A street outside Lord Beaufort’s house
Enter Lord Beaufort and Knavesbee.
BEAUFORT
Sirrah, be gone; y’are base!
KNAVESBEE
Base, my good lord?
’Tis a ground part in music: trebles, means,
All is but [fiddling]. Your honour bore a part
As my wife says, my lord.
BEAUFORT
Your wife’s a strumpet!
KNAVESBEE
Ah ha, is she so? I am glad to hear it:
Open confession, open payment.
The wager’s mine then, a hundred a year, my lord;
I said so before, and stak’d my head against it.
Thus after darksome night, the day is come, my lord.
BEAUFORT
Hence, hide thy branded head; let no day see thee,
Nor thou any but thy execution day!
KNAVESBEE
That’s the day after washing day; once a week
I see’t at home, my lord.
BEAUFORT
Go home and see
Thy prostituted wife, for sure ’tis so,
Now folded in a boy’s adultery,
My page, on whom the hot-[rein’d] harlot dotes.
This night he hath been her attendant. My house
He’s fled from, and must no more return. Go,
And make haste, sir, lest your reward be lost
For want of looking to.
KNAVESBEE
My reward lost!
Is there nothing due for what is past, my lord?
BEAUFORT
[Beating him] Yes, pander, wittol, macrio, basest of knaves!
Thou bolster-bawd to thine own infamy!
Go, I have no more about me at this time;
When I am better stor’d thou shalt have more
Where’er I meet thee.
KNAVESBEE
[Aside] Pander, wittol, macrio, base knave, bolster-bawd! Here is but five mark toward a hundred a year; this is poor payment. If lords may be trusted no better than thus, I will go home and cut my wife’s nose off. I will turn over a new leaf and hang up the page. Lastly, I will put on a large pair of wet-leather boots and drown myself; I will sink at Queenhive and rise again at Charing Cross, contrary to the statute in Edwardo primo.
Exit. Enter Old Franklin, his son [Franklin disguised] as before, George, three or four citizens [as] Creditors.
OLD FRANKLIN
Good health to your lordship.
BEAUFORT
Master Franklin, I heard of your arrival and the cause of this your sad appearance.
OLD FRANKLIN
And ’tis no more than as your honour says, indeed, appearance: it has more form than feeling sorrow, sir, I must confess. There’s none of these gentlemen, though aliens in bonds, but have as large cause of grief as I.
FIRST CREDITOR
No, by your favour, sir, we are well satisfied. There was in his life a greater hope, but less assurance.
SECOND CREDITOR
Sir, I wish all my debts of no better promise to pay me thus; fifty in the hundred comes fairly homewards.
FRANKLIN
Considering hard bargains and dead commodities, sir.
SECOND CREDITOR
Thou sayst true, friend, and from a dead debtor too.
BEAUFORT
And so you have compounded and agreed all your son’s riotous debts?
OLD FRANKLIN
That’s behind but one cause of worse condition; that done, he may sleep quietly.
FIRST CREDITOR
Yes, sure, my lord, this gentleman is come a wonder to us all, that so fairly with half a loss could satisfy those debts were dead, even with his son, and from whom we could have nothing claim’d.
OLD FRANKLIN
I showed my reason; I would have a good name live after him because he bore my name.
SECOND CREDITOR
May his tongue perish first, and that will spoil his trade, that first gives him a syllable of ill.
BEAUFORT
Why, this is friendly.
Enter Chamlet.
CHAMLET
My lord!
BEAUFORT
Master Chamlet, very welcome.
CHAMLET
Master Franklin, I take it. These gentlemen I know well: good Pennystone, Master Phillip, Master Cheyney! I am glad I shall take my leave of so many of my good friends at once. [Shaking their hands] Your hand first, my lord; fare you well, sir. Nay, I must have all your hands to my pass.
GEORGE
Will you have mine too, sir?
CHAMLET
Yes, thy two hands, George, and I think two honest hands of a tradesman, George, as any between Cornhill and Lombard Street.
GEORGE
Take heed what you say, sir; there’s Birchen Lane between ‘em.
BEAUFORT
But what’s the cause of this, Master Chamlet?
CHAMLET
I have the cause in handling now, my lord: George, honest George is the cause, yet no cause of George’s. George is [turn’d] away one way, and I must go another.
BEAUFORT
And whither is your way, sir?
CHAMLET
[E’en] to seek out a quiet life, my lord: I do hear of a fine peaceable island.
BEAUFORT
Why, ’tis the same you live in.
CHAMLET
No, ’tis so fam’d,
But we th’ inhabitants find it not so.
The place I speak of has been keep with thunder,
With frightful lightnings, amazing noises,
But now, th’ enchantment broke, ’tis the land of peace,
Where hogs and tobacco yield fair increase.
BEAUFORT
This is a little wild, methinks.
CHAMLET
Gentlemen, fare you well; I am for the Bermudas.
BEAUFORT
Nay, good sir, stay. And is that your only cause, the loss of George?
CHAMLET
The loss of George, my lord! Make you that no cause? Why, but examine, would it not break the stout heart of a nobleman to lose his George, much more the tender bosom of a citizen?
BEAUFORT
Fie, fie, I’m sorry your gravity should run back to lightness thus. You go to the Bermothes!
OLD FRANKLIN
Better to Ireland, sir.
CHAMLET
The land of ire? That’s too near home; my wife will be heard from Hellbree to Divelin.
OLD FRANKLIN
Sir, I must of necessity a while detain you. I must acquaint you with a benefit that’s coming towards you. You were cheated of some goods of late; come, I’m a cunning man and will help you to the most part again, or some reasonable satisfaction.
CHAMLET
That’s another cause of my unquiet life, sir. Can you do that, I may chance stay another tide or two.
Enter [Rachel].
My wife! I must speak more private with you. By forty foot, pain of death, I dare not reach her. No words of me, sweet gentlemen!
Slips behind the arras.
GEORGE
I had need hide too.
[He follows Chamlet.]
[RACHEL]
Oh, my lord, I have scarce tongue enough yet to tell you; my husband, my husband’s gone from me. Your warrant, good my lord, I never had such need of your warrant; my husband’s gone from me!
BEAUFORT
Going he is, ’tis true; h’as ta’en his leave of me, and all these gentlemen, and ’tis your sharp tongue that whips him forward.
[RACHEL]
A warrant, good my lord!
BEAUFORT
You turn away his servants, such on whom his estate depends, he says, who know his books, his debts, his customers; the form and order of all his affairs you make orderless. Chiefly, his George you have banish’d from him.
[RACHEL]
My lord, I will call George again.
GEORGE within
Call George again!
BEAUFORT
Why, hark you, how high-voic’d you are that raise an echo from my cellarage, which we with modest loudness cannot.
[RACHEL]
My lord, do you think I speak too loud?
GEORGE within
Too loud.
BEAUFORT
Why hark, your own tongue answers you, and reverberates your words into your teeth.
[RACHEL]
I will speak lower all the days of my life: I never found the fault in myself till now. Your warrant, good my lord, to stay my husband!
BEAUFORT
Well, well, it shall o’ertake him ere he pass Gravesend, provided that he meet his quietness at home; else, he’s gone again.
OLD FRANKLIN
And withal to call George again.
[RACHEL]
I will call George again.
GEORGE within
Call George again.
BEAUFORT
See, you are raised again, the echo tells you.
[RACHEL]
I did forget myself indeed, my lord: this is my last fault; I will go make a silent inquiry after George. I will whisper half a score porters in the ear that shall run softly up and down the city to seek him. [Be wi’] ye, my lord; [bye] all, gentlemen.
Exit. [Chamlet and George come forward.]
BEAUFORT
George, your way lies before you now: cross the street and come into her eyes; your master’s journey will be stay’d.
GEORGE
I’ll warrant you bring it to better subjection yet.
[Exit.]
BEAUFORT
These are fine flashes; how now, Master Chamlet?
CHAMLET
I had one ear lent to you-ward, my lord,
And this o’ th’ tother side; both sounded sweetly:
I have whole recovered my late losses, sir;
Th’one half paid, the tother is forgiven.
BEAUFORT
Then your journey is stay’d?
CHAMLET
Alas, my lord,
That was a trick of age, for I had left
Never a trick of youth like it to succour me.
Enter Barber and Knavesbee.
BEAUFORT
How now? What new object’s here?
BARBER
[To Knavesbee] The next man we meet shall judge us.
KNAVESBEE
[To Barber] Content, though he be but a common councilman.
BEAUFORT
The one’s a knave; I could know him at twelvescore distance.
OLD FRANKLIN
And tother’s a barber-surgeon, my lord.
KNAVESBEE
I’ll go no further; here is the honourable lord that I know will grant my request. My lord —
BARBER
Peace, I will make it plain to his lordship. My lord, a covenant by jus jurandum is between us: he is to suffocate my respiration by his capistrum, and I to make incision so far as mortification by his jugulars.
BEAUFORT
This is not altogether so plain neither, sir.
BARBER
I can speak no plainer, my lord, unless I wrong mine art.
KNAVESBEE
I can, my lord; I know some part of the law. I am to take him in this place where I find him, and lead him from hence to the place of execution, and there to hang him till he dies. He in equal courtesy is to cut my throat with his razor, and there’s an end of both on’s.
BARBER
There is the end, my lord, but we want the beginning. I stand upon it to be strangled first before I touch either his gula or cervix.
KNAVESBEE
I am against it, for how shall I be sure to have my throat cut after he’s hang’d?
BEAUFORT
Is this a condition betwixt you?
KNAVESBEE
A firm covenant, sign’d and seal’d by oath and handfast, and wants nothing but agreement.
BEAUFORT
A little pause: what might be the cause on either part?
BARBER
My passions are grown to putrefaction, and my griefs are gangren’d; Master Chamlet has scarified me all over, besides the loss of my new brush.
KNAVESBEE
I am kept out of mine own castle; my wife keeps the hold against me. Your page, my lord, is her champion; I summon’d a parle at the window, was answered with defiance. They confess they have lain together, but what they have done else I know not.
BEAUFORT
Thou canst have no wrong that deserves pity, thou art thyself so bad.
KNAVESBEE
I thank your honour for that; let me have my throat cut then.
CHAMLET
Sir, I can give you a better remedy than his capistrum; your ear a little. [Whispers to Beaufort.]
Enter [Mistress Cressingham] as a woman, and [Sib].
[SIB]
I come with a bold innocence to answer
The best and worst that can accuse me here.
BEAUFORT
Your husband.
[SIB]
He’s the worst, I dare his worst.
KNAVESBEE
Your page, your page.
[SIB]
We lay together in bed,
It is confess’d; you and your ends of law
Make worser of it: I did it for reward.
BEAUFORT
I’ll hear no more of this. Come, gentlemen, will you walk?
Enter young Cressingham.
CRESSINGHAM
My lord, a little stay; you’ll see a sight
That neighbour amity will be much pleas’d with.
’Tis come already: my father, sir.
Enter [Sir Francis, finely dressed].
BEAUFORT
There must be cause, certain, for this good change.
Sir, you are bravely met;
This is at the best I ever saw you.
SIR FRANCIS
My lord, I am amazement to myself;
I slept in poverty, and am awake
Into this wonder. How I [came] thus brave,
My dreams did not so much as tell me of.
I am of my kind son’s new making up;
It exceeds the pension much that yesternight
Allow’d me, and my pockets centupled,
But I am my son’s child, sir: he knows of me
More than I do myself.
CRESSINGHAM
Sir, you yet have
But earnest of your happiness, a pinnace
Foreriding a goodly vessel by this near anchor,
Bulk’d like a castle, and with jewels fraught,
Joys above jewels, sir, from deck to keel.
Make way for the receipt, empty your bosom
Of all griefs and troubles, leave not a sigh
To beat her back again; she is so stor’d
Ye’ad need have room enough to take her lading.
SIR FRANCIS
If one commodity be wanting now,
All this is nothing.
CRESSINGHAM
Tush, that must out too.
There must be no remembrance, not the thought
That ever youth in woman did abuse you,
That [e’er] your children had a stepmother,
That you sold lands to please your punishment,
That you were circumscrib’d and taken in,
Abridg’d the large extendure of your grounds,
And put into the pinfold that belong’d to’t,
That your son did cheat for want of maintenance;
That he did beg, you shall remember only,
For I have begg’d off all these troubles from you.
BEAUFORT
This was a good week’s labour.
CRESSINGHAM
Not an hour’s,
My lord, but ’twas a happy one. See, sir,
A new day shines on you.
Enter Lady Cressingham in civil habit, Saunder, and children [Maria and Edward dressed] very gallant.
LADY CRESSINGHAM
Oh, sir, your son
Has robb’d me!
SIR FRANCIS
Ha! That way I instructed?
CRESSINGHAM
Nay, hear her, sir.
LADY CRESSINGHAM
Of my good purpose, sir;
He hath forc’d out of me what lay conceal’d,
Ripen’d my pity with his dews of duty.
Forgive me, sir, and but keep the number
Of every grief that I have pain’d you with;
I’ll tenfold pay with fresh obedience.
CHAMLET
Oh, that my wife were here to learn this lesson!
LADY CRESSINGHAM
Your state is not abated; what was yours
Is still your own, and take the cause withal
Of my harsh-seeming usage. It was to reclaim
Faults in yourself, the swift consumption
Of many large revenues, gaming, that
Of not much less speed, burning up house and land,
Not casual but cunning fire, which though
It keeps the chimney and outward shows
Like hospitality, is only devourer on’t,
Consuming chemistry. There I have made you
A flat bankrout; all your stillatories
And labouring minerals are demolish’d:
That part of hell in your house is extinct.
Put out your desire with them, and then these feet
Shall level with my hands, until you raise
My stoop’d humility to higher grace,
To warm these lips with love and duty do
To every silver hair: each one shall be
A senator to my obedience.
SIR FRANCIS
All this I [knew] before: whoever of you
That had but one ill thought of this good woman,
You owe a knee to her, and she is merciful
If she forgive you.
BEAUFORT
That shall be private penance, sir; we’ll joy in public with you.
Enter George and [Rachel].
GEORGE
On the conditions I tell you, not else.
[RACHEL]
Sweet George, dear George, any conditions.
CHAMLET
My wife!
OLD FRANKLIN
Peace, George is bringing her to conditions.
CHAMLET
Good ones, good George.
GEORGE
You shall never talk your voice above the key sol, sol, sol.
[RACHEL]
Sol, sol, sol; ay, George.
GEORGE
Say, “Welcome home, honest George,” in that pitch.
[RACHEL]
Welcome home, honest George.
GEORGE
Why, this is well now.
CHAMLET
That’s well indeed, George.
GEORGE
“Rogue” nor “rascal” must never come out of your mouth.
[RACHEL]
They shall never come in, honest George.
GEORGE
Nor I will not have you call my master plain husband, that’s too [coarse]; but as your gentlewomen in the country use and your [parsons’] wives in the town, ’tis comely and shall be customed in the city, call him Master Chamlet at every word.
[RACHEL]
At every word, honest George.
GEORGE
Look you, there he is: salute him then.
[RACHEL]
Welcome home, good Master Chamlet.
CHAMLET
Thanks and a thousand, sweet. “Wife,” I may say, honest George?
GEORGE
Yes, sir, or “bird,” or “chuck,” or “heart’s ease,” or plain “Rachel;” but call her “Rac” no more, as long as she is quiet.
CHAMLET
God-a-mercy, sha’t have thy new suit a’ Sunday, George.
[RACHEL]
George shall have two new suits, Master Chamlet.
CHAMLET
God-a-mercy, i’faith, chuck!
BARBER
Master Chamlet, you and I are friends, all even betwixt us?
CHAMLET
I do acquit thee, neighbour Sweetball.
BARBER
I will not be hang’d then; Knavesbee, do thy worst, nor I will not cut thy throat.
KNAVESBEE
I must do’t myself.
BARBER
If thou com’st to my shop and usurp’st my chair of maintenance, I will go as near as I can, but I will not do’t.
CRESSINGHAM
No, ’tis I must cut Knavesbee’s throat, for slandering a modest gentlewoman, and my wife, in the shape of your page, my lord. In her own I durst not place her so near your lordship.
BEAUFORT
No more of that, sir; if your ends have acquir’d their own events, crown ‘em with your own joy.
CRESSINGHAM
Down a’ your knees, Knavesbee, to your wife: she’s too honest for you.
BARBER
Down, down, before you are hang’d; ‘twill be [too] late afterwards, and long thou canst not ‘scape it.
Knavesbee kneels [and Sib holds the Barber’s razor to his throat].
[SIB]
You’ll play the pander no more, will you?
KNAVESBEE
Oh, that’s an inch into my throat!
[SIB]
And let out your wife for [hire]?
KNAVESBEE
Oh sweet wife, go no deeper!
[SIB]
Dare any be bail for your better behaviour?
BEAUFORT
Yes, yes, I dare; he will mend one day.
[SIB]
And be worse the next.
KNAVESBEE
Hang me the third then, dear merciful wife;
I will do anything for a quiet life!
BEAUFORT
All then is reconcil’d.
BARBER
Only my brush is lost. My dear new brush!
OLD FRANKLIN
I will help you to satisfaction for that too, sir.
BARBER
Oh, [spermaceti], I feel it heal already!
OLD FRANKLIN
Gentlemen, I have fully satisfied my dead son’s debts?
[CREDITORS]
All pleas’d, all paid, sir.
OLD FRANKLIN
Then once more here I bring him back to life:
From my servant to my son.
[He removes Franklin’s disguise.]
Nay, wonder not.
I have not dealt by fallacy with any;
My son was dead: whoe’er outlives his virtues
Is a dead man, for when you hear of spirits
That walk in real bodies to the amaze
And cold astonishment of such as meet ‘em
And all would shun, those are men of vices,
Who nothing have but what is visible,
And so by consequence they have no souls.
But if the soul return, he lives again,
Created newly; such my son appears,
By my blessing rooted, growing by his tears.
[CREDITORS]
You have beguil’d us honestly, sir.
FRANKLIN
And you shall have your brush again.
BARBER
My basins shall all ring for joy.
BEAUFORT
Why, this deserves a triumph, and my cost
Shall begin a feast to’t, to which I do
Invite you all. Such happy reconcilements
Must not be past without a health of joy:
Discorded friends aton’d, men and their wives,
This hope proclaims your after quiet lives.
Exeunt.