Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker
Page 170
TEARCAT
No indeed, Captain Moll, for I know you by sight: I am no such nipping Christian, but a maunderer upon on the pad, I confess, and meeting with honest Trapdoor here, whom you had cashier’d from bearing arms, out at elbows under your colours, I instructed him in the rudiments of roguery, and by my map made him sail over any country you can name, so that now he can maunder better then myself.
JACK
So then, Trapdoor, thou art turn’d soldier now.
TRAPDOOR
Alas, sir, now there’s no wars, ’tis the safest course of life I could take.
MOLL
I hope then you can cant, for by your cudgels, you, sirrah, are an upright man.
TRAPDOOR
As any walks the highway, I assure you.
MOLL
And Tearcat, what are you? A wild rogue, an angler, or a ruffler?
TEARCAT
Brother to this upright man, flesh and blood, ruffling Tearcat is my name, and a ruffler is my style, my title, my profession.
MOLL
Sirrah, where’s your doxy? Halt not with me.
OMNES
Doxy, Moll? What’s that?
MOLL
His wench.
TRAPDOOR
My doxy? I have, by the salomon, a doxy that carries a kinchin mort in her slate at her back, besides my dell and my dainty wild dell, with all whom I’ll tumble this next darkmans in the strommel, and drink ben [booze], and eat a fat gruntling cheat, a cackling cheat, and a quacking cheat.
JACK
Here’s old cheating.
TRAPDOOR
My doxy stays for me in a boozing ken, brave captain.
MOLL
He says his wench stays for him in an alehouse. You are no pure rogues.
TEARCAT
Pure rogues? No, we scorn to be pure rogues, but if you come to our lib ken, or our stalling ken, you shall find neither him nor me a queer cuffin.
MOLL
So, sir, no churl of you.
TEARCAT
No, but a ben cove, a brave cove, a gentry cuffin.
LORD NOLAND
Call you this canting?
JACK
Zounds, I’ll give a schoolmaster half a crown a week, and teach me this pedlar’s French.
TRAPDOOR
Do but stroll, sir, half a harvest with us, sir, and you shall gabble your bellyful.
MOLL
Come, you rogue, cant with me.
SIR THOMAS
Well said, Moll. Cant with her, sirrah, and you shall have money, else not a penny.
TRAPDOOR
I’ll have a bout if she please.
MOLL
Come on, sirrah.
TRAPDOOR
Ben mort, shall you and I heave a booth, mill a ken, or nip a bung? And then we’ll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans, and there you shall wap with me, and I’ll niggle with you.
MOLL
[Slapping and kicking him] Out, you damn’d, impudent rascal!
TRAPDOOR
Cut benar whids, and hold your fambles and your stamps.
LORD NOLAND
Nay, nay, Moll, why art thou angry? What was his gibberish?
MOLL
Marry, this, my lord, says he: ben mort, good wench, shall you and I heave a booth, mill a ken, or nip a bung? Shall you and I rob a house or cut a purse?
OMNES
Very good.
MOLL
And then we’ll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans: and then we’ll lie under a hedge.
TRAPDOOR
That was my desire, captain, as ’tis fit a soldier should lie.
MOLL
And there you shall wap with me and I’ll niggle with you, and that’s all!
SIR BEAUTEOUS
Nay, nay, Moll, what’s that wap?
JACK
Nay, teach me what niggling is; I’d fain be niggling.
MOLL
Wapping and niggling is all one, the rogue my man can tell you.
TRAPDOOR
’Tis fadoodling, if it please you.
SIR BEAUTEOUS
This is excellent. One fit more, good Moll.
MOLL
Come, you rogue, sing with me.
The song.
A gage of ben rom-booze
In a boozing ken of Romville
TEARCAT. Is benar than a caster,
Peck, pannam, [lap] or popler,
Which we mill in deuse a .
[MOLL, TEARCAT]. Oh, I would lib all the lightmans,
Oh, I would lib all the darkmans,
By the salomon, under the ruffmans,
By the salomon, in the hartmans!
TEARCAT. And scour the queer cramp-ring,
And couch till a palliard docked my dell,
So my boozy nab might skew rom-booze well.
[MOLL, TEARCAT]. Avast to the pad, let us bing,
Avast to the pad, let us bing.
OMNES
Fine knaves, i’faith!
JACK
The grating of ten new cartwheels and the gruntling of five hundred hogs coming from Romford market cannot make a worse noise than this canting language does in my ears. Pray, my Lord Noland, let’s give these soldiers their pay.
SIR BEAUTEOUS
Agreed, and let them march.
LORD NOLAND
[Giving her money] Here, Moll.
MOLL
Now I see that you are stall’d to the rogue and are not ashamed of your professions. [Giving Tearcat and Trapdoor the money] Look you, my Lord Noland here and these gentlemen bestows upon you two two boards and a half, that’s two shillings sixpence.
TRAPDOOR
Thanks to your lordship.
TEARCAT
Thanks, heroical captain.
MOLL
Away.
TRAPDOOR
We shall cut ben whids of your masters and mistress-ship wheresoever we come.
MOLL
You’ll maintain, sirrah, the old justice’s plot to his face?
TRAPDOOR
Else trine me on the cheats, hang me.
MOLL
Be sure you meet me there.
TRAPDOOR
Without any more maundering I’ll do’t. Follow, brave Tearcat.
TEARCAT
I prae, sequor, let us go mouse.
Exeunt they two, manet the rest.
LORD NOLAND
Moll, what was in that canting song?
MOLL
Troth, my lord, only a praise of good drink, the only milk which these wild beasts love to suck, and thus it was:
A rich cup of wine,
Oh, it is juice divine,
More wholesome for the head
Than meat, drink, or bread
To fill my drunken pate!
With that, I’d sit up late;
By the heels would I lie,
Under a lousy hedge die.
Let a slave have a pull
At my whore, so I be full
Of that precious liquor —
And a parcel of such stuff, my lord, not worth the opening.
Enter a Cutpurse very gallant, with four or five men after him, one with a wand.
LORD NOLAND
What gallant comes yonder?
SIR THOMAS
Mass, I think I know him: ’tis one of Cumberland.
FIRST CUTPURSE
Shall we venture to shuffle in amongst yon heap of gallants and strike?
SECOND CUTPURSE
’Tis a question whether there be any silver shells amongst them for all their satin outsides.
OMNES [CUTPURSES]
Let’s try.
MOLL
Pox on him! A gallant? Shadow me, I know him: ’tis one that cumbers the land indeed; if he swim near to the shore of any of your pockets, look to your purses.
OMNES [WITH MOLL]
Is’t possible?
MOLL
This brave fellow is no better than a foist.
OMNES [WITH MOLL]
Foist? What’s that?
MOLL
A diver with two fingers, a pickpocket: all his train study the figging law, that’s to say, cutting of purses and foisting. One of them is a nip; I took him once i’ the twopenny gallery at the Fortune. Then there’s a cloyer, or snap, that dogs any new brother in that trade, and snaps will have half in any booty. He with the wand is both a stale, whose office is to face a man i’ the streets whilst shells are drawn by another, and then with his black conjuring rod in his hand, he, by the nimbleness of his eye and juggling-stick, will in cheaping a piece of plate at a goldsmith’s stall, make four or five rings mount from the top of his caduceus, and, as if it were at leap-frog, they skip into his hand presently.
SECOND CUTPURSE
Zounds, we are smok’d!
OMNES [CUTPURSES]
Ha?
SECOND CUTPURSE
We are boil’d. Pox on her! See, Moll, the roaring drab.
FIRST CUTPURSE
All the diseases of sixteen hospitals boil her! Away!
MOLL
Bless you, sir.
FIRST CUTPURSE
And you, good sir.
MOLL
Dost not ken me, man?
FIRST CUTPURSE
No, [trust] me, sir.
MOLL
Heart, there’s a knight to whom I’m bound for many favours lost his purse at the last new play i’ the Swan, seven angels in’t. Make it good; you’re best. Do you see? No more.
FIRST CUTPURSE
A synagogue shall be call’d, Mistress Mary; disgrace me not. Pacus palabros, I will conjure for you. Farewell.
[Exeunt Cutpurses.]
MOLL
Did not I tell you, my lord?
LORD NOLAND
I wonder how thou cam’st to the knowledge of these nasty villains.
SIR THOMAS
And why do the foul mouths of the world call thee Moll Cutpurse? A name, methinks, damn’d and odious.
MOLL
Dare any step forth to my face and say,
“I have ta’en thee doing so, Moll,” I must confess,
In younger days, when I was apt to stray,
I have sat amongst such adders, seen their stings
As any here might, and in full playhouses
Watch’d their quick-diving hands to bring to shame
Such rogues, and in that stream met an ill name.
When next, my lord, you spy any one of those,
So he be in his art a scholar, question him,
Tempt him with gold to open the large book
Of his close villainies, and you yourself shall cant
Better than poor Moll can, and know more laws
Of cheaters, lifters, nips, foists, puggards, curbers,
With all the devil’s black guard, than it is fit
Should be discovered to a noble wit.
I know they have their orders, offices,
Circuits and circles unto which they are bound
To raise their own damnation in.
JACK
How dost thou know it?
MOLL
As you do: I show it you, they to me show it.
Suppose, my lord, you were in Venice.
LORD NOLAND
Well.
MOLL
If some Italian pander there would tell
All the close tricks of courtesans, would not you
Hearken to such a fellow?
LORD NOLAND
Yes.
MOLL
And here,
Being come from Venice, to a friend most dear
That were to travel thither, you would proclaim
Your knowledge in those villainies to save
Your friend from their quick danger. Must you have
A black, ill name because ill things you know?
Good troth, my lord, I am made Moll Cutpurse so.
How many are whores in small ruffs and still looks!
How many chaste whose names fill slander’s books!
Were all men cuckolds, whom gallants in their scorns
Call so, we should not walk for goring horns.
Perhaps for my mad going some reprove me:
I please myself and care not else who loves me.
OMNES
A brave mind, Moll, i’faith.
SIR THOMAS
Come, my lord, shall’s to the ordinary?
LORD NOLAND
Ay, ’tis noon sure.
MOLL
Good my lord, let not my name condemn me to you or to the world. A fencer I hope may be call’d a coward: is he so for that? If all that have ill names in London were to be whipp’d and to pay but twelvepence apiece to the beadle, I would rather have his office than a constable’s.
JACK
So would I, Captain Moll: ‘twere a sweet, tickling office, i’faith.
Exeunt.
Act V Scene 2.
SIR ALEXANDER’S HOUSE
Enter Sir Alexander Wengrave, Goshawk and Greenwit, and others.
SIR ALEXANDER
My son marry a thief, that impudent girl,
Whom all the world stick their worst eyes upon?
GREENWIT
How will your care prevent it?
GOSHAWK
’Tis impossible.
They marry close; they’re gone, but none knows whither.
SIR ALEXANDER
Oh, gentlemen, when has a father’s heart-strings
Held out so long from breaking?
Enter a Servant.
Now what news, sir?
SERVANT
They were met upo’ th’ water an hour since, sir,
Putting in towards the Sluice.
[Exit Servant.]
SIR ALEXANDER
The Sluice? Come, gentlemen,
’Tis Lambeth works against us.
GREENWIT
And that Lambeth
Joins more mad matches than your six wet towns
‘Twixt that and Windsor Bridge, where fares lie soaking.
SIR ALEXANDER
Delay no time, sweet gentlemen: to Blackfriars!
We’ll take a pair of oars and make after ’em.
Enter Trapdoor.
TRAPDOOR
Your son and that bold masculine ramp,
My mistress, are landed now at Tower.
SIR ALEXANDER
Hoyda, at Tower?
TRAPDOOR
I heard it now reported.
[Exit Trapdoor.]
SIR ALEXANDER
Which way gentlemen shall I bestow my care?
I’m drawn in pieces betwixt deceit and shame.
Enter Sir [Guy] Fitzallard.
SIR GUY
Sir Alexander,
You’re well met and most rightly served:
My daughter was a scorn to you.
SIR ALEXANDER
Say not so, sir.
SIR GUY
A very abject she, poor gentlewoman;
Your house [has] been dishonoured. Give you joy, sir,
Of your son’s gaskin-bride; you’ll be a grandfather shortly
To a fine crew of roaring sons and daughters:
‘Twill help to stock the suburbs passing well, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
Oh, play not with the miseries of my heart!
Wounds should be dress’d and heal’d, not vex’d or left
Wide open to the anguish of the patient,
And scornful air let in: rather let pity
And advice charitably help to refresh ’em.
SIR GUY
Who’d place his charity so unworthily
Like one that gives alms to a cursing beggar?
Had I but found one spark of goodness in you
Toward my deserving child, which then grew fond
Of your son’s virtues, I had eased you now;
But I perceive both fire of youth and goodness
Are rak’d up in the ashes of your age
,
Else no such shame should have come near your house,
Nor such ignoble sorrow touch your heart.
SIR ALEXANDER
If not for worth, for pity’s sake, assist me.
GREENWIT
You urge a thing past sense. How can he help you?
All his assistance is as frail as ours,
Full as uncertain. Where’s the place that holds ’em?
One brings us water-news; then comes another
With a full-charg’d mouth, like a culverin’s voice,
And he reports the Tower. Whose sounds are truest?
GOSHAWK
In vain you flatter him, Sir Alexander.
[SIR ALEXANDER]
I flatter him! Gentlemen, you wrong me grossly.
GREENWIT
He does it well, i’faith.
SIR GUY
Both news are false
Of Tower or water: they took no such way yet.
SIR ALEXANDER
Oh, strange! Hear you this, gentlemen: yet more plunges?
SIR GUY
Th’ are nearer than you think for, yet more close
Than if they were further off.
SIR ALEXANDER
How am I lost
In these distractions!
SIR GUY
For your speeches, gentlemen,
In taxing me for rashness, ‘fore you all
I will engage my state to half his wealth,
Nay, to his son’s revenues, which are less,
And yet nothing at all till they come from him,
That I could, if my will stuck to my power,
Prevent this marriage yet, nay, banish her
Forever from his thoughts, much more his arms.
SIR ALEXANDER
Slack not this goodness, though you heap upon me
Mountains of malice and revenge hereafter:
I’d willingly resign up half my state to him,
So he would marry the mean’st drudge I hire.
GREENWIT
He talks impossibilities, and you believe ’em.
SIR GUY
I talk no more than I know how to finish;
My fortunes else are his that dares stake with me.
The poor young gentleman I love and pity,
And to keep shame from him, because the spring
Of his affection was my daughter’s first
Till his frown blasted all, do but estate him
In those possessions which your love and care
Once pointed out for him, that he may have room
To entertain fortunes of noble birth,
Where now his desperate wants casts him upon her;
And if I do not for his own sake chiefly
Rid him of this disease that now grows on him,