English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600; Heywood, Thomas, approximately 1574-1641
Are unexpressible; I’ll end them thus:
Ill man, bad woman, your unheard-of treachery
This unjust censure on a just man give,--
To seek out place where no two such can live. [_Exit_.
SCENE IV.--_Another Room in the House_.
_Enter_ Delavil _in a nightgown, and_ Wife _in night attire_.
Delavil.
A happy morning now betide you, lady,
To equal the content of a sweet night.
Wife.
It hath been to my wish, and your desire;
And this your coming by pretended love
Unto my sister Prue cuts off suspicion
Of any such converse ’twixt you and me.
Delavil.
It hath been wisely carried.
Wife.
One thing troubles me.
Delavil.
What’s that, my dearest?
Wife.
Why your friend Geraldine
Should on the sudden thus absent himself:
Has he had, think you, no intelligence
Of these our private meetings?
Delavil.
No, on my soul,
For therein hath my brain exceeded yours:
I, studying to engross you to myself,
Of his continued absence have been cause;
Yet he of your affection no way jealous,
Or of my friendship. How the plot was cast,
You at our better leisure shall partake:
The air grows cold, have care unto your health;
Suspicious eyes are o’er us, that yet sleep,
But with the dawn will open. Sweet, retire you
To your warm sheets; I now to fill my own,
That have this night been empty.
Wife.
You advise well:
Oh, might this kiss dwell ever on thy lips
In my remembrance!
Delavil.
Doubt it not, I pray,
Whilst day frights night, and night pursues the day.
Good-morrow.
[_Exeunt_.
SCENE V.--_A Room in_ Old Lionel’s _House_.
_Enter_ Reignald _with a key in his hand_, Young Lionel,
Blanda, Scapha, Rioter, _and two_ Gallants.
Reignald.
Now is the gaol delivery; through this back gate
Shift for yourselves; I here unprison all.
Young Lionel.
But tell me, how shall we dispose ourselves?
We are as far to seek now as at the first;
What is it to reprieve us for few hours,
And now to suffer? better had it been
At first to have stood the trial, so by this
We might have passed our penance.
Blanda.
Sweet Reignald!
Young Lionel.
Honest rogue!
Rioter.
If now thou fail’st us, then we are lost for ever.
Reignald.
This same sweet Reignald, and this honest rogue,
Hath been the burgess under whose protection
You all this while have lived, free from arrests:
But now the sessions of my power’s broke up,
And you exposed to actions, warrants, writs;
For all the hellish rabble are broke loose,
Of serjeants, sheriffs, and bailiffs.
All.
Guard us, Heaven!
Reignald.
I tell you as it is; nay, I myself
That have been your protector, now as subject
To every varlet’s pestle, for you know
How I am engaged with you----At whose suit, sir?
All.
Why didst thou start? [_They all start_.
Reignald.
I was afraid some catchpole stood behind me,
To clap me on the shoulder.
Rioter.
No such thing;
Yet I protest thy fear did fright us all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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