Beau. Hah, a Woman! Perhaps the same he looks for—I’ll counterfeit his
Voice and try my Chance—Fortune may set us even.
197 Aria. Hah, is not that a Man? Yes—and a Chair waiting. [She peeps.
Beau. Who’s there?
Aria. A Maid.
Beau. A Miracle—Oh art thou come, Child?
Aria. ’Tis he, you are a civil Captain, are you not, to make a longing
Maid expect thus? What Woman has detain’d you?
Beau. Faith, my Dear, tho Flesh and Blood be frail, yet the dear Hopes
of thee has made me hold out with a Herculean Courage—Stay, where shall
I carry her? not to my own Apartment; _Ariadne_ may surprize me: I’ll
to the Mountebank here i’th’ Piazza, he has a Cure for all things, even
for longing Love, and for a Pistole or two will do Reason.—Hah,
Company: Here, step into this Chair. [She goes in, they go off just as
_Will._ enters.
Will. Hum, a Woman of Quality and jilt me—Egad, that’s strange
now—Well, who shall a Man trust in this wicked World?
Enter _La Nuche_ as before.
La Nu. This should be he, he saunters about like an expecting Lover.
[_Will._ peeping and approaching.
Will. By this Light a Woman, if she be the right—but right or wrong so
she be Feminine: harkye, Child, I fancy thee some kind thing that
belongs to me.
La Nu. Who are you? [In a low tone.
Will. A wandering Lover that has lost his Heart, and I have shreud
Guess ’tis in thy dear Bosom, Child.
La Nu. Oh you’re a pretty Lover, a Woman’s like to have a sweet time
on’t, if you’re always so tedious.
Will. By yon bright Star-light, Child, I walk’d here in short turns
like a Centinel, all this live-long Evening, and was just going (Gad
forgive me) to kill my self.
La Nu. I rather think some Beauty has detain’d you: Have you not seen
_La Nuche?_
198 Will. _La Nuche!_—Why, she’s a Whore—I hope you take me for a
civiller Person, than to throw my self away on Whores—No, Child, I lie
with none but honest Women I: but no disputing now, come—to my Lodging,
my dear—here’s a Chair waits hard by. [Exeunt.
Scene III. Willmore’s Lodging.
Enter _Harlequin_ with _Fetherfool’s_ Clothes on his Shoulder, leading
him halting by one Hand, _Blunt_ (drunk) by the other in the dark;
_Fetherfool_ bloody, his Coat put over his Shoulders.
Feth. _Peano, Peano_, Seignior, gently, good _Edward_—for I’ll not halt
before a Cripple; I have lost a great part of my agil Faculties.
Blunt. Ah, see the Inconstancy of fickle Fortune, _Nicholas_—A Man to
day, and beaten to morrow: but take comfort, there’s many a proper
fellow has been robb’d and beaten on this Highway of whoring.
Feth. Ay, _Ned_, thou speak’st by woful Experience—but that I should
miscarry after thy wholesom Documents—but we are all mortal, as thou
say’st, _Ned_—Would I had never crost the Ferry from _Croydon_; a few
such Nights as these wou’d learn a Man Experience enough to be a
Wizard, if he have but the ill luck to escape hanging.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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