English drama -- 17th century; English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700
_To._ Ha, sirrah! thinks my knight adventurer we can no
point of our compass? Do we not know nor-north-east,
north-east-and-by-east, east-and-by-north? nor plain eastward?
Ha! have we never heard of Virginia? nor the
Cavallaria? nor the Colonoria? Can we discover no discoveries?
Well, mine errant Sir Flash, and my runagate
Quicksilver, you may drink drunk,[79] crack cans, hurl away
a brown dozen of Monmouth caps[80] or so, in sea ceremony
to your _bon voyage_; but for reaching any coast, save the
coast of Kent or Essex, with this tide, or with this fleet, I'll
be your warrant for a Gravesend toast. There's that gone
afore will stay your admiral,[81] and vice-admiral and rear-admiral,
were they all (as they are) but one pinnace,
and under sail, as well as a remora,[82] doubt it not; and
from this sconce,[83] without either powder or shot. Work
upon that now. Nay, and you'll show tricks, we'll vie[84]
with you a little. My daughter, his lady, was sent eastward
by land, to a castle of his, i' the air (in what region
I know not), and, as I hear, was glad to take up her
lodging in her coach, she and her two waiting-women, her
maid, and her mother, like three snails in a shell, and the
coachman a-top on 'hem, I think. Since they have all
found the way back again by Weeping Cross;[85] but I'll
not see 'hem. And for two on 'hem, madam and her
malkin, they are like to bite o' the bridle for William, as
the poor horses have done all this while that hurried
'hem, or else go graze o' the common. So should my
Dame Touchstone too; but she has been my cross these
thirty years, and I'll now keep her to fright away sprites,
i'faith. I wonder I hear no news of my son Golding.
He was sent for to the Guildhall this morning betimes,
and I marvel at the matter; if I had not laid up comfort
and hope in him, I should grow desperate of all.
See! he is come i' my thought. How now, son? What
news at the Court of Aldermen? 35
_Enter_ GOLDING.
_Go._ Troth, sir, an accident somewhat strange, else it
hath little in it worth the reporting.
_To._ What? it is not borrowing of money, then?
_Go._ No, sir; it hath pleased the worshipful commoners
of the city to take me one i' their number at presentation
of the inquest----
_To._ Ha!
_Go._ And the alderman of the ward wherein I dwell to
appoint me his deputy----
_To._ How? 45
_Go._ In which place I have had an oath administered
me, since I went.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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