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Being laden with the heaviest news that ever

Poor daughter carried.

Car. Why? is the boy dead?

Kath. Dead, sir!

Oh, father, we are cozen'd; you are told

The murderer sings in prison, and he laughs here. This villain kill'd my sister; see else, see,

[Takes up his vest; and shows the knife to her father, who secures it.

A bloody knife in 's pocket!

Car. Bless me, patience!

[DOG paws softly at FRANK, and exit.

Frank. [Seeing them.] The knife! the knife! the knife!

Kath. What knife?

Frank. To cut my chicken up, my chicken ;Be you my carver, father.

Car. That I will.

Kath. How the Devil steels our brows after doing ill!

Frank. My stomach and my sight are taken from

me;

All is not well within me.

Car. I believe thee, boy: I that have seen so many moons clap their horns on other men's foreheads to strike them sick; yet mine to 'scape, and be well! I that am as sound as an honest man's conscience when he's dying, I should cry out as thou dost, "All is not well within me," felt I but the bag of thy imposthumes. Ah, poor villain ! ah, my wounded rascal! all my grief is, I have now small hope of thee.

Frank. Do the surgeons say my wounds are dangerous, then!

Car. Yes, yes, and there's no way with thee but one.1

1 Yes, yes, and there's no way with thee but one.] A proverbial expression for an inevitable event-death. Thus Mrs. Quickly of poor Sir John-" After I saw him fumble with the sheets, and smile upon his finger-ends, I knew there was but one way," &c.-GIFFORD.

Frank. Would he were here to open them. Car. I'll go to fetch him; I'll make a holyday to see thee as I wish.

Frank. A wondrous kind old man.

Win. Your sin 's the blacker,

[Exit.

So to abuse his goodness.-[Aside to FRANK.-Master, how do you?

[Aloud. Frank. Pretty well now, boy; I have such odd *qualms

Come cross my stomach:-I'll fall-to; boy, cut

me

Re-enter CARTER, followed by Servants, with the body of SUSAN in a coffin.

What's that?

Car. That? what? oh, now I see her; 't is a young wench, my daughter, sirrah, sick to the death; and hearing thee to be an excellent rascal for letting blood, she looks out at a casement, and cries, "Help! help! stay that man! him I must have

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Frank. For pity's sake remove her; see, she

stares

With one broad open eye still in my face!

Car. Thou puttest both hers out like a villain as thou art; yet, see! she is willing to lend thee one again, to find out the murderer, and that's thyself. Frank. Old man, thou liest.

Car. So shalt thou-in the jail. Run for officers.
Kath. Oh, thou merciless slave!

She was (though yet above ground) in her grave
To me but thou hast torn her up again-

Mine eyes, too much drown'd, now must feel more

rain.

Car. Fetch officers.
Frank. For whom?

[Exit KATH. with Servants.

Car. For thee, sirrah! sirrah! Some knives have foolish posies upon them, but thine has a villanous one; look!-[showing the bloody knife.-oh, it is

enamelled with the heart-blood of thy hated wife, my beloved daughter! What say'st thou to this evidence? is 't not sharp? does 't not strike home? thou canst not answer honestly, and without a trembling heart, to this one point, this terrible bloody point.

Win. I beseech you, sir,

Strike him no more; you see he 's dead already. Çar. Oh, sir! you held his horses; you are as arrant a rogue as he: up go you too.

Frank. As you 're a man, throw not upon that

woman

Your loads of tyranny, for she is innocent.

Car. How? how? a woman!

Win. I am not as my disguise speaks me, sir, his

page;

But his first, only wife, his lawful wife.

Car. How? how? more fire i' the bed-straw!1 Win. The wrongs which singly fell upon your daughter,

On me are multiplied; she lost a life;
But I a husband and myself must lose,

If you call him to a bar for what he has done.
Car. He has done it then?

Win. Yes, 't is confess'd to me.

Frank. Dost thou betray me?

Win. Oh pardon me, dear heart! I am mad to

lose thee,

And know not what I speak; but if thou didst,
I must arraign this father for two sins,'

Adultery and murder.

Re-enter KATHERINE.

Kath. Sir, they are come.

Car. Arraign me for what thou wilt, all Middlesex knows me better for an honest man, than the middle

1 More fire the bed-straw!] A proverbial expression for more consealed mischief!-GIFFORD.

of a marketplace knows thee for an honest woman. Rise, sirrah, and don your tacklings; rig yourself for the gallows, or I'll carry thee thither on my back: your trull shall to the jail with you; there be as fine Newgate birds as she, that can draw him in: out on's wounds!

Frank. I have serv'd thee, and my wages now are paid;

Yet my worst punishment shall, I hope, be stayed.

[Exeunt.

ACT V. SCENE 1.

The Witch's Cottage.

Enter Mother SAWYER.

Saw. Still wrong'd by every slave! and not a dog Bark in his dame's defence I am call'd witch, Yet am myself bewitch'd from doing harm. Have I giv'n up myself to thy black lust Thus to be scorn'd? Not see me in three days! I'm lost without my Tomalin; prithee come: Revenge to me is sweeter far than life:' Thou art my raven, on whose coal-black wings Revenge comes flying to me. Oh my best love! I am on fire, even in the midst of ice,

Raking my blood up, till my shrunk knees feel Thy curl'd head leaning on them; come, then, my darling;

If in the air thou hover'st, fall upon me

In some dark cloud; and as I oft have seen

1 Revenge to me is sweeter far than life.]

At vindicta bonum vita jucundius.

I have already observed on the incongruous language put into the mouth of our village witch. Either of the poets could have written down to her vulgar estimation, but they appear to entertain some indistinct notion of raising her character. This soliloquy, which is a very fine one, might have been pronounced by a Sagana, or a Canidia. -GIFFORD.

Dragons and serpents in the elements,

Appear thou now so to me! Art thou i' the sea?
Muster up all the monsters from the deep,

And be the ugliest of them; so that my bulch1
Show but his swarth cheek to me, let earth cleave
And break from hell, I care not!-could I run
Like a swift powder-mine beneath the world,
Up would I blow it all, to find out thee,

Though I lay ruin'd in it.

I must then fall to my old

Sanctibicetur nomen tuum.

Not yet come!

prayer:

Not yet come! the worrying of wolves, biting of mað dogs, and the

Enter Doa, white.

Dog. How now! whom art thou cursing?

Saw: Thee!

Ha! no, 't is my black cur I am cursing,

For not attending on me.

Dog. I am that cur.

Saw. Thou liest: hence! come not nigh me.
Dog. Bow, wow!

Saw. Why dost thou thus appear to me in white, As if thou wert the ghost of my dear love?

Dog. I am dogg'd, and list not to tell thee;-yet, -to torment thee,-my whiteness puts thee in mind of thy winding-sheet.

Saw. Am I near death?

Dog. Yes, if the dog of hell be near thee; when the Devil comes to thee as a lamb, have at thy throat! Saw. Off, cur!

Dog. He has the back of a sheep, but the belly of an otter; devours by sea and land.

white?" didst thou not pray to me?

"Why am I in

Saw. Yes, thou dissembling hell-hound; Why now in white more than at other times?

1 So that my bulch.]-Literally, a calf; sometimes used, as here, as an expression of kindness; but generally indicative of familiarity and contempt.-GIFFORD

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