Читать книгу The Scornful Lady - Beaumont Francis - Страница 3

Enter Lady, her Sister Martha, Welford, Younglove, and others.

Lady. Sir, now you see your bad lodging, I must bid you good night.

Wel. Lady if there be any want, 'tis in want of you.

Lady. A little sleep will ease that complement. Once more good night.

Wel. Once more dear Lady, and then all sweet nights.

Lady. Dear Sir be short and sweet then.

Wel. Shall the morrow prove better to me, shall I hope my sute happier by this nights rest?

Lady. Is your sute so sickly that rest will help it? Pray ye let it rest then till I call for it. Sir as a stranger you have had all my welcome: but had I known your errand ere you came, your passage had been straiter. Sir, good night.

Welford. So fair, and cruel, dear unkind good night. [Exit Lady. Nay Sir, you shall stay with me, I'le press your zeal so far.

Roger. O Lord Sir.

Wel. Do you love Tobacco?

Rog. Surely I love it, but it loves not me; yet with your reverence I'le be bold.

Wel. Pray light it Sir. How do you like it?

Rog. I promise you it is notable stinging geer indeed. It is wet Sir, Lord how it brings down Rheum!

Wel. Handle it again Sir, you have a warm text of it.

Rog. Thanks ever promised for it. I promise you it is very powerful, and by a Trope, spiritual; for certainly it moves in sundry places.

Wel. I, it does so Sir, and me especially to ask Sir, why you wear a Night-cap.

Rog. Assuredly I will speak the truth unto you: you shall understand Sir, that my head is broken, and by whom; even by that visible beast the Butler.

Wel. The Butler? certainly he had all his drink about him when he did it. Strike one of your grave Cassock? The offence Sir?

Rog. Reproving him at Tra-trip Sir, for swearing; you have the total surely.

Wel. You told him when his rage was set a tilt, and so he crackt your Canons. I hope he has not hurt your gentle reading: But shall we see these Gentlewomen to night.

Rog. Have patience Sir until our fellow Nicholas be deceast, that is, asleep: for so the word is taken: to sleep to dye, to dye to sleep, a very figure Sir.

Wel. Cannot you cast another for the Gentlewomen?

Rog. Not till the man be in his bed, his grave: his grave, his bed: the very same again Sir. Our Comick Poet gives the reason sweetly; Plenus rimarum est, he is full of loope-holes, and will discover to our Patroness.

Wel. Your comment Sir has made me understand you.

Enter Martha the Ladies Sister, and Younglove, to them with a Posset.

Rog. Sir be addrest, the graces do salute you with the full bowl of plenty. Is our old enemy entomb'd?

Abig. He's safe.

Rog. And does he snore out supinely with the Poet?

Mar. No, he out-snores the Poet.

Wel. Gentlewoman, this courtesie shall bind a stranger to you, ever your servant.

Mar. Sir, my Sisters strictness makes not us forget you are a stranger and a Gentleman.

Abig. In sooth Sir, were I chang'd into my Lady, a Gentleman so well indued with parts, should not be lost.

Wel. I thank you Gentlewoman, and rest bound to you. See how this foul familiar chewes the Cud: From thee, and three and fifty good Love deliver me.

Mar. Will you sit down Sir, and take a spoon?

Wel. I take it kindly, Lady.

Mar. It is our best banquet Sir.

Rog. Shall we give thanks?

Wel. I have to the Gentlewomen already Sir.

Mar. Good Sir Roger, keep that breath to cool your part o'th' Posset, you may chance have a scalding zeal else; and you will needs be doing, pray tell your twenty to your self. Would you could like this Sir?

Wel. I would your Sister would like me as well Lady.

Mar. Sure Sir, she would not eat you: but banish that imagination; she's only wedded to her self, lyes with her self, and loves her self; and for another Husband than herself, he may knock at the gate, but ne're come in: be wise Sir, she's a Woman, and a trouble, and has her many faults, the least of which is, she cannot love you.

Abig. God pardon her, she'l do worse, would I were worthy his least grief, Mistris Martha.

Wel. Now I must over-hear her.

Mar. Faith would thou hadst them all with all my heart; I do not think they would make thee a day older.

Abig. Sir, will you put in deeper, 'tis the sweeter.

Mar. Well said old sayings.

Wel. She looks like one indeed. Gentlewoman you keep your word, your sweet self has made the bottom sweeter.

Abig. Sir, I begin a frolick, dare you change Sir?

Wel. My self for you, so please you. That smile has turn'd my stomach: this is right the old Embleme of the Moyle cropping of Thistles: Lord what a hunting head she carries, sure she has been ridden with a Martingale. Now love deliver me.

Rog. Do I dream, or do I wake? surely I know not: am I rub'd off? Is this the way of all my morning Prayers? Oh Roger, thou art but grass, and woman as a flower. Did I for this consume my quarters in Meditation, Vowes, and wooed her in Heroical Epistles? Did I expound the Owl, and undertook with labour and expence the recollection of those thousand Pieces, consum'd in Cellars, and Tabacco-shops of that our honour'd Englishman Ni. Br.? Have I done this, and am I done thus too? I will end with the wise man, and say; He that holds a Woman, has an Eel by the tail.

Mar. Sir 'tis so late, and our entertainment (meaning our Posset) by this is grown so cold, that 'twere an unmannerly part longer to hold you from your rest: let what the house has be at your command Sir.

Wel. Sweet rest be with you Lady; and to you what you desire too.

Abig. It should be some such good thing like your self then. [Exeunt.

Wel. Heaven keep me from that curse, and all my issue. Good night Antiquity.

Rog. Solamen Miseris socios habuisse Doloris: but I alone.

Wel. Learned Sir, will you bid my man come to me? and requesting a greater measure of your learning, good night, good Master Roger.

Rog. Good Sir, peace be with you. [Exit Roger.

Wel. Adue dear Domine. Half a dozen such in a Kingdom would make a man forswear confession: for who that had but half his wits about him, would commit the Counsel of a serious sin to such a cruel Night-cap? Why how now shall we have an Antick? [Enter Servant. Whose head do you carry upon your shoulders, that you jole it so against the Post? Is't for your ease? Or have you seen the Celler? Where are my slippers Sir?

Ser. Here Sir.

Wel. Where Sir? have you got the pot Verdugo? have you seen the Horses Sir?

Ser. Yes Sir.

Wel. Have they any meat?

Ser. Faith Sir, they have a kind of wholesome Rushes, Hay I cannot call it.

Wel. And no Provender?

Ser. Sir, so I take it.

Wel. You are merry Sir, and why so?

Ser. Faith Sir, here are no Oats to be got, unless you'l have 'em in Porredge: the people are so mainly given to spoon-meat: yonder's a cast of Coach-mares of the Gentlewomans, the strangest Cattel.

Wel. Why?

Ser. Why, they are transparent Sir, you may see through them: and such a house!

Wel. Come Sir, the truth of your discovery.

Ser. Sir, they are in tribes like Jewes: the Kitchin and the Dayrie make one tribe, and have their faction and their fornication within themselves; the Buttery and the Landry are another, and there's no love lost; the chambers are intire, and what's done there, is somewhat higher than my knowledge: but this I am sure, between these copulations, a stranger is kept vertuous, that is, fasting. But of all this the drink Sir.

Wel. What of that Sir?

Ser. Faith Sir, I will handle it as the time and your patience will give me leave. This drink, or this cooling Julip, of which three spoonfuls kills the Calenture, a pint breeds the cold Palsie.

Wel. Sir, you bely the house.

Ser. I would I did Sir. But as I am a true man, if 'twere but one degree colder, nothing but an Asses hoof would hold it.

Wel. I am glad on't Sir, for if it had proved stronger, you had been tongue ti'd of these commendations. Light me the candle Sir, I'le hear no more. [Exeunt.

Enter young Loveless and his Comrades, with wenches, and two Fidlers.

Enter with Wine.

Yo. Lo. Thou shalt hav't boy, and fly in Feather, Lead on a March you Michers.