Act 1 — ACT I. SCENE I.

A Room in Sir Alexander Wengrave’s House.

Enter Mary Fitzallard disguised like a sempster, with a case for bands, and Neatfoot with her, a napkin on his shoulder, and a trencher^[953] in his hand, as from table.

Neat. The young gentleman, our young master, sir Alexander’s son, is it into his ears, sweet damsel, emblem of fragility, you desire to have a message transported, or to be transcendent?

Mary. A private word or two, sir; nothing else.

Neat. You shall fructify in that which you come for; your pleasure shall be satisfied to your full contentation. I will, fairest tree of generation, watch when our young master is erected, that is to say, up, and deliver him to this your most white hand.

438Mary. Thanks, sir.

Neat. And withal certify him, that I have culled out for him, now his belly is replenished, a daintier bit or modicum than any lay upon his trencher at dinner. Hath he notion of your name, I beseech your chastity?

Mary. One, sir, of whom he bespake falling bands.^[954]

Neat. Falling bands? it shall so be given him. If you please to venture your modesty in the hall amongst a curl-pated company of rude serving-men, and take such as they can set before you, you shall be most seriously and ingeniously^[955] welcome.

Mary. I have dined^[956] indeed already, sir.

Neat. Or will you vouchsafe to kiss the lip of a cup of rich Orleans in the buttery amongst our waiting-women?

Mary. Not now, in truth, sir.

Neat. Our young master shall then have a feeling of your being here; presently it shall so be given him.

Mary. I humbly thank you, sir. [Exit Neatfoot.] But that my bosom

Is full of bitter sorrows, I could smile

To see this formal ape play antic tricks;

But in my breast a poison’d arrow sticks,

439And smiles cannot become me. Love woven slightly,

Such as thy false heart makes, wears out as lightly;

But love being truly bred i’ th’ soul, like mine,

Bleeds even to death at the least wound it takes,—

The more we quench this [fire], the less it slakes:

O me!

Enter Sebastian Wengrave with Neatfoot.

Seb. A sempster speak with me, sayest thou?

Neat. Yes, sir; she’s there, viva voce to deliver her auricular confession.

Seb. With me, sweetheart? what is’t?

Mary. I have brought home your bands, sir.

Seb. Bands?—Neatfoot.

Neat. Sir?

Seb. Prithee, look in; for all the gentlemen are upon rising.

Neat. Yes, sir; a most methodical attendance shall be given.

Seb. And dost hear? if my father call for me, say I am busy with a sempster.

Neat. Yes, sir; he shall know it that you are busied with a needle-woman.

Seb. In’s ear, good Neatfoot.

Neat. It shall be so given him. [Exit.

Seb. Bands? you’re mistaken, sweetheart, I bespake none:

When, where, I prithee? what bands? let me see them.

Mary. Yes, sir; a bond^[957] fast seal’d with solemn oaths,

Subscrib’d unto, as I thought, with your soul;

Deliver’d as your deed in sight of heaven:

Is this bond cancellèd? have you forgot me?

440Seb. Ha! life of my life, sir Guy Fitzallard’s daughter?

What has transform’d my love to this strange shape?

Stay; make all sure [shuts the door]; so: now speak and be brief,

Because the wolf’s at door that lies in wait

To prey upon us both. Albeit mine eyes

Are blest by thine, yet this so strange disguise

Holds me with fear and wonder.

Mary. Mine’s a loath’d sight;

Why from it are you banish’d else so long?

Seb. I must cut short my speech: in broken language

Thus much, sweet Moll; I must thy company shun;

I court another Moll: my thoughts must run

As a horse runs that’s blind round in a mill,

Out every step, yet keeping one path still.

Mary. Umph! must you shun my company? in one knot

Have both our hands by th’ hands of heaven been tied,

Now to be broke? I thought me once your bride;

Our fathers did agree on the time when:

And must another bedfellow fill my room?

Seb. Sweet maid, let’s lose no time; ’tis in heaven’s book

Set down, that I must have thee; an oath we took

To keep our vows: but when the knight your father

Was from mine parted, storms began to sit

Upon my covetous father’s brow[s], which fell

From them on me. He reckon’d up what gold

This marriage would draw from him; at which he swore,

To lose so much blood could not grieve him more:

He then dissuades me from thee, call’d thee not fair,

And ask’d what is she but a beggar’s heir?

441He scorn’d thy dowry of five thousand marks.^[958]

If such a sum of money could be found,

And I would match with that, he’d not undo it,

Provided his bags might add nothing to it;

But vow’d, if I took thee, nay, more, did swear it,

Save birth, from him I nothing should inherit.

Mary. What follows then? my shipwreck?

Seb. Dearest, no:

Though wildly in a labyrinth I go,

My end is to meet thee: with a side-wind

Must I now sail, else I no haven can find,

But both must sink for ever. There’s a wench

Call’d Moll, mad Moll, or merry Moll; a creature

So strange in quality, a whole city takes

Note of her name and person: all that affection

I owe to thee, on her in counterfeit passion

I spend, to mad my father: he believes

I doat upon this Roaring Girl, and grieves

As it becomes a father for a son

That could be so bewitch’d: yet I’ll go on

This crooked way, sigh still for her, feign dreams

In which I’ll talk only of her: these streams

Shall, I hope, force my father to consent

That here I anchor, rather than be rent

Upon a rock so dangerous. Art thou pleas’d,

Because thou seest we’re waylaid, that I take

A path that’s safe, though it be far about?

Mary. My prayers with heaven guide thee!

Seb. Then I will on:

My father is at hand; kiss, and begone!

Hours shall be watch’d for meetings: I must now,

As men for fear, to a strange idol bow.

Mary. Farewell!

442Seb. I’ll guide thee forth: when next we meet,

A story of Moll shall make our mirth more sweet.

[Exeunt.

Enter Sir Alex. Wengrave, Sir Davy Dapper, Sir Adam Appleton, Goshawk, Laxton, and Gentlemen.

All. Thanks, good sir Alexander, for our bounteous cheer!

S. Alex. Fie, fie, in giving thanks you pay too dear.

S. Davy. When bounty spreads the table, faith, ’twere sin,

At going off if thanks should not step in.

S. Alex. No more of thanks, no more. Ay, marry, sir,

Th’ inner room was too close: how do you like

This parlour, gentlemen?

All. O, passing well!

S. Adam. What a sweet breath the air casts here, so cool!

Gos. I like the prospect best.

Lax. See how ’tis furnish’d!

S. Davy. A very fair sweet room.

S. Alex. Sir Davy Dapper,

The furniture that doth adorn this room

Cost many a fair grey groat ere it came here;

But good things are most cheap when they’re most dear.

Nay, when you look into my galleries,

How bravely they’re trimm’d up, you all shall swear

You’re highly pleas’d to see what’s set down there:

Stories of men and women, mix’d together

Fair ones with foul, like sunshine in wet weather;

443Within one square a thousand heads are laid,

So close that all of heads the room seems made;

As many faces there, fill’d with blithe looks,

Shew like the promising titles of new books

Writ merrily, the readers being their own eyes,

Which seem to move and to give plaudities;

And here and there, whilst with obsequious ears

Throng’d heaps do listen, a cut-purse thrusts and leers

With hawk’s eyes for his prey; I need not shew him;

By a hanging, villanous look yourselves may know him,

The face is drawn so rarely: then, sir, below,

The very floor, as ’twere, waves to and fro,

And, like a floating island, seems to move

Upon a sea bound in with shores above.

All. These sights are excellent!

S. Alex. I’ll shew you all:

Since we are met, make our parting comical.

Re-enter Sebastian Wengrave with Greenwit.

Seb. This gentleman, my friend, will take his leave, sir.

S. Alex. Ha! take his leave, Sebastian, who?

Seb. This gentleman.

S. Alex. Your love, sir, has already given me some time,

And if you please to trust my age with more,

It shall pay double interest: good sir, stay.

Green. I have been too bold.

S. Alex. Not so, sir: a merry day

’Mongst friends being spent, is better than gold sav’d.—

Some wine, some wine! Where be these knaves I keep?

444Re-enter Neatfoot with several Servants.

Neat. At your worshipful elbow, sir.

S. Alex. You’re kissing my maids, drinking, or fast asleep.

Neat. Your worship has given it us right.

S. Alex. You varlets, stir!

Chairs, stools, and cushions!—

[Servants bring in wine, and place chairs, &c.

Prithee, sir Davy Dapper,

Make that chair thine.

S. Davy. ’Tis but an easy gift;

And yet I thank you for it, sir: I’ll take it.

S. Alex. A chair for old sir Adam Appleton!

Neat. A back friend to your worship.

S. Adam. Marry, good Neatfoot,

I thank thee for’t; back friends sometimes are good.

S. Alex. Pray, make that stool your perch, good master Goshawk.

Gos. I stoop to your lure, sir.

S. Alex. Son Sebastian,

Take master Greenwit to you.

Seb. Sit, dear friend.

S. Alex. Nay, master Laxton—furnish master Laxton

With what he wants, a stone,—a stool, I would say,

A stool.

Lax. I had rather stand, sir.

S. Alex. I know you had, good master Laxton: so, so.

[Exeunt Neatfoot and Servants.

Now here’s a mess of friends; and, gentlemen,

Because time’s glass shall not be running long,

I’ll quicken it with a pretty tale.

S. Davy. Good tales do well

In these bad days, where vice does so excel.

445S. Adam. Begin, sir Alexander.

S. Alex. Last day I met

An aged man, upon whose head was scor’d

A debt of just so many years as these

Which I owe to my grave: the man you all know.

All. His name, I pray you, sir.

S. Alex. Nay, you shall pardon me:

But when he saw me, with a sigh that brake,

Or seem’d to break, his heart-strings, thus he spake:

O my good knight, says he, (and then his eyes

Were richer even by that which made them poor,

They’d spent so many tears they had no more),

O sir, says he, you know it! for you ha’ seen

Blessings to rain upon mine house and me:

Fortune, who slaves men, was my slave; her wheel

Hath spun me golden threads; for, I thank heaven,

I ne’er had but one cause to curse my stars.

I ask’d him then what that one caue might be.

All. So, sir.

S. Alex. He paus’d: and as we often see

A sea so much becalm’d, there can be found

No wrinkle on his brow, his waves being drown’d

In their own rage; but when th’ imperious wind[s]

Use strange invisible tyranny to shake

Both heaven’s and earth’s foundation at their noise,

The seas, swelling with wrath to part that fray,

Rise up, and are more wild, more mad than they;

Even so this good old man was by my question

Stirr’d up to roughness; you might see his gall

Flow even in’s eyes; then grew he fantastical.

S. Davy. Fantastical? ha, ha!

S. Alex. Yes; and talk[’d] oddly.

S. Adam. Pray, sir, proceed:

How did this old man end?

S. Alex. Marry, sir, thus:

446He left his wild fit to read o’er his cards;

Yet then, though age cast snow on all his hairs,

He joy’d, because, says he, the god of gold

Has been to me no niggard; that disease,

Of which all old men sicken, avarice,

Never infected me——

Lax. He means not himself, I’m sure. [Aside.

S. Alex. For, like a lamp

Fed with continual oil, I spend and throw

My light to all that need it, yet have still

Enough to serve myself: O but, quoth he,

Though heaven’s dew fall thus on this aged tree,

I have a son that,^[959] like a wedge, doth cleave

My very heart-root!

S. Davy. Had he such a son?

Seb. Now I do smell a fox strongly. [Aside.

S. Alex. Let’s see: no, master Greenwit is not yet

So mellow in years as he; but as like Sebastian,

Just like my son Sebastian, such another.

Seb. How finely, like a fencer,

My father fetches his by-blows to hit me!

But if I beat you not at your own weapon

Of subtilty—— [Aside.

S. Alex. This son, saith he, that should be

The column and main arch unto my house,

The crutch unto my age, becomes a whirlwind

Shaking the firm foundation.

S. Adam. ’Tis some prodigal.

Seb. Well shot, old Adam Bell!^[960] [Aside.

447S. Alex. No city-monster neither, no prodigal,

But sparing, wary, civil, and, though wifeless,

An excellent husband; and such a traveller,

He has more tongues in his head than some have teeth.

S. Davy. I have but two in mine.

Gos. So sparing and so wary?

What, then, could vex his father so?

S. Alex. O, a woman!

Seb. A flesh-fly, that can vex any man.

S. Alex. A scurvy woman,

On whom the passionate old man swore he doated;

A creature, saith he, nature hath brought forth

To mock the sex of woman. It is a thing

One knows not how to name: her birth began

Ere she was all made: ’tis woman more than man,

Man more than woman; and, which to none can hap,

The sun gives her two shadows to one shape;

Nay, more, let this strange thing walk, stand, or sit,

No blazing star draws more eyes after it.

S. Davy. A monster! ’tis some monster!

S. Alex. She’s a varlet.

Seb. Now is my cue to bristle. [Aside.

S. Alex. A naughty pack.^[961]

Seb. ’Tis false!

S. Alex. Ha, boy?

Seb. ’Tis false!

S. Alex. What’s false? I say she’s naught.

Seb. I say, that tongue

That dares speak so, but yours, sticks in the throat

Of a rank villain: set yourself aside——

448S. Alex. So, sir, what then?

Seb. Any here else had lied.—

I think I shall fit you. [Aside.

S. Alex. Lie?

Seb. Yes.

S. Davy. Doth this concern him?

S. Alex. Ah, sirrah-boy,

Is your blood heated? boils it? are you stung?

I’ll pierce you deeper yet.—O my dear friends,

I am that wretched father! this that son,

That sees his ruin, yet headlong on doth run.

S. Adam. Will you love such a poison?

S. Davy. Fie, fie.

Seb. You’re all mad.

S. Alex. Thou’rt sick at heart, yet feel’st it not: of all these,

What gentleman but thou, knowing his disease

Mortal, would shun the cure!—O master Greenwit,

Would you to such an idol bow?

Green. Not I, sir.

S. Alex. Here’s master Laxton; has he mind to a woman

As thou hast?

Lax. No, not I, sir.

S. Alex. Sir, I know it.

Lax. Their good parts are so rare, their bad so common,

I will have nought to do with any woman.

S. Davy. ’Tis well done, master Laxton.

S. Alex. O thou cruel boy,

Thou wouldst with lust an old man’s life destroy!

Because thou see’st I’m half-way in my grave,

Thou shovel’st dust upon me: would thou might’st have

Thy wish, most wicked, most unnatural!

449S. Davy. Why, sir, ’tis thought sir Guy Fitzallard’s daughter

Shall wed your son Sebastian.

S. Alex. Sir Davy Dapper,

I have upon my knees woo’d this fond^[962] boy

To take that virtuous maiden.

Seb. Hark you; a word, sir.

You on your knees have curs’d that virtuous maiden,

And me for loving her; yet do you now

Thus baffle^[963] me to my face: wear not your knees

In such entreats; give me Fitzallard’s daughter.

S. Alex. I’ll give thee rats-bane rather.

Seb. Well, then, you know

What dish I mean to feed upon.

S. Alex. Hark, gentlemen! he swears

To have this cut-purse drab, to spite my gall.

All. Master Sebastian——

Seb. I am deaf to you all.

I’m so bewitch’d, so bound to my desires,

Tears, prayers, threats, nothing can quench out those fires

That burn within me. [Exit.

S. Alex. Her blood shall quench it, then.— [Aside.

Lose him not; O dissuade him, gentlemen!

S. Davy. He shall be wean’d, I warrant you.

450S. Alex. Before his eyes

Lay down his shame, my grief, his miseries.

All. No more, no more; away!

[Exeunt all but Sir Alex. Wengrave.

S. Alex. I wash a negro,

Losing both pains and cost: but take thy flight,

I’ll be most near thee when I’m least in sight.

Wild buck, I’ll hunt thee breathless: thou shalt run on,

But I will turn thee when I’m not thought upon.—

Enter Trapdoor with a letter.

Now, sirrah, what are you? leave your ape’s tricks, and speak.

Trap. A letter from my captain to your worship.

S. Alex. O, O, now I remember; ’tis to prefer thee into my service.

Trap. To be a shifter under your worship’s nose of a clean trencher, when there’s a good bit upon’t.

S. Alex. Troth, honest fellow—Hum—ha—let me see—

This knave shall be the axe to hew that down

At which I stumble; has a face that promiseth

Much of a villain: I will grind his wit,

And, if the edge prove fine, make use of it.[Aside.

Come hither, sirrah: canst thou be secret, ha?

Trap. As two crafty attorneys plotting the undoing

of their clients.

S. Alex. Didst never, as thou’st walk’d about this town,

Hear of a wench call’d Moll, mad, merry Moll?

Trap. Moll Cutpurse, sir?

S. Alex. The same; dost thou know her, then?

Trap. As well as I know ’twill rain upon Simon

and Jude’s day next: I will sift all the taverns

i’ th’ city, and drink half pots with all the watermen^[964]

451a’ th’ Bank-side, but, if you will, sir, I’ll find

her out.

S. Alex. That task is easy; do’t then: hold thy hand up.

What’s this? is’t burnt?

Trap. No, sir, no; a little singed with making fireworks.

S. Alex. There’s money, spend it; that being spent, fetch more. [Gives money.

Trap. O sir, that all the poor soldiers in England had such a leader! For fetching, no water-spaniel is like me.

S. Alex. This wench we speak of strays so from her kind,

Nature repents she made her: ’tis a mermaid

Has tol’d my son to shipwreck.

Trap. I’ll cut her comb for you.

S. Alex. I’ll tell out gold for thee, then. Hunt her forth,

Cast out a line hung full of silver hooks

To catch her to thy company: deep spendings

May draw her that’s most chaste to a man’s bosom.

Trap. The gingling of golden bells, and a good fool with a hobbyhorse, will draw all the whores i’ th’ town to dance in a morris.

S. Alex. Or rather, for that’s best (they say sometimes

She goes in breeches), follow her as her man.

Trap. And when her breeches are off, she shall follow me.

S. Alex. Beat all thy brains to serve her.

Trap. Zounds, sir, as country wenches beat cream till butter comes.

452S. Alex. Play thou the subtle spider; weave fine nets

To ensnare her very life.

Trap. Her life?

S. Alex. Yes; suck

Her heart-blood, if thou canst: twist thou but cords

To catch her, I’ll find law to hang her up.

Trap. Spoke like a worshipful bencher!

S. Alex. Trace all her steps: at this she-fox’s den

Watch what lambs enter; let me play the shepherd

To save their throats from bleeding, and cut hers.

Trap. This is the goll^[965] shall do’t.

S. Alex. Be firm, and gain me

Ever thine own: this done, I entertain thee.

How is thy name?

Trap. My name, sir, is Ralph Trapdoor, honest Ralph.

S. Alex. Trapdoor, be like thy name, a dangerous step

For her to venture on; but unto me——

Trap. As fast as your sole to your boot or shoe, sir.

S. Alex. Hence, then; be little seen here as thou canst;

I’ll still be at thine elbow.

Trap. The trapdoor’s set.

Moll, if you budge, you’re gone: this me shall crown;

A roaring boy^[966] the roaring girl puts down.

S. Alex. God-a-mercy, lose no time. [Exeunt.

453