_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
worshipfull 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 Coxcombe? 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 tith 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 Cassock,
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.
_Rog_. Now cannot I hold if I should be hang'd, I must crie too. Come to
thine own beloved, and do even what thou wilt with me sweet, sweet
_Abigal_. I am thine own for ever: here's my hand, when _Roger_ proves a
recreant, hang him i'th' Bel-ropes.
_Enter_ Lady, _and_ Martha.
_Lady_. Why how now Master _Roger_, no prayers down with you to night? Did
you hear the bell ring? You are courting: your flock shall fat well for
it.
_Rog_. I humbly ask your pardon: I'le clap up Prayers, but stay a little,
and be with you again. [_Exit_ Roger.
_Enter_ Elder Love.
_Lady_. How dare you, being so unworthie a fellow,
Presume to come to move me any more?
_Elder Lo_. Ha, ha, ha.
_Lady_. What ails the fellow?
_Elder Lo_. The fellow comes to laugh at you, I tell you Ladie I would not
for your Land, be such a Coxcomb, such a whining Ass, as you decreed me
for when I was last here.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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