The street before the Widow’s house
Enter the coffin of the corporal [Oath], the soldier [Skirmish] bound and led by Officers, the Sheriff there. [Enter from the house Sir Godfrey, the Widow, Frank, Idle, Pyeboard, Edmond, Frailty, and Nicholas.]
FRAILTY
Oh, here they come, here they come!
PYEBOARD
[Aside] Now must I close secretly with the soldier, prevent his impatience, or else all’s discovered.
WIDOW
Oh, lamentable seeing! These were those brothers that fought and bled before our door.
SIR GODFREY
What! They were not, sister!
SKIRMISH
[Aside to Pyeboard] George, look to’t; I’ll peach at Tyburn else!
PYEBOARD
[Aside to Skirmish] Mum! — Gentles all, vouchsafe me audience,
And you especially, master sheriff:
Yon man is bound to execution
Because he wounded this that now lies coffin’d?
SHERIFF
True, true; he shall have the law, and I know the law.
PYEBOARD
But under favour, master sheriff, if this man had been cured and safe again, he should have been releas’d then?
SHERIFF
Why make you question of that, sir?
PYEBOARD
Then I release him freely, and will take upon me the death that he should die if within a little season I do not cure him to his proper health again.
SHERIFF
How, sir! Recover a dead man? That were most strange of all.
Frank comes to him [Pyeboard].
FRANK
Sweet sir, I love you dearly, and could wish my best part yours. Oh, do not undertake such an impossible venture!
PYEBOARD
Love you me? Then for your sweet sake I’ll do’t.
Let me entreat the corpse to be set down.
SHERIFF
Bearers, set down the coffin. This were wonderful and worthy Stow’s chronicle.
PYEBOARD
I pray bestow the freedom of the air upon our wholesome art. [Aside] Mass, his cheeks begin to receive natural warmth! Nay, good corporal, wake betime, or I shall have a longer sleep than you. ‘Sfoot, if he should prove dead indeed now, he were fully reveng’d upon me for making a property on him; yet I had rather run upon the ropes than have a rope like a tetter run upon me. Oh, he stirs! He stirs again! — Look, gentlemen! He recovers! He starts, he rises!
SHERIFF
Oh, oh, defend us! Out, alas!
PYEBOARD
Nay, pray be still; you’ll make him more giddy else. He knows nobody yet.
[OATH]
Zounds, [where] am I? Cover’d with snow? I marvel!
PYEBOARD
[Aside] Nay, I knew he would swear the first thing he did as soon as ever he came to his life again.
[OATH]
‘Sfoot, hostess, some hot porridge! Oh, oh! Lay on a dozen of faggots in the moon parlour there.
PYEBOARD
[To Widow] Lady, you must needs take a little pity of him, i’faith, and send him in to your kitchen fire.
WIDOW
Oh, with all my heart, sir. Nicholas and Frailty, help to bear him in.
NICHOLAS
Bear him in, quoth ‘a! Pray call out the maids; I shall ne’er have the heart to do’t, indeed, la!
FRAILTY
Nor I neither; I cannot abide to handle a ghost, of all men.
[OATH]
‘Sblood, let me see. Where was I drunk last night, heh?
WIDOW
Oh, shall I bid you once again take him away?
FRAILTY
Why, we’re as fearful as you, I warrant you. Oh!
WIDOW
Away, villains! Bid the maids make him a caudle presently to settle his brain, or a posset of sack; quickly, quickly.
Exeunt [Frailty and Nicholas] pushing in [Corporal Oath].
[SHERIFF]
Sir, whatsoe’er you are, I do more than admire you.
WIDOW
Oh, ay, if you knew all, master sheriff, as you shall do, you would say then that here were two of the rarest men within the walls of Christendom.
SHERIFF
Two of ‘em? Oh, wonderful! Officers, I discharge you: set him free; all’s in tune.
SIR GODFREY
Ay, and a banquet ready by this time, master sheriff, to which I most cheerfully invite you and your late prisoner there. See you this goodly chain, sir? Mum, no more words: ’twas lost and is found again. Come, my inestimable bullies; we’ll talk of your noble acts in sparkling charnico, and instead of a jester, we’ll have the ghost i’ th’ white sheet sit at [the] upper end a’ th’ table.
SHERIFF
Ex’lent, merry man, i’faith!
[Exeunt all but Frank.]
FRANK
Well, seeing I am enjoin’d to love and marry,
My foolish vow thus I cashier to air,
Which first begot it. Now, love, play thy part;
The scholar reads his lecture in my heart.
[Exit.]