Volume Ix Part 107 (1/2)

[_Exeunt_.

LORD. Why, now I see: what I heard of, I believed not, Your kinsman lives--

SIR WIL. Like to a swine.

LORD. A perfect Epythite,[398] he feeds on draff, And wallows in the mire, to make men laugh: I pity him.

SIR WIL. No pity's fit for him.

LORD. Yet we'll advise him.

SIR WIL. He is my kinsman.

LORD. Being in the pit, where many do fall in, We will both comfort him and counsel him.

[_Exeunt_.

ACT IV.

_A noise within, crying Follow, follow, follow! then enter_ BUTLER, THOMAS _and_ JOHN SCARBOROW, _with money-bags_.

THOM. What shall we do now, butler?

BUT. A man had better line a good handsome pair of gallows before his time, than be born to do these sucklings good, their mother's milk not wrung out of their nose yet; they know no more how to behave themselves in this honest and needful calling of pursetaking, than I do to piece stockings.

WITHIN. This way, this way, this way!

BOTH. 'Sfoot, what shall we do now?

BUT. See if they do not quake like a trembling asp-leaf, and look more miserable than one of the wicked elders pictured in the painted cloth.[399] Should they but come to the credit to be arraigned for their valour before a wors.h.i.+pful bench, their very looks would hang 'em, and they were indicted but for stealing of eggs.

WITHIN. Follow, follow! This way! Follow!

THOM. Butler.

JOHN. Honest butler.

BUT. Squat, heart, squat, creep me into these bushes, and lie me as close to the ground as you would do to a wench.

THOM. How, good butler? show us how.

BUT. By the moon, patroness of all pursetakers, who would be troubled with such changelings? squat, heart, squat.

THOM. Thus, butler?

BUT. Ay so, suckling, so; stir not now: if the peering rogues chance to go over you, yet stir not: younger brothers call you them, and have no more forecast, I am ashamed of you. These are such whose fathers had need leave them money, even to make them ready withal; for, by these hilts, they have not wit to b.u.t.ton their sleeves without teaching: close, squat, close. Now if the lot of hanging do fall to my share, so; then the old father's[400] man drops for his young masters. If it chance, it chances; and when it chances, heaven and the sheriff send me a good rope! I would not go up the ladder twice for anything: in the meantime preventions, honest preventions do well, off with my skin; so; you on the ground, and I to this tree, to escape the gallows.

[_Ascends a tree_.]

WITHIN. Follow, follow, follow!