WIDDOW. Indeed, they'll answer you so; tak't a my word, they'll give you the very same answer Verbatim, truly la.
PENNY-DUB. Mum: Moll's a good wench still, I know what she'll do.
MUCK-HILL. Well, Lady, for this time we'll take our leaves, hoping for better comfort.
WIDDOW. O never, never! and I live these thousand years! and you be good Knights, do not hope; twill be all Vain, Vain,--look you, put off all your suits, and you come to me again.
[Exeunt Sir John and Sir Andrew.]
FRAILTY. Put off all their suits, quatha? Aye, that's the best wooing of a Widdow, indeed, when a man's Nonsuited; that is, when he's a bed with her.
[Going out, Muck-hill and Sir Godfrey.]
MUCK-HILL. Sir Godfrey, here's twenty Angels more: work hard for me; there's life int yet.
[Exit Muck-hill.]
SIR GODFREY. Fear not, Sir Oliver Muck-hill, I'll stick close for you; leave all with me.
[Enter George Pye-board, the scholar.]
PYE. By your leave, Lady Widdow.
WIDDOW. What, another suitor now?
PYE. A suitor! no, I protest, Lady, if you'd give me your self, I'd not be troubled with you.
WIDDOW. Say you so, Sir? then you're the better welcome, sir.
PYE. Nay, Heaven bless me from a Widdow, unless I were sure to bury her speedily!
WIDDOW. Good bluntness: well, your business, sir?
PYE. Very needful; if you were in private once.
WIDDOW. Needful? brother, pray leave us; and you, sir.
FRAILTY. I should laugh now, if this blunt fellow should put 'em all by side the stirrup, and vault into the saddle himself. I have seen as mad a trick.
[Exit Frailty.]
[Enter Daughters.]
WIDDOW. Now Sir?--here's none but we--Daughters, forbear.
PYE. O no, pray, let 'em stay, for what I have to speak importeth equally to them as to you.
WIDDOW. Then you may stay.
PYE. I pray bestow on me a serious ear, For what I speak is full of weight and fear.
WIDDOW. Fear?
PYE. Aye, ift pass unregarded, and uneffected; Else peace and joy:--I pray, Attention. Widdow, I have been a mere stranger for these parts that you live in, nor did I ever know the Husband of you, and Father of them, but I truly know by certain spiritual Intelligence, that he is in Purgatory.
WIDDOW. Purgatory? tuh; that word deserves to be spit upon. I wonder that a man of sober tongue, as you seem to be, should have the folly to believe there's such a place.
PYE. Well, Lady, in cold blood I speak it; I assure you that there is a Purgatory, in which place I know your husband to reside, and wherein he is like to remain, till the dissolution of the world, till the last general Bon-fire, when all the earth shall melt into nothing and the Seas scald their finny labourers; so long is his abidance, unless you alter the property of your purpose, together with each of your Daughters theirs; that is, the purpose of single life in your self and your eldest Daughter, and the speedy determination of marriage in your youngest.
MOLL. How knows he that? what, has some Devil told him?
WIDDOW. Strange he should know our thoughts:--Why, but, Daughter, have you purposed speedy Marriage?
PYE. You see she tells you aye, for she says nothing. Nay, give me credit as you please. I am a stranger to you, and yet you see I know your determinations, which must come to me Metaphysically, and by a super-natural intelligence.
WIDDOW. This puts Amazement on me.
FRANCES. Know our secrets!
MOLL. I'd thought to steal a marriage: would his tongue Had dropt out when be blabbed it!
WIDDOW. But, sir, my husband was too honest a dealing man to be now in any purgatories--
PYE. O, Do not load your conscience with untruths; Tis but mere folly now to gild him o'er, That has past but for Copper. Praises here Cannot unbind him there: confess but truth. I know he got his wealth with a hard grip: Oh hardly, hardly.
WIDDOW. This is most strange of all: how knows he that?
PYE. He would eat fools and ignorant heirs clean up; And had his drink from many a poor man's brow, E'en as their labour brewed it. He would scrape riches to him most unjustly; The very dirt between his nails was Ill-got, And not his own,--oh, I groan to speak on't, The thought makes me shudder--shudder!
WIDDOW. It quakes me too, now I think on't.--Sir, I am much grieved, that you, a stranger, should so deeply wrong my dead husband!
PYE. Oh!
WIDDOW. A man that would keep Church so duly; rise early, before his servants, and e'en for Religious hast, go ungartered, unbuttoned, nay, sir Reverence, untrust, to Morning Prayer.