_Sir Jol._ Hist! hist! Close, close, I say again; yonder's Sir Davy, odds so! _Sir Dav._ My dear! my dear! my dear! _L. Dunce._ Who's that calls? my love, is't you? _Sir Dav._ Ay, some comfort or my heart's broke! are there any hopes yet? I've tried to say my prayers, and cannot: if he be quite dead, I shall never pray again! Neighbour, no hopes? _Sir Jol._ Truly little or none; some small pulse I think there is left, very little: there's nothing to be done if you don't pray: get you to prayers whatever you do. Get you gone; nay, don't stay now, shut the window, I tell you. _Sir Dav._ Well, this is a great trouble to me; but good-night. [_Retires._ _Sir Jol._ Good-night to you, dear neighbour.--Get ye up, get ye up, and begone into the next room presently, make haste. [_To_ BEAUGARD _and_ Lady DUNCE.] But don't steal away till I come to you; be sure ye remember, don't ye stir till I come--pish, none of this bowing and fooling, it but loses time; I'll only bolt the door that belongs to Sir Davy's lodgings, that he may be safe, and be with you in a twinkle. Ah--so, now for the door; very well, friend, you are fast. [_Bolts the door and sings._ Bonny lass, gan thoo wert mine, And twonty thoosand poonds aboot thee, &c. [_Exeunt._ [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [41] Louis XIV. [42] Take it off. [43] This probably refers to the supposed murder, in 1678, of Sir Edmundsbury Godfrey, the magistrate before whom Titus Oates made his incredible depositions concerning the alleged Popish plot. Many believed it was a case of suicide. He was found pierced through with his own sword on Primrose Hill. But the infamous Bedloe, a convicted felon, and accomplice of Titus Oates, accused Queen Catharine's Catholic servants of murdering Godfrey in Somerset House, where the queen then resided, and so struck at the queen herself. Oates and he afterwards accused her of conspiring to murder the king. But Charles was not so mad and bad as to believe them. Godfrey had warned one of the denounced persons, Coleman, and the murder, if it was one, is now generally attributed to the Ultra-Protestant faction. At any rate, they used the incident to inflame the public mind against the Roman Catholics. [44] Algiers. [45] _i.e._ Drink to him. [46] Sporting dogs used to be called "questing hounds" (see Malory, for instance), and a hound may run forward in pursuit at the wrong moment. This is evidently the allusion here. [47] An allusion to the common superstition that if the murderer touched the dead body the wounds would commence to bleed afresh. ACT THE FIFTH. SCENE I.--SYLVIA'S _Chamber_. COURTINE _discovered bound on a couch_.