Act 4 — ACT IV. SCENE I.—Before Gomez's Door.

Enter Lorenzo, Dominick, and two Soldiers at a distance.

Dom. I'll not wag an ace farther: the whole world shall not bribe me to it; for my conscience will digest these gross enormities no longer.

Lor. How, thy conscience not digest them! There is ne'er a friar in Spain can shew a conscience, that comes near it for digestion. It digested pimping, when I sent thee with my letter; and it digested perjury, when thou swor'st thou didst not know me: I am sure it has digested me fifty pounds, of as hard gold as is in all Barbary. Pr'ythee, why shouldest thou discourage fornication, when thou knowest thou lovest a sweet young girl?

Dom. Away, away; I do not love them;—pah; no,—[spits.] I do not love a pretty girl—you are so waggish!— [Spits again.

Lor. Why thy mouth waters at the very mention of them.

Dom. You take a mighty pleasure in defamation, colonel; but I wonder what you find in running restless up and down, breaking your brains, emptying your purse, and wearing out your body, with hunting after unlawful game.

Lor. Why there's the satisfaction on't.

Dom. This incontinency may proceed to adultery, and adultery to murder, and murder to hanging; and there's the satisfaction on't.

440 Lor. I'll not hang alone, friar; I'm resolved to peach thee before thy superiors, for what thou hast done already.

Dom. I'm resolved to forswear it, if you do. Let me advise you better, colonel, than to accuse a church-man to a church-man; in the common cause we are all of a piece; we hang together.

Lor. If you don't, it were no matter if you did.[Aside.

Dom. Nay, if you talk of peaching, I'll peach first, and see whose oath will be believed; I'll trounce you for offering to corrupt my honesty, and bribe my conscience: you shall be summoned by an host of parators; you shall be sentenced in the spiritual court; you shall be excommunicated; you shall be outlawed;—and— [Here Lorenzo takes a purse, and plays with it, and at last lets the purse fall chinking on the ground, which the Friar eyes. [In another tone.] I say, a man might do this now, if he were maliciously disposed, and had a mind to bring matters to extremity: but, considering that you are my friend, a person of honour, and a worthy good charitable man, I would rather die a thousand deaths than disoblige you. [Lorenzo takes up the purse, and pours it into the Friar's sleeve. Nay, good sir;—nay, dear colonel;—O lord, sir, what are you doing now! I profess this must not be: without this I would have served you to the utter-most; pray command me.—A jealous, foul-mouthed rogue this Gomez is; I saw how he used you, and you marked how he used me too. O he's a bitter man; but we'll join our forces; ah, shall we, colonel? we'll be revenged on him with a witness.

Lor. But how shall I send her word to be ready at the door? for I must reveal it in confession to 441 you, that I mean to carry her away this evening, by the help of these two soldiers. I know Gomez suspects you, and you will hardly gain admittance.

Dom. Let me alone; I fear him not. I am armed with the authority of my clothing: yonder I see him keeping sentry at his door:—have you never seen a citizen, in a cold morning, clapping his sides, and walking forward and backward, a mighty pace before his shop? but I'll gain the pass, in spite of his suspicion; stand you aside, and do but mark how I accost him.

Lor. If he meet with a repulse, we must throw off the fox's skin, and put on the lion's.—Come, gentlemen, you'll stand by me?

Sol. Do not doubt us, colonel. [They retire all three to a corner of the stage; Dominick goes to the door where Gomez stands.

Dom. Good even, Gomez; how does your wife?

Gom. Just as you'd have her; thinking on nothing but her dear colonel, and conspiring cuckoldom against me.

Dom. I dare say, you wrong her; she is employing her thoughts how to cure you of your jealousy.

Gom. Yes, by certainty.

Dom. By your leave, Gomez; I have some spiritual advice to impart to her on that subject.

Gom. You may spare your instructions, if you please, father; she has no farther need of them.

Dom. How, no need of them! do you speak in riddles?

Gom. Since you will have me speak plainer,—she has profited so well already by your counsel, that she can say her lesson without your teaching: Do you understand me now?

Dom. I must not neglect my duty, for all that; once again, Gomez, by your leave.

442 Gom. She's a little indisposed at present, and it will not be convenient to disturb her. [Dominick offers to go by him, but t'other stands before him.

Dom. Indisposed, say you? O, it is upon those occasions that a confessor is most necessary; I think, it was my good angel that sent me hither so opportunely.

Gom. Ay, whose good angels sent you hither, that you best know, father.

Dom. A word or two of devotion will do her no harm, I'm sure.

Gom. A little sleep will do her more good, I'm sure: You know, she disburthened her conscience but this morning to you.

Dom. But, if she be ill this afternoon, she may have new occasion to confess.

Gom. Indeed, as you order matters with the colonel, she may have occasion of confessing herself every hour.

Dom. Pray, how long has she been sick?

Gom. Lord, you will force a man to speak;—why, ever since your last defeat.

Dom. This can be but some slight indisposition; it will not last, and I may see her.

Gom. How, not last! I say, it will last, and it shall last; she shall be sick these seven or eight days, and perhaps longer, as I see occasion. What? I know the mind of her sickness a little better than you do.

Dom. I find, then, I must bring a doctor.

Gom. And he'll bring an apothecary, with a chargeable long bill of ana's: those of my family have the grace to die cheaper. In a word, Sir Dominick, we understand one another's business here: I am resolved to stand like the Swiss of my own family, to defend the entrance; you may mumble over your 443 pater nosters, if you please, and try if you can make my doors fly open, and batter down my walls with bell, book, and candle; but I am not of opinion, that you are holy enough to commit miracles.

Dom. Men of my order are not to be treated after this manner.

Gom. I would treat the pope and all his cardinals in the same manner, if they offered to see my wife, without my leave.

Dom. I excommunicate thee from the church, if thou dost not open; there's promulgation coming out.

Gom. And I excommunicate you from my wife, if you go to that: there's promulgation for promulgation, and bull for bull; and so I leave you to recreate yourself with the end of an old song— And sorrow came to the old friar.[Exit.

Lorenzo comes to him.

Lor. I will not ask you your success; for I overheard part of it, and saw the conclusion. I find we are now put upon our last trump; the fox is earthed, but I shall send my two terriers in after him.

Sold. I warrant you, colonel, we'll unkennel him.

Lor. And make what haste you can, to bring out the lady.—What say you, father? Burglary is but a venial sin among soldiers.

Dom. I shall absolve them, because he is an enemy of the church.—There is a proverb, I confess, which says, that dead men tell no tales; but let your soldiers apply it at their own perils.

Lor. What, take away a man's wife, and kill him too! The wickedness of this old villain startles me, and gives me a twinge for my own sin, though it comes far short of his.—Hark you, soldiers, be sure you use as little violence to him as is possible.

444 Dom. Hold a little; I have thought better how to secure him, with less danger to us.

Lor. O miracle, the friar is grown conscientious!

Dom. The old king, you know, is just murdered, and the persons that did it are unknown; let the soldiers seize him for one of the assassinates, and let me alone to accuse him afterwards.

Lor. I cry thee mercy with all my heart, for suspecting a friar of the least good nature; what, would you accuse him wrongfully?

Dom. I must confess, 'tis wrongful, quoad hoc, as to the fact itself; but 'tis rightful, quoad hunc, as to this heretical rogue, whom we must dispatch. He has railed against the church, which is a fouler crime than the murder of a thousand kings. Omne majus continet in se minus: He, that is an enemy to the church, is an enemy unto heaven; and he, that is an enemy to heaven, would have killed the king if he had been in the circumstances of doing it; so it is not wrongful to accuse him.

Lor. I never knew a churchman, if he were personally offended, but he would bring in heaven by hook or crook into his quarrel.—Soldiers, do as you were first ordered. [Exeunt Soldiers.

Dom. What was't you ordered them? Are you sure it's safe, and not scandalous?

Lor. Somewhat near your own design, but not altogether so mischievous. The people are infinitely discontented, as they have reason; and mutinies there are, or will be, against the queen: now I am content to put him thus far into the plot, that he should be secured as a traitor; but he shall only be prisoner at the soldiers' quarters; and when I am out of reach, he shall be released.

Dom. And what will become of me then? for when he is free, he will infallibly accuse me.

445 Lor. Why then, father, you must have recourse to your infallible church-remedies; lie impudently, and swear devoutly, and, as you told me but now, let him try whose oath will be first believed. Retire, I hear them coming. [They withdraw.

Enter the Soldiers with Gomez struggling on their backs.

Gom. Help, good Christians! help, neighbours! my house is broken open by force, and I am ravished, and like to be assassinated!—What do you mean, villains? will you carry me away, like a pedlar's pack, upon your backs? will you murder a man in plain day-light?

1 Soldier. No; but we'll secure you for a traitor, and for being in a plot against the state.

Gom, Who, I in a plot! O Lord! O Lord! I never durst be in a plot: Why, how can you in conscience suspect a rich citizen of so much wit as to make a plotter? There are none but poor rogues, and those that can't live without it, that are in plots.

2 Soldier. Away with him, away with him.

Gom. O my gold! my wife! my wife! my gold! As I hope to be saved now, I know no more of the plot than they that made it. [They carry him off, and exeunt.

Lor. Thus far we have sailed with a merry gale, and now we have the Cape of Good Hope in sight; the trade-wind is our own, if we can but double it. [He looks out. [Aside.] Ah, my father and Pedro stand at the corner of the street with company; there's no stirring till they are past.

Enter Elvira with a casket.

Elv. Am I come at last into your arms?

446 Lor. Fear nothing; the adventure's ended, and the knight may carry off the lady safely.

Elv. I'm so overjoyed, I can scarce believe I am at liberty; but stand panting, like a bird that has often beaten her wings in vain against her cage, and at last dares hardly venture out, though she sees it open.

Dom. Lose no time, but make haste while the way is free for you; and thereupon I give you my benediction.

Lor. 'Tis not so free as you suppose; for there's an old gentleman of my acquaintance, that blocks up the passage at the corner of the street.

Dom. What have you gotten there under your arm, daughter? somewhat, I hope, that will bear your charges in your pilgrimage.

Lor. The friar has an hawk's eye to gold and jewels.

Elv. Here's that will make you dance without a fiddle, and provide better entertainment for us, than hedges in summer, and barns in winter. Here's the very heart, and soul, and life-blood of Gomez; pawns in abundance, old gold of widows, and new gold of prodigals, and pearls and diamonds of court ladies, till the next bribe helps their husbands to redeem them.

Dom. They are the spoils of the wicked, and the church endows you with them.

Lor. And, faith, we'll drink the church's health out of them. But all this while I stand on thorns. Pr'ythee, dear, look out, and see if the coast be free for our escape; for I dare not peep, for fear of being known. [Elvira goes to look, and Gomez comes running in upon her: She shrieks out.

Gom. Thanks to my stars, I have recovered my own territories.—What do I see? I'm ruined! I'm undone! I'm betrayed!

447 Dom. [Aside.] What a hopeful enterprise is here spoiled!

Gom. O, colonel are you there?—and you, friar? nay, then I find how the world goes.

Lor. Cheer up, man, thou art out of jeopardy; I heard thee crying out just now, and came running in full speed, with the wings of an eagle, and the feet of a tiger, to thy rescue.

Gom. Ay, you are always at hand to do me a courtesy, with your eagle's feet, and your tiger's wings.—And what were you here for, friar?

Dom. To interpose my spiritual authority in your behalf.

Gom. And why did you shriek out, gentlewoman?

Elv. 'Twas for joy at your return.

Gom. And that casket under your arm, for what end and purpose?

Elv. Only to preserve it from the thieves.

Gom. And you came running out of doors—

Elv. Only to meet you, sweet husband.

Gom. A fine evidence summed up among you; thank you heartily, you are all my friends. The colonel was walking by accidentally, and hearing my voice, came in to save me; the friar, who was hobbling the same way too, accidentally again, and not knowing of the colonel, I warrant you, he comes in to pray for me; and my faithful wife runs out of doors to meet me, with all my jewels under her arm, and shrieks out for joy at my return. But if my father-in-law had not met your soldiers, colonel, and delivered me in the nick, I should neither have found a friend nor a friar here, and might have shrieked out for joy myself, for the loss of my jewels and my wife.

Dom. Art thou an infidel? Wilt thou not believe us?

Gom. Such churchmen as you would make any 448 man an infidel.—Get you into your kennel, gentlewoman; I shall thank you within doors for your safe custody of my jewels and your own. [He thrusts his wife off the stage. As for you, colonel Huffcap, we shall try before a civil magistrate, who's the greater plotter of us two, I against the state, or you against the petticoat.

Lor. Nay, if you will complain, you shall for something.[Beats him.

Gom. Murder, murder! I give up the ghost! I am destroyed! help, murder, murder!

Dom. Away, colonel; let us fly for our lives: the neighbours are coming out with forks, and fire-shovels, and spits, and other domestic weapons; the militia of a whole alley is raised against us.

Lor. This is but the interest of my debt, master usurer; the principal shall be paid you at our next meeting.

Dom. Ah, if your soldiers had but dispatched him, his tongue had been laid asleep, colonel; but this comes of not following good counsel; ah— [Exeunt Lor. and Friar severally.

Gom. I'll be revenged of him, if I dare; but he's such a terrible fellow, that my mind misgives me; I shall tremble when I have him before the judge. All my misfortunes come together. I have been robbed, and cuckolded, and ravished, and beaten, in one quarter of an hour; my poor limbs smart, and my poor head aches: ay, do, do, smart limb, ache head, and sprout horns; but I'll be hanged before I'll pity you:—you must needs be married, must ye? there's for that; [Beats his own head.] and to a fine, young, modish lady, must ye? there's for that too; and, at threescore, you old, doting cuckold! take that remembrance;—a fine time of day for a man to be bound prentice, when he is past using of his trade; to set up an equipage of noise, when he has 449 most need of quiet; instead of her being under covert-baron, to be under covert-femme myself; to have my body disabled, and my head fortified; and, lastly, to be crowded into a narrow box with a shrill treble, That with one blast through the whole house does bound, And first taught speaking-trumpets how to sound.[Exit.