Sin. Oh, good madam, do not take up your mother so!
Mist. T. Nay, nay, let her e’en alone. Let her Ladyship grieve me still, with her bitter taunts and terms. I have not dole enough to see her in this miserable case, ay, without her velvet gowns, without ribands, without jewels, without French wires, or cheat bread, or quails, or a little dog, or a gentleman usher, or anything, indeed, that’s fit for a lady —
Sin. [aside] Except her tongue.
Mist. T. And I not able to relieve her, neither, being kept so short by my husband. Well, God knows my heart. I did little think that ever she should have need of her sister Golding!
Ger. Why Mother, I ha’ not yet. Alas! good Mother, be not intoxicate for me; I am well enough; I would not change husbands with my sister, I. “The leg of a lark is better than the body of a kite.”
Mist. T. I know that; but —
Ger. What, sweet Mother, what?
Mist. T. It’s but ill food, when nothing’s left but the claw.
Ger. That’s true, Mother. Ay me!
Mist. T. Nay, sweet ladybird, sigh not. Child, madam; why do you weep thus? Be of good cheer; I shall die if you cry, and mar your complexion thus.
Ger. Alas, Mother, what should I do?
Mist. T. Go to thy sister’s, child; she’ll be proud thy Ladyship will come under her roof. She’ll win thy father to release thy knight, and redeem thy gowns and thy coach and thy horses, and set thee up again.
Ger. But will she get him to set my knight up too?
Mist. T. That she will, or anything else thou’lt ask her.
Ger. I will begin to love her, if I thought she would do this.
Mist. T. Try her, good chuck; I warrant thee.
Ger. Dost thou think she’ll do ‘t?
Sin. Ay, madam, and be glad you will receive it.
Mist. T. That’s a good maiden; she tells you true. Come, I’ll take order for your debts i’ the alehouse.
Exeunt.
Ger. Go, Sin, and pray for thy Frank, as I will for my Pet.
SCENE II
Enter TOUCHSTONE, GOLDING, and WOLF.
Touch. I will receive no letters, Master Wolf; you shall pardon me.
Gold. Good Father, let me entreat you.
Touch. Son Golding, I will not be tempted; I find mine own easy nature, and I know not what a well-penn’d, subtle letter may work upon it; there may be tricks, packing, do you see? Return with your packet, sir.
Wolf. Believe it, sir, you need fear no packing here; these are but letters of submission, all.
Touch. Sir, I do look for no submission. I will bear myself in this like blind Justice. Work upon that now! When the sessions come, they shall hear from me.
Gold. From whom come your letters, Master Wolf?
Wolf. An ‘t please you, sir, one from Sir Petronel, another from Francis Quicksilver, and a third from old Security, who is almost mad in prison. There are two to your Worship; one from Master Francis, sir; another from the knight.
Touch. I do wonder, Master Wolf, why you should travail thus, in a business so contrary to kind or the nature o’ your place; that you, being the keeper of a prison, should labor the release of your prisoners; whereas, methinks, it were far more natural and kindly in you to be ranging about for more, and not let these scape you have already under the tooth. But they say you wolves, when you ha’ suck’d the blood, once that they are dry, you ha’ done.
Wolf. Sir, your Worship may descant as you please o’ my name; but I protest I was never so mortified with any men’s discourse or behavior in prison; yet I have had of all sorts of men i’ the kingdom under my keys; and almost of all religions i’ the land, as Papist, Protestant, Puritan, Brownist, Anabaptist, Millenary, Family o’ Love, Jew, Turk, Infidel, Atheist, Good Fellow, etc.
Gold. And which of all these, thinks Master Wolf, was the best religion?
Wolf. Troth, Master Deputy, they that pay fees best; we never examine their consciences farder.
Gold. I believe you, Master Wolf. — Good faith, sir, here’s a great deal of humility i’ these letters!
Wolf. Humility, sir? Ay. Were your Worship an eyewitness of it, you would say so. The knight will i’ the Knights’ Ward, do what we can, sir; and Master Quicksilver would be i’ the Hole, if we would let him. I never knew or saw prisoners more penitent or more devout. They will sit you up all night singing of psalms, and edifying the whole prison; only Security sings a note too high sometimes, because he lies i’ the Twopenny Ward, far off, and cannot take his tune. The neighbors can not rest for him, but come every morning to ask what godly prisoners we have.
Touch. Which on ’em is ‘t is so devout, the knight or the tother?
Wolf. Both, sir; but the young man especially. I never heard his like. He has cut his hair too. He is so well given, and has such good gifts. He can tell you almost all the stories of the Book of Martyrs, and speak you all the Sick Man’s Salve without book.
Touch. Ay, if he had had grace, he was brought up where it grew, iwis. — On, Master Wolf.
Wolf. And he has converted one Fangs, a sergeant, a fellow could neither write nor read; he was called the Bandog o’ the Counter; and he has brought him already to pare his nails and say his prayers; and ‘t is hop’d, he will sell his place shortly, and become an intelligencer.
Touch. No more; I am coming already. If I should give any farther ear, I were taken. Adieu, good Master Wolf. — Son, I do feel mine own weaknesses; do not importune me. Pity is a rheum that I am subject to; but I will resist it. Master Wolf, “Fish is cast away that is cast in dry pools.” Tell Hypocrisy it will not do; I have touch’d and tried too often; I am yet proof, and I will remain so. When the sessions come, they shall hear from me. In the meantime, to all suits, to all entreaties, to all letters, to all tricks, I will be deaf as an adder and blind as a beetle, lay mine ear to the ground, and lock mine eyes i’ my hand against all temptations.
Exit.
Gold. You see, Master Wolf, how inexorable he is. There is no hope to recover him. Pray you commend me to my brother knight, and to my fellow Francis [giving money]; present ’em with this small token of my love; tell ’em, I wish I could do ’em any worthier office; but, in this, ‘t is desperate: yet I will not fail to try the uttermost of my power for ’em. And, sir, as far as I have any credit with you, pray you let ’em want nothing; though I am not ambitious they should know so much.
Wolf. Sir, both your actions and words speak you to be a true gentleman. They shall know only what is fit, and no more.
Exeunt.
SCENE III
[A room in the Counter.]
Enter HOLDFAST and BRAMBLE.
Hold. Who would you speak with, sir?
Bram. I would speak with one Security, that is prisoner here.
Hold. You are welcome, sir. Stay there, I’ll call him to you. — Master Security!
SECURITY appears at a grating.
Sec. Who calls?
Hold. Here’s a gentleman would speak with you.
Sec. What is he? Is ‘t one that grafts my forehead now I am in prison, and comes to see how the horns shoot up and prosper?
Hold. You must pardon him, sir; the old man is a little craz’d with his
Exit.
imprisonment.
Sec. What say you to me, sir? Look you here, my learned counsel, Master Bramble! Cry you mercy, sir! When saw you my wife?
Bram. She is now at my house, sir; and desir’d me that I would come to visit you, and inquire of you your case, that we might work some means to get you forth.
Sec. My case, Master Bramble, is stone walls and iron grates; you see it; this is the weakest part on ‘t. And, for getting me forth, no means but hang myself, and so to be carried forth, from which they have here bound me in intolerable bands.
Bram. Why, but what is ‘t you are in for, sir?
Sec. For my sins, for my sins, sir, whereof marriage is the greatest. Oh, had I never married, I had never know this purgatory, to which hell is a kind of cool
bath in respect; my wife’s confederacy, sir, with old Touchstone, that she might keep her jubilee and the feast of her new moon. Do you understand me, sir?
Enter QUICKSILVER.
Quick. Good sir, go in and talk with him. The light does him harm, and his example will be hurtful to the weak prisoners. — Fie, Father Security, that you’ll be still so profane! Will nothing humble you?
Exeunt SECURITY, BRAMBLE, and
QUICKSILVER.
Enter two Prisoners, with a Friend.
Friend. What’s he?
1 Pris. Oh, he is a rare young man! Do you not know him?
Friend. Not I. I never saw him I can remember.
2 Pris. Why, it is he that was the gallant prentice of London — Master Touchstone’s man.
Friend. Who? Quicksilver?
1 Pris. Ay, this is he.
Friend. Is this he? They say he has been a gallant indeed.
2 Pris. Oh, the royallest fellow that ever was bred up i’ the city. He would play you his thousand pound a night at dice; keep knights and lords company; go with them to bawdyhouses; had his six men in a livery; kept a stable of hunting horses, and his wench in her velvet gown and her cloth of silver. Here’s one knight with him here in prison.
Friend. And how miserably he is chang’d!
1 Pris. Oh, that’s voluntary in him; he gave away all his rich clothes, as soon as ever he came in here, among the prisoners; and will eat o’ the basket, for humility.
Friend. Why will he do so?
1 Pris. Alas, he has no hope of life! He mortifies himself. He does but linger on till the sessions.
2 Pris. O, he has penn’d the best thing, that he calls his “Repentance” or his “Last Farewell,” that ever you heard. He is a pretty poet; and, for prose — you would wonder how many prisoners he has help’d out, with penning petitions for ’em, and not take a penny. Look! this is the knight, in the rug-gown. Stand by.
Enter PETRONEL, BRAMBLE, and QUICKSILVER.
Bram. Sir, for Security’s case, I have told him: say he should be condemned to be carted or whipp’d for a bawd, or so, why, I’ll lay an execution on him o’ two hundred pound; let him acknowledge a judgment, he shall do it in half an hour; they shall not all fetch him out without paying the execution, o’ my word.
Pet. But can we not be bail’d, Master Bramble?
Bram. Hardly; there are none of the judges in town, else you should remove yourself, in spite of him, with a habeas corpus. But, if you have a friend to deliver your tale sensibly to some justice o’ the town, that he may have feeling of it, do you see, you may be bail’d; for, as I understand the case, ‘t is only done in terrorem; and you shall have an action of false imprisonment against him when you come out, and perhaps a thousand pound costs.
Enter MASTER WOLF.
Quick. How now, Master Wolf? what news? what return?
Wolf. Faith, bad all: yonder will be no letters received. He says the sessions shall determine it. Only Master Deputy Golding commends him to you, and, with this token, wishes he could do you other good.
Gives money.
Quick. I thank him. — Good Master Bramble, trouble our quiet no more; do not molest us in prison thus with your winding devices; pray you depart. [Exit BRAMBLE.] — For my part, I commit my cause to Him that can succor me; let God work his will. Master Wolf, I pray you let this be distributed among the prisoners, and desire ’em to pray for us.
Exit QUICKSILVER.
Wolf. It shall be done, Master Frances.
1 Pris. An excellent temper!
2 Pris. Now God send him good luck.
Exeunt two Prisoners and Friend.
Pet. But what said my father-in-law, Master Wolf?
Re-enter HOLDFAST.
Hold. Here’s one would speak with you, sir.
Wolf. I’ll tell you anon, Sir Petronel. [Exit PETRONEL.] — Who is ‘t?
Hold. A gentleman, sir, that will not be seen.
Wolf. Where is he?
Enter GOLDING.
Master Deputy! your Worship is welcome —
Gold. Peace!
Exit HOLDFAST.
Wolf. Away, sirrah!
Gold. Good faith, Master Wolf, the estate of these gentlemen, for whom you were so late and willing a suitor, doth much affect me; and, because I am desirous to do them some fair office, and find there is no means to make my father relent so likely as to bring him to be a spectator of their miseries, I have ventur’d on a device; which is to make myself your prisoner, entreating you will presently go report it to my father, and feigning an action, at suit of some third person, pray him, by this token, [giving a ring] that he will presently, and with all secrecy, come hither for my bail; which train, if any, I know will bring him abroad; and then, having him here, I doubt not but we shall be all fortunate in the event.
Wolf. Sir, I will put on my best speed to effect it. Please you come in.
Gold. Yes; and let me rest conceal’d, I pray you.
Wolf. See here a benefit truly done, when it is done timely, freely, and
Exeunt.
to no ambition.
SCENE IV
[A room in TOUCHSTONE’S house.]
Enter TOUCHSTONE, Wife, Daughters, SINDEFY, and WINIFRED.
Touch. I will sail by you, and not hear you, like the wise Ulysses.
Mil. Dear Father!
Mist. T. Husband!
Ger. Father!
Win. and Sin. Master Touchstone!
Touch. Away, sirens, I will inmure myself against your cries, and lock myself up to your lamentations.
Mist. T. Gentle husband, hear me!
Ger. Father, it is I, Father, my Lady Flash. My sister and I am friends.
Mil. Good Father!
Win. Be not hard’ned, good Master Touchstone!
Sin. I pray you, sir, be merciful!
Touch. I am deaf; I do not hear you; I have stopp’d mine ears with shoemakers’ wax, and drunk Lethe and mandragora, to forget you. All
He retires.
you speak to me I commit to the air.
Enter WOLF.
Mil. How now, Master Wolf?
Wolf. Where’s Master Touchstone? I must speak with him presently; I have lost my breath for haste.
Mil. What’s the matter, sir? Pray all be well.
Wolf. Master Deputy Golding is arrested upon an execution, and desires him presently to come to him forthwith.
Mil. Ay me! do you hear, Father?
Touch. [within] Tricks, tricks, confederacy, tricks! I have ’em in my nose — I scent ’em!
Wolf. Who’s that? Master Touchstone?
Mist. T. Why, it is Master Wolf himself, husband.
Mil. Father!
Touch. [within] I am deaf still, I say. I will neither yield to the song of the siren nor the voice of the hyena, the tears of the crocodile nor the howling o’ the Wolf: avoid my habitation, monsters!
Wolf. Why, you are not mad, sir? I pray you look forth and see the token I have brought you, sir.
Touch. [coming forward] Ha! what token is it?
Wolf. [aside to TOUCHSTONE] Do you know it, sir?
Touch. [aside] My son Golding’s ring! Are you in earnest, Master Wolf?
Wolf. [aside] Ay, by my faith, sir. He is in prison, and requir’d me to use all speed and secrecy to you.
Touch. My cloak there (pray you be patient). — I am plagu’d for my austerity. — My cloak! — At whose suit, Master Wolf?
Exeunt.
Wolf. I’ll tell you as we go, sir.
SCENE V
[A yard in the Counter.]
Enter Friend and the two Prisoners.
Friend. Why, but is his offence such as he cannot hope of life?
1 Pris. Troth, it should seem so; and ‘t is a great pity, for he is exceeding penitent.
Friend. They say he is charg’d but on suspicion of felony yet.
2 Pris. Ay, but his master is a shrewd fellow; he’ll prove great matter against him.
Friend. I’d as lief as any
thing I could see his “Farewell.”
1 Pris. Oh, ‘t is rarely written; why, Toby may get him to sing it to you; he’s not curious to anybody.
2 Pris. Oh, no! He would that all the world should take knowledge of his repentance, and thinks he merits in ‘t, the more shame he suffers.
1 Pris. Pray thee, try what thou canst do.
2 Pris. I warrant you he will not deny it, if he be not hoarse with the
Exit.
often repeating of it.
1 Pris. You never saw a more courteous creature than he is; and the knight too: the poorest prisoner of the house may command ’em. You shall hear a thing admirably penn’d.
Friend. Is the knight any scholar too?
1 Pris. No, but he will speak very well, and discourse admirably of running horses and Whitefriars, and against bawds, and of cocks; and talk as loud as a hunter, but is none.
Enter WOLF and TOUCHSTONE.
Wolf. Please you stay here, sir; I’ll call his Worship down to you.
Exit WOLF; TOUCHSTONE stands aside.
1 Pris. See, he has brought him, and the knight too. Salute him.
Re-enter Second Prisoner with QUICKSILVER and PETRONEL; re-enter WOLF with GOLDING, and they stand aside.
1 Pris. I pray, sir, this gentleman, upon our report, is very desirous to hear some piece of your “Repentance.”
Quick. Sir, with all my heart; and, as I told Master Toby, I shall be glad to have any man a witness of it; and, the more openly I profess it, I hope it will appear the heartier, and the more unfeigned.
Touch. [aside] Who is this? my man Francis and my son-in-law?
Quick. Sir, it is all the testimony I shall leave behind me to the world and my master that I have so offended.
Friend. Good sir!
Quick. I writ it when my spirits were oppress’d.
Pet. Ay, I’ll be sworn for you, Francis.
Quick. It is in imitation of Mannington’s, he that was hang’d at Cambridge, that cut off the horse’s head at a blow.
The Complete Poetical Works of George Chapman Page 190