DICCON. Follow me but a little, and mark what I say, Lay down your gown beside you, go to, come on your way: See ye not what is here? a hole wherein ye may creep Into the house, and suddenly unawares among them leap; There shall ye find the bitch-fox and the nee'le together. Do as I bid you, man, come on your ways hither. DOCTOR RAT. Art thou sure, Diccon, the swill-tub stands not hereabout? DICCON. I was within myself, man, even now, there is no doubt. Go softly, make no noise, give me your foot, sir John, Here will I wait upon you, till you come out anon. [_D. Rat creeps in._ DOCTOR RAT [_calling from within_]. Help, Diccon, out alas, I shall be slain among them. DICCON. If they give you not the needle, tell them that ye will hang them. Ware that! how, my wenches, have ye caught the fox, That used to make revel among your hens and cocks? Save his life yet for his order, though he sustain some pain. Gog's bread, I am afraid they will beat out his brain. DOCTOR RAT. Woe worth the hour that I came here; And woe worth him that wrought this gear, A sort of drabs and queans have me blest, Was ever creature half so evil drest? Whoever it wrought, and first did invent it, He shall, I warrant him, ere long repent it. I will spend all I have without my skin, But he shall be brought to the plight I am in; Master Baily, I trow, and he be worth his ears, Will snaffle these murderers, and all that [with] them bears: I will surely neither bite nor sup, Till I fetch him hither, this matter to take up. FOOTNOTES: [272] Fetched. So, in "Cynthia's Revels," act i., sc. 2: "Nay, the other is better, exceeds it much: the invention is farther _fet_ too." Again, in Ascham's "Toxophilus," p. 15: "And therefore agaynst a desperate evill began to seeke for a desperate remedie, which was _fet_ from Rome, a shop alwayes open to any mischief, as you shall perceive in these few leaves, if you marke them well." Again, in Lyly's "Euphues," p. 33: "That far _fet_ and deere bought, is good for ladies." [273] A proverbial expression used by Ben Jonson in his "Magnetic Lady," and by Shakspeare in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona." See Mr Steevens's Note on the latter, and [Hazlitt's "Proverbs," 1869, p. 127.] It is also to be found in Nash's "Lenten Stuff," 1599. [274] In Shakspeare's "Hamlet," Ophelia sings a song, in which this adjuration is used-- "_By gys_ and by Saint Charity." And it is also to be found in Gascoigne's Poems, in Preston's "Cambyses," and in the comedy of "See me and see me not," 1618-- _"By gisse_ I swear, were I so fairly wed," &c. Mr Steevens's note on "Hamlet," in which Mr Steevens observes, that _Saint Charity_ is a known saint among the Roman Catholics. Spenser mentions her ("Eclog," v., 255):--