Part 14 (2/2)

_Enter_ Roger.

See how negligently he pa.s.ses by me: with what an Equipage Canonical, as though he had broken the heart of _Bellarmine_, or added something to the singing Brethren. 'Tis scorn, I know it, and deserve it, Mr. _Roger_.

_Rog._ Fair Gentlewoman, my name is _Roger_.

_Abig_. Then gentle _Roger_?

_Rog_. Ungentle _Abigal_.

_Abig_. Why M'r _Roger_ will you set your wit to a weak womans?

_Rog_. You are weak indeed: for so the Poet sings.

_Abig_. I do confess my weakness, sweet Sir _Roger_.

_Rog_. Good my Ladies Gentlewoman, or my good Ladies Gentlewoman (this trope is lost to you now) leave your prating, you have a season of your first mother in ye: and surely had the Devil been in love, he had been abused too: go _Dalilah_, you make men fools, and wear Fig-breeches.

_Abi_. Well, well, hard hearted man; dilate upon the weak infirmities of women: these are fit texts, but once there was a time, would I had never seen those eyes, those eyes, those orient eyes.

_Rog_. I they were pearls once with you.

_Abi_. Saving your reverence Sir, so they are still.

_Rog_. Nay, nay, I do beseech you leave your cogging, what they are, they are, they serve me without Spectacles I thank 'em.

_Abig_. O will you kill me?

_Rog_. I do not think I can, Y'are like a Copy-hold with nine lives in't.

_Abig_. You were wont to bear a Christian fear about you: For your own wors.h.i.+ps sake.

_Rog_. I was a Christian fool then: Do you remember what a dance you led me? how I grew qualm'd in love, and was a dunce? could expound but once a quarter, and then was out too: and then out of the stinking stir you put me in, I prayed for my own issue. You do remember all this?

_Abig_. O be as then you were!

_Rog_. I thank you for it, surely I will be wiser _Abigal_: and as the Ethnick Poet sings, I will not lose my oyl and labour too. Y'are for the wors.h.i.+pfull I take it _Abigal_.

_Abig_. O take it so, and then I am for thee!

_Rog_. I like these tears well, and this humbling also, they are Symptomes of contrition. If I should fall into my fit again, would you not shake me into a quotidian c.o.xcombe? Would you not use me scurvily again, and give me possets with purging Confets in't? I tell thee Gentlewoman, thou hast been harder to me, than a long pedigree.

_Abig_. O Curate cure me: I will love thee better, dearer, longer: I will do any thing, betray the secrets of the main house-hold to thy reformation. My Ladie shall look lovingly on thy learning, and when true time shall point thee for a Parson, I will convert thy egges to penny custards, and thy t.i.th goose shall graze and multiply.

_Rog_. I am mollified, as well shall testifie this faithfull kiss, and have a great care Mistris _Abigal_ how you depress the Spirit any more with your rebukes and mocks: for certainly the edge of such a follie cuts it self.

_Abigal_. O Sir, you have pierc'd me thorow. Here I vow a recantation to those malicious faults I ever did against you. Never more will I despise your learning, never more pin cards and cony tails upon your Ca.s.sock, never again reproach your reverend nightcap, and call it by the mangie name of murrin, never your reverend person more, and say, you look like one of _Baals_ Priests in a hanging, never again when you say grace laugh at you, nor put you out at prayers: never cramp you more, nor when you ride, get Sope and Thistles for you. No my _Roger_, these faults shall be corrected and amended, as by the tenour of my tears appears.

<script>