enough; as I live, I pity her.

WAN. Pity her! hang her, and rid the country of her. She is a thing wears out her limbs as fast as her clothes; one that never goes to bed at all, nor sleeps in a whole skin, but is taken to pieces like a motion, as if she were too long; she should be hanged for offering to be a wh.o.r.e.

CAPT. As I live, she's in the right. I peeped once to see what she did before she went to bed; by this light, her maids were dissecting her; and when they had done, they brought some of her to bed, and the rest they either pinned or hung up, and so she lay dismembered till morning; in which time her chamber was strewed all over, like an anatomy-school.

WAN. And when she travels anywhere, she is transported with as great a care and fear of spoiling, as a juggler's motion, when he removes from fair to fair.

CARE. She is a right broken gamester who, though she lacks wherewithal to play, yet loves to be looking on.

_Enter_ WANTON'S MAID.