_Jer._ O la! my mother bound hand and foot, and gaping as if she rose before her time to-day! _Free._ What means this, Oldfox? But I'll release you from him; you shall be no man's prisoner but mine. Bailiffs, execute your writ. [_Unties her._ _Old._ Nay, then, I'll be gone, for fear of being bail, and paying her debts without being her husband. [_Exit._ _1st Bail._ We arrest you in the king's name, at the suit of Mr. Freeman, guardian to Jeremiah Blackacre, esquire, in an action of ten thousand pounds. _Wid._ How, how, in a choke-bail action! What, and the pen and-ink gentlemen taken too!--Have you confessed, you rogues? _1st Knight._ We needed not to confess; for the bailiffs have dogged us hither to the very door, and overheard all that you and we said. _Wid._ Undone, undone then! no man was ever too hard for me till now. O Jerry, child, wilt thou vex again the womb that bore thee? _Jer._ Ay, for bearing me before wedlock, as you say. But I'll teach you call a Blackacre bastard, though you were never so much my mother. _Wid._ [_Aside._] Well, I'm undone! not one trick left? no law-mesh imaginable?--[_To_ FREEMAN.] Cruel sir, a word with you, I pray. _Free._ In vain, madam; for you have no other way to release yourself but by the bonds of matrimony. _Wid._ How, sir, how! that were but to sue out a habeas-corpus, for a removal from one prison to another.--Matrimony! _Free._ Well, bailiffs, away with her. _Wid._ O stay, sir! can you be so cruel as to bring me under covert-baron[127] again, and put it out of my power to sue in my own name? Matrimony to a woman is worse than excommunication, in depriving her of the benefit of the law; and I would rather be deprived of life. But hark you, sir, I am contented you should hold and enjoy my person by lease or patent, but not by the spiritual patent called a licence; that is, to have the privileges of a husband, without the dominion; that is, _Durante beneplacito_. In consideration of which, I will out of my jointure secure you an annuity of three hundred pounds a year, and pay your debts; and that's all you younger brothers desire to marry a widow for, I'm sure. _Free._ Well, widow, if-- _Jer._ What! I hope, bully-guardian, you are not making agreements without me? _Free._ No, no. First, widow, you must say no more that he is a son of a whore; have a care of that. And, then, he must have a settled exhibition of forty pounds a year, and a nag of assizes, kept by you, but not upon the common; and have free ingress, egress, and regress, to and from your maids' garret. _Wid._ Well, I can grant all that too. _Jer._ Ay, ay, fair words butter no cabbage: but guardian, make her sign, sign and seal; for otherwise, if you knew her as well as I, you would not trust her word for a farthing.