Part 4
WINW. Do not see him: he is the roaring horse-courser, pray thee let's avoid him: turn down this way.
QUAR. 'Slud, I'll see him, and roar with him too, an he roared as loud as Neptune; pray thee go with me.
WINW. You may draw me to as likely an inconvenience, when you please, as this.
QUAR. Go to then, come along; we have nothing to do, man, but to see sights now.
[_They advance to the booth._
KNOCK. Welcome, master Quarlous, and master Winwife; will you take any froth and smoke with us?
QUAR. Yes, sir; but you'll pardon us if we knew not of so much familiarity between us afore.
KNOCK. As what, sir?
QUAR. To be so lightly invited to smoke and froth.
KNOCK. A good vapour! will you sit down, sir? this is old Ursula's mansion; how like you her bower? Here you may have your punk and your pig in state, sir, both piping hot.
QUAR. I had rather have my punk cold, sir.
OVER. There's for me: punk! and pig! [_Aside._
URS. [_within._] What, Mooncalf, you rogue!
MOON. By and by, the bottle is almost off, mistress; here, master Arthur.
URS. [_within._] I'll part you and your play-fellow there, in the garded coat, an you sunder not the sooner.
KNOCK. Master Winwife, you are proud, methinks, you do not talk, nor drink; are you proud?
WINW. Not of the company I am in, sir, nor the place, I assure you.
KNOCK. You do not except at the company, do you! are you in vapours, sir?
MOON. Nay, good master Daniel Knockem, respect my mistress's bower, as you call it; for the honour of our booth, none o' your vapours here.
_Enter URSULA with a fire-brand._
URS. Why, you thin, lean polecat you, an they have a mind to be in their vapours must you hinder 'em? What did you know, vermin, if they would have lost a cloke, or such trifle? must you be drawing the air of pacification here, while I am tormented within i' the fire, you weasel? [_Aside to Mooncalf._
MOON. Good mistress, 'twas in behalf of your booth's credit that I spoke.
URS. Why! would my booth have broke, if they had fallen out in't, sir? or would their heat have fired it? In, you rogue, and wipe the pigs, and mend the fire, that they fall not, or I'll both baste and roast you 'till your eyes drop out like them.--Leave the bottle behind you, and be curst awhile!
[_Exit Mooncalf._
QUAR. Body o' the Fair! what's this? mother of the bawds?
KNOCK. No, she's mother of the pigs, sir, mother of the pigs.
WINW. Mother of the furies, I think, by her fire-brand.
QUAR. Nay, she is too fat to be a fury, sure some walking sow of tallow!
WINW. An inspired vessel of kitchen stuff!
QUAR. She'll make excellent geer for the coach-makers here in Smithfield, to anoint wheels and axletrees with.
[_She drinks this while._
URS. Ay, ay, gamesters, mock a plain plump soft wench of the suburbs, do, because she's juicy and wholesome; you must have your thin pinched ware, pent up in the compass of a dog-collar, (or 'twill not do) that looks like a long laced conger, set upright, and a green feather, like fennel in the joll on't.
KNOCK. Well said, Urse, my good Urse! to 'em, Urse!
QUAR. Is she your quagmire, Daniel Knockem? is this your bog?
NIGHT. We shall have a quarrel presently.
KNOCK. How! bog! quagmire? foul vapours! humph!
QUAR. Yes, he that would venture for't, I assure him, might sink into her and be drown'd a week ere any friend he had could find where he were.
WINW. And then he would be a fortnight weighing up again.
QUAR. 'Twere like falling into a whole shire of butter; they had need be a team of Dutchmen should draw him out.
KNOCK. Answer 'em, Urse: where's thy Bartholomew wit now, Urse, thy Bartholomew wit?
URS. Hang 'em, rotten, roguy cheaters, I hope to see them plagued one day (pox'd they are already, I am sure) with lean playhouse poultry, that has the bony rump, sticking out like the ace of spades, or the point of a partizan, that every rib of them is like the tooth of a saw; and will so grate them with their hips and shoulders, as (take 'em altogether) they were as good lie with a hurdle.
QUAR. Out upon her, how she drips! she's able to give a man the sweating sickness with looking on her.
URS. Marry look off, with a patch on your face, and a dozen in your breech, though they be of scarlet, sir. I have seen as fine outsides as either of yours, bring lousy linings to the brokers, ere now, twice a week.
QUAR. Do you think there may be a fine new cucking-stool in the Fair, to be purchased; one large enough, I mean? I know there is a pond of capacity for her.
URS. For your mother, you rascal! Out, you rogue, you hedge-bird, you pimp, you pannier-man's bastard, you!
QUAR. Ha, ha, ha!
URS. Do you sneer, you dog's-head, you trendle-tail! you look as you were begotten a top of a cart in harvest time, when the whelp was hot and eager. Go, snuff after your brother's bitch, mistress Commodity; that's the livery you wear, 'twill be out at the elbows shortly. It's time you went to't for the t'other remnant.
KNOCK. Peace, Urse, peace, Urse;--they'll kill the poor whale, and make oil of her. Pray thee, go in.
URS. I'll see them pox'd first, and piled, and double piled.
WINW. Let's away, her language grows greasier than her pigs.
URS. Does it so, snotty-nose? good lord! are you snivelling? You were engendered on a she-beggar in a barn, when the bald thrasher, your sire, was scarce warm.
WINW. Pray thee let's go.
QUAR. No, faith; I'll stay the end of her now; I know she cannot last long: I find by her smiles she wanes apace.
URS. Does she so? I'll set you gone. Give me my pig-pan hither a little: I'll scald you hence, an you will not go.
[_Exit._
KNOCK. Gentlemen, these are very strange vapours, and very idle vapours, I assure you.
QUAR. You are a very serious ass, we assure you.
KNOCK. Humph, _ass!_ and _serious!_ nay, then pardon me my vapour. I have a foolish vapour, gentlemen: Any man that does vapour me the ass, master Quarlous--
QUAR. What then, master Jordan?
KNOCK. I do vapour him the lie.
QUAR. Faith, and to any man that vapours me the lie, I do vapour that.
[_Strikes him._
KNOCK. Nay then, vapours upon vapours.
[_They fight._
_Re-enter URSULA, with the dripping-pan._
EDG. NIGHT. 'Ware the pan, the pan, the pan! she comes with the pan, gentlemen! [_Ursula falls with the pan._]--God bless the woman.
URS. Oh!
[_Exeunt Quarlous and Winwife._
TRASH. [_runs in._] What's the matter?
OVER. Goodly woman!
MOON. Mistress!
URS. Curse of hell! that ever I saw these fiends! oh! I have scalded my leg, my leg, my leg, my leg! I have lost a limb in the service! run for some cream and sallad-oil, quickly. Are you under-peering, you baboon? rip off my hose, an you be men, men, men.
MOON. Run you for some cream, good mother Joan. I'll look to your basket.
[_Exit Trash._
LEATH. Best sit up in your chair, Ursula. Help, gentlemen.
KNOCK. Be of good cheer, Urse; thou hast hindered me the currying of a couple of stallions here, that abused the good race-bawd of Smithfield; 'twas time for them to go.
NIGHT. I' faith, when the pan came,--they had made you run else. This had been a fine time for purchase, if you had ventured. [_Aside to Edgworth._
EDG. Not a whit, these fellows were too fine to carry money.
KNOCK. Nightingale, get some help to carry her leg out of the air: take off her shoes. Body o' me! she has the mallanders, the scratches, the crown scab, and the quitter bone in the t'other leg.
URS. Oh, the pox! why do you put me in mind of my leg thus, to make it prick and shoot? Would you have me in the hospital afore my time?
KNOCK. Patience, Urse, take a good heart, 'tis but a blister as big as a windgall. I'll take it away with the white of an egg, a little honey and hog's grease, have thy pasterns well roll'd, and thou shalt pace again by to-morrow. I'll tend thy booth, and look to thy affairs the while: thou shalt sit in thy chair, and give directions, and shine Ursa major.
[_Exeunt Knockem and Mooncalf, with Ursula in her chair._
OVER. These are the fruits of bottle-ale and tobacco! the foam of the one, and the fumes of the other! Stay, young man, and despise not the wisdom of these few hairs that are grown grey in care of thee.
EDG. Nightingale, stay a little. Indeed I'll hear some of this!
_Enter COKES, with his box, WASPE, Mistress OVERDO, and GRACE._
COKES. Come, Numps, come, where are you? Welcome into the Fair, mistress Grace.
EDG. 'Slight, he will call company, you shall see, and put us into goings presently.
OVER. Thirst not after that frothy liquor, ale; for who knows when he openeth the stopple, what may be in the bottle? Hath not a snail, a spider, yea, a newt been found there? thirst not after it, youth; thirst not after it.
COKES. This is a brave fellow, Numps, let's hear him.
WASPE. 'Sblood! how brave is he? in a garded coat! You were best truck with him; e'en strip, and truck presently, it will become you. Why will you hear him? because he is an ass, and may be a-kin to the Cokeses?
COKES. O, good Numps.
OVER. Neither do thou lust after that tawney weed tobacco.
COKES. Brave words!
OVER. Whose complexion is like the Indian's that vents it.
COKES. Are they not brave words, sister?
OVER. And who can tell, if before the gathering and making up thereof, the Alligarta hath not piss'd thereon?
WASPE. 'Heart! let 'em be brave words, as brave as they will! an they were all the brave words in a country, how then? Will you away yet, have you enough on him? Mistress Grace, come you away; I pray you, be not you accessary. If you do lose your license, or somewhat else, sir, with listening to his fables, say Numps is a witch, with all my heart, do, say so.
COKES. Avoid in your satin doublet, Numps.
OVER. The creeping venom of which subtle serpent, as some late writers affirm, neither the cutting of the perilous plant, nor the drying of it, nor the lighting or burning, can any way persway or assuage.
COKES. Good, i'faith! is it not, sister?
OVER. Hence it is that the lungs of the tobacconist are rotted, the liver spotted, the brain smoked like the backside of the pig-woman's booth here, and the whole body within, black as her pan you saw e'en now, without.
COKES. A fine similitude that, sir! did you see the pan?
EDG. Yes, sir.
OVER. Nay, the hole in the nose here of some tobacco-takers, or the third nostril, if I may so call it, which makes that they can vent the tobacco out, like the ace of clubs, or rather the flower-de-lis, is caused from the tobacco, the mere tobacco! when the poor innocent pox, having nothing to do there, is miserably and most unconscionably slandered.
COKES. Who would have missed this, sister?
MRS. OVER. Not any body but Numps.
COKES. He does not understand.
EDG. [_picks Cokes's pocket of his purse._] Nor you feel. [_Aside._
COKES. What would you have, sister, of a fellow that knows nothing but a basket-hilt, and an old fox in't? the best musick in the Fair will not move a log.
EDG. [_gives the purse aside to Nightingale._] In, to Ursula, Nightingale, and carry her comfort: see it told. This fellow was sent to us by Fortune, for our first fairing.
[_Exit Nightingale._
OVER. But what speak I of the diseases of the body, children of the Fair?
COKES. That's to us, sister. Brave, i'faith!
OVER. Hark, O you sons and daughters of Smithfield! and hear what malady it doth the mind: it causeth swearing, it causeth swaggering, it causeth snuffling and snarling, and now and then a hurt.
MRS. OVER. He hath something of master Overdo, methinks, brother.
COKES. So methought, sister, very much of my brother Overdo: and 'tis when he speaks.
OVER. Look into any angle of the town, the Streights, or the Bermudas, where the quarrelling lesson is read, and how do they entertain the time, but with bottle-ale and tobacco? The lecturer is o' one side, and his pupils o' the other; but the seconds are still bottle-ale and tobacco, for which the lecturer reads, and the novices pay. Thirty pound a week in bottle-ale! forty in tobacco! and ten more in ale again. Then for a suit to drink in, so much, and, that being slaver'd, so much for another suit, and then a third suit, and a fourth suit! and still the bottle-ale slavereth, and the tobacco stinketh.
WASPE. Heart of a madman! are you rooted here? will you never away? what can any man find out in this bawling fellow, to grow here for? He is a full handful higher sin' he heard him. Will you fix here, and set up a booth, sir?
OVER. I will conclude briefly--
WASPE. Hold your peace, you roaring rascal, I'll run my head in your chaps else. You were best build a booth, and entertain him; make your will, an you say the word, and him your heir! heart, I never knew one taken with a mouth of a peck afore. By this light, I'll carry you away on my back, an you will not come.
[_He gets Cokes up on pick-back._
COKES. Stay, Numps, stay, set me down: I have lost my purse, Numps. O my purse! One of my fine purses is gone!
MRS. OVER. Is it indeed, brother?
COKES. Ay, as I am an honest man, would I were an arrant rogue else! a plague of all roguy damn'd cut-purses for me.
[_Examines his pockets._
WASPE. Bless 'em with all my heart, with all my heart, do you see! now, as I am no infidel, that I know of, I am glad on't. Ay, I am, (here's my witness,) do you see, sir? I did not tell you of his fables, I! no, no, I am a dull malt horse, I, I know nothing. Are you not justly served, in your conscience, now, speak in your conscience? Much good do you with all my heart, and his good heart that has it, with all my heart again.
EDG. This fellow is very charitable, would he had a purse too! but I must not be too bold all at a time. [_Aside._
COKES. Nay, Numps, it is not my best purse.
WASPE. Not your best! death! why should it be your worst? why should it be any, indeed, at all? answer me to that, give me a reason from you, why it should be any?
COKES. Nor my gold, Numps; I have that yet, look here else, sister.
[_Shews the other purse._
WASPE. Why so, there's all the feeling he has!
MRS. OVER. I pray you, have a better care of that, brother.
COKES. Nay, so I will, I warrant you; let him catch this that catch can. I would fain see him get this, look you here.
WASPE. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so! very good.
COKES. I would have him come again now, and but offer at it. Sister, will you take notice of a good jest? I will put it just where the other was, and if we have good luck, you shall see a delicate fine trap to catch the cut-purse nibbling.
EDG. Faith, and he'll try ere you be out o' the Fair. [_Aside._
COKES. Come, mistress Grace, prithee be not melancholy for my mischance; sorrow will not keep it, sweet-heart.
GRACE. I do not think on't, sir.
COKES. 'Twas but a little scurvy white money, hang it! it may hang the cut-purse one day. I have gold left to give thee a fairing yet, as hard as the world goes. Nothing angers me but that no body here look'd like a cut-purse, unless 'twere Numps.
WASPE. How! I, I look like a cut-purse? death! your sister's a cut-purse! and your mother and father, and all your kin were cut-purses! and here is a rogue is the bawd o' the cut-purses, whom I will beat to begin with.
[_They speak all together; and Waspe beats Overdo._
OVER. Hold thy hand, child of wrath, and heir of anger, make it not Childermass day in thy fury, or the feast of the French Bartholomew, parent of the massacre.
COKES. Numps, Numps!
MRS. OVER. Good master Humphrey!
WASPE. You are the Patrico, are you? the patriarch of the cut-purses? You share, sir, they say; let them share this with you. Are you in your hot fit of preaching again? I'll cool you.
OVER. Murther, murther, murther!
[_Exeunt._
## ACT III
## SCENE I.--_The Fair._
_LANTHORN LEATHERHEAD, JOAN TRASH, and others, sitting by their wares, as before._
_Enter WHIT, HAGGISE, and BRISTLE._
WHIT. Nay, tish all gone, now! dish tish, phen tou wilt not be phitin call, master offisher, phat ish a man te better to lishen out noyshes for tee, and ton art in an oder orld, being very shuffishient noyshes and gallantsh too? one o' their brabblesh would have fed ush all dish fortnight, but tou art so bushy about beggersh still, tou hast no leshure to intend shentlemen, and't be.
HAG. Why, I told you, Davy Bristle.
BRI. Come, come, you told me a pudding, Toby Haggise; a matter of nothing; I am sure it came to nothing. You said, let's go to Ursula's, indeed; but then you met the man with the monsters, and I could not get you from him. An old fool, not leave seeing yet!
HAG. Why, who would have thought any body would have quarrell'd so early; or that the ale o' the fair would have been up so soon?
WHIT. Phy, phat a clock toest tou tink it ish, man?
HAG. I cannot tell.
WHIT. Tou art a vish vatchman, i' te mean teem.
HAG. Why, should the watch go by the clock, or the clock by the watch, I pray?
BRI. One should go by another, if they did well.
WHIT. Tou art right now! phen didst tou ever know or hear of a shuffishient vatchment, but he did tell the clock, phat bushiness soever he had?
BRI. Nay, that's most true, a sufficient watchman knows what a clock it is.
WHIT. Shleeping or vaking: ash well as te clock himshelf, or te Jack dat shtrikes him.
BRI. Let's enquire of master Leatherhead, or Joan Trash here.--Master Leatherhead, do you hear, master Leatherhead?
WHIT. If it be a Ledderhead, tish a very tick Ledderhead, tat sho mush noish vill not piersh him.
LEATH. I have a little business now, good friends, do not trouble me.
WHIT. Phat, because o' ty wrought neet-cap, and ty phelvet sherkin, man? phy! I have sheene tee in ty ledder sherkin, ere now, mashter o' de hobby-horses, as bushy and stately as tou sheemest to be.
TRASH. Why, what an you have, captain Whit? he has his choice of jerkins, you may see by that, and his caps too, I assure you, when he pleases to be either sick or employed.
LEATH. God-a-mercy, Joan, answer for me.
WHIT. Away, be not sheen in my company, here be shentlemen, and men of vorship.
[_Exeunt Haggise and Bristle._
_Enter QUARLOUS and WINWIFE._
QUAR. We had wonderful ill luck, to miss this prologue o' the purse: but the best is, we shall have five acts of him ere night: he'll be spectacle enough, I'll answer for't.
WHIT. O creesh, duke Quarlous, how dosht tou? tou dosht not know me, I fear: I am te vishesht man, but justish Overdo, in all Bartholomew Fair now. Give me twelve-pence from tee, I vill help tee to a vife vorth forty marks for't, and't be.
QUAR. Away, rogue; pimp, away.
WHIT. And she shall shew tee as fine cut orke for't in her shmock too as tou cansht vish i'faith; vilt tou have her, vorshipful Vinvife? I vill help tee to her here, be an't be, into pig-quarter, gi' me ty twelve-pence from tee.
WINW. Why, there's twelve-pence, pray thee wilt thou begone?
WHIT. Tou art a vorthy man, and a vorshipful man still.
QUAR. Get you gone, rascal.
WHIT. I do mean it, man. Prinsh Quarlous, if tou hasht need on me, tou shalt find me here at Ursla's, I vill see phat ale and punque ish i' te pigsty for tee, bless ty good vorship.
[_Exit._
QUAR. Look! who comes here: John Littlewit!
WINW. And his wife, and my widow, her mother: the whole family.
QUAR. 'Slight, you must give them all fairings now.
WINW. Not I, I'll not see them.
QUAR. They are going a feasting. What schoolmaster's that is with 'em?
WINW. That's my rival, I believe, the baker.
_Enter RABBI BUSY, DAME PURECRAFT, JOHN LITTLEWIT, and MRS. LITTLEWIT._
BUSY. So, walk on in the middle way, fore-right, turn neither to the right hand nor to the left; let not your eyes be drawn aside with vanity, nor your ear with noises.
QUAR. O, I know him by that start.
LEATH. What do you lack, what do you buy, mistress? a fine hobby-horse, to make your son a tilter? a drum to make him a soldier? a fiddle to make him a reveller? what is't you lack? little dogs for your daughters? or babies, male or female?
BUSY. Look not toward them, hearken not; the place is Smithfield, or the field of smiths, the grove of hobby-horses and trinkets, the wares are the wares of devils, and the whole Fair is the shop of Satan: they are hooks and baits, very baits, that are hung out on every side, to catch you, and to hold you, as it were, by the gills, and by the nostrils, as the fisher doth; therefore you must not look nor turn toward them.--The heathen man could stop his ears with wax against the harlot of the sea; do you the like with your fingers against the bells of the beast.
WINW. What flashes come from him!
QUAR. O, he has those of his oven; a notable hot baker, 'twas when he plied the peel; he is leading his flock into the Fair now.
WINW. Rather driving them to the pens: for he will let them look upon nothing.
_Enter KNOCKEM and WHIT from URSULA'S booth._
KNOCK. Gentlewomen, the weather's hot; whither walk you? have a care of your fine velvet caps, the Fair is dusty. Take a sweet delicate booth, with boughs, here in the way, and cool yourselves in the shade; you and your friends. The best pig and bottle-ale in the Fair, sir. Old Ursula is cook, there you may read; [_points to the sign, a pig's head, with a large writing under it._] the pig's head speaks it. Poor soul, she has had a string-halt, the maryhinchco; but she's prettily amended.
WHIT. A delicate show-pig, little mistress, with shweet sauce, and crackling, like de bay-leaf i' de fire, la! tou shalt ha' de clean side o' de table-clot, and di glass vash'd with phatersh of dame Annesh Cleare.
LIT. [_gazing at the inscription._] This is fine verily. _Here be the best pigs, and she does roast them as well as ever she did_, the pig's head says.