HODGE. Gog's heart, help and come up: Gib in her tail hath fire, And is like to burn all, if she get a little higher. Come down (quoth you?) nay, then you might count me a patch,[202] The house cometh down on your heads, if it take once the thatch. GAMMER. It is the cat's eyes, fool, that shineth in the dark. HODGE. Hath the cat, do you think, in every eye a spark? GAMMER. No, but they shine as like fire as ever man see. HODGE. By the mass, and she burn all, you sh' bear the blame for me. GAMMER. Come down and help to seek here our nee'le, that it were found; Down, Tib, on _thy_ knees, I say, down, Cock, to the ground. To God I make a vow, and so to good Saint Anne,[203] A candle shall they have a-piece, get it where I can, If I may my nee'le find in one place or in other. HODGE. Now a vengeance on Gib light, on Gib and Gib's mother. And all the generation of cats both far and near. Look on the ground, whoreson, thinks thou the nee'le is here? COCK. By my troth, Gammer, me-thought your nee'le here I saw, But when my fingers touch'd it, I felt it was a straw. TIB. See, Hodge, what's t'is; may it not be within it? HODGE. Break it, fool, with thy hand, and see, and thou canst find it. TIB. Nay, break it you, Hodge, according to your word. HODGE. Gog's sides, fie! it stinks: it is a cat's turd: It were well done to make thee eat it, by the mass. GAMMER. This matter amendeth not, my nee'le is still where it was. Our candle is at an end, let us all in quite, And come another time, when we have more light. FOOTNOTES: [186] The summer beam or dorman. Poles laid over a stable or other building.--Ray's "Collection of English Words," p. 167. [187] A _sort_ is a company. So in Jonson's "Every man out of his Humour," act ii., sc. 3: "I speak it not gloriously, nor out of affectation, but there's he and the count Frugale, signior Illustre, signior Luculento, and _a sort_ of them," &c. Also, in Nash's "Pierce Pennilesse," 1592, p. 6, "I know a great _sort_ of good fellows that would venture," &c. Again, in the "Vocacyon of Johan Bale," 1533; "In parell of pyrates, robbers, and murthirors, and a great _sort_ more." And in Skelton's Works, edit. 1736, p. 136-- "Another _sorte_ of sluttes Some brought walnutes." See also Dr Johnson and Mr Steevens's Notes on Shakspeare, Vol. III. p. 69. [188] An old _trot_ or _trat_, Dr Grey says, signifies a decrepid old woman or an old drab. In which sense it is used in Gawin Douglas' Virgil, B. iv. p. 96, 97-- "Out on the _old trat_ agit wyffe or dame." And p. 122, 39: "Thus saith _Dido_, and the tother with that, Hyit or furth with slow pase like _ane trot_."