 | The Witch of Edmonton |  |
SCÆN. 2.
Enter Katherine: a Bed thrust forth, on it Frank in a slumber.Kat.
Brother, Brother, Brother! so sound asleep? that's well.
Frank.
No, not I, Sister: he that 's wounded here,
As I am; (all my other hurts are bitings
Of a poor flea) but he that here once bleeds,
Is maim'd incurably.
Kat.
My good sweet Brother,
(For now my Sister must grow up in you)
Though her loss strikes you through, and that I feel
The blow as deep, I pray thee be not cruel
To kill me too, by seeing you cast away
In your own helpless sorrow. Good Love sit up:
And if you can give Physick to your self,
I shall be well.
Frank.
I'll do my best.
Kat.
I thank you. What do you look about for?
Frank.
Nothing, nothing; but I was thinking, Sister.
Kat.
Dear heart, what?
Fran.
Who but a fool would thus be bound to a bed,
Having this Room to walk in?
Kat.
Why do you talk so? would you were fast asleep.
Frank.
No, no, I 'm not idle:
But here's my meaning: being rob'd as I am,
VVhy should my Soul, which married was to hers,
Live in divorce, and not flie after her?
VVhy should not I walk hand in hand with death
To finde my Love out?
Kat.
That were well, indeed.
Your time being come, when death is sent to call you,
No doubt you shall meet her.
Frank.
Why should not I go without calling?
Kat.
Yes, Brother, so you might, were there no place
To go to when y'are gone, but onely this.
Frank.
Troth, Sister, thou sayst true:
For when a man has been an hundred yeers,
He's not the thousand part upon his way.
All life is but a wandring to finde home:
When we are gone, we are there. Hapyy were man,
Could here his Voyage end; he should not then
Answer how well or ill he steer'd his Soul,
By Heaven's or by Hell's Compass; how he put in
(Loosing bless'd Goodness shore) at such a sin;
Nor how life's dear provision he has spent:
Nor how far he in's Navigation went
Beyond Commission. This were a fine Raign,
To do ill, and not hear of it again.
Yet then were Man more wretched then a Beast:
For, Sister, our dead pay is sure the best.
Kat.
'Tis so, the best or worst. And I wish Heaven
To pay (and so I know it will) that Traytor,
That Devil Somerton (who stood in mine eye
Once as an Angel) home to his deservings.
What Villain but himself, once loving me,
With Warbeck's Soul would pawn his own to Hell,
To be reveng'd on my poor Sister?
Frank.
Slaves! a pair of merciless Slaves!
Speak no more of them.
Kate.
I think this talking hurts you.
Frank.
Does me no good, I'm sure,
I pay for't everywhere.
Kat.
I have done then.
Eat, if you cannot sleep: you have these two days
Not tasted any food. Jane, is it ready?
Frank.
What's ready? what's ready?
Kat.
I have made ready a rosted Chicken for you.
Sweet, wilt thou eat?
Frank.
A pretty stomach on a sudden—yes—
There's one in the house can play upon a Lute:
Good Girl, let 's hear him too.
Kat.
You shall, dear Brother.
VVould I were a Musician, you should hear
Lute plays.
How I would feast your ear.
Frank.
I am up too high: am I not, Sister, now?
Kat.
No, no; 'tis well: fall to, fall to. A Knife: here's never
a Knife, Brother, I'll look out yours.
Enter Dog, shrugging as it were for joy, and dances.
Frank.
Sister, O Sister, I am ill upon a sudden; and can eat nothing.
Kat.
In very deed you shall. The want of Food makes you
so faint. Ha! here 's none in your pocket. I'll go fetch a
Knife.
Exit.
Frank.
Will you? 'Tis well, all's well.
[She gone, he searches first one, then the other Pocket. Knife found. Dog runs off. He lies on one side: the Spirit of Susan his second Wife comes to the Beds-side. He stares at it; and turning to the other side, it's there too. In the mean time, Winnifride as a Page comes in, stands at his Beds-feet sadly: he frighted, sits upright. The Spirit vanishes.
Frank.
What art thou?
Win.
A lost Creature.
Frank.
So am I too. Win? Ah, my She-Page!
Win.
For your sake I put on a shape that's false; yet do I wear
a heart true to you as your own.
Frank.
VVould mine and thine were Fellows in one house.
Kneel by me here: on this side now? How dar'st thou come to
mock me on both sides of my bed?
Win.
VVhen?
Frank.
But just now: out-face me, stare upon me with strange
postures: turn my Soul wilde by a face in which were drawn a thousand
Ghosts leap'd newly from their Graves, to pluck me into a
winding-Sheet.
Win.
Believe it, I came no neerer to you then yon place, at your
beds-feet; and of the house had leave, calling my self your Horseboy,
in to come, and visit my sick Master.
Frank.
Then 'twas my Fancy. Some Wind-mill in my brains
for want of sleep.
Win.
VVould I might never sleep, so you could rest.
VVhose noise cannot cease suddainly: why should you
Dance at the wedding of a second wife?
VVhen scarce the Musick which you heard at mine
Had tane a farewel of you. O this was ill!
And they who thus can give both hands away,
In th'end shall want their best Limbs.
Frank.
Winnifride, the Chamber door fast?
Win.
Yes.
Frank.
Sit thee then down;
And when th'ast heard me speak, melt into tears:
Yet I to save those eyes of thine from weeping,
Being to write a Story of us two,
In stead of Ink, dip'd my sad Pen in blood.
VVhen of thee I took leave, I went abroad
Onely for Pillage, as a Freebooter.
VVhat Gold soere I got, to make it thine.
To please a Father, I have Heaven displeas'd.
Striving to cast two wedding Rings in one,
Through my bad workmanship I now have none.
I have lost her and thee.
Win.
I know she's dead: but you have me still.
Frank.
Nay, her this hand murdered; and so I lose thee too.
Win.
Oh me!
Frank.
Be quiet, for thou my evidence art,
Jurie and Judge: sit quiet, and I'll tell all.
As they whisper, enter at one end o'th' Stage Old Carter and Katharine, Dog at th'other, pawing softly at Frank.
Kat.
I have run madding up and down to find you, being laden
with the heaviest News that ever poor Daughter carried.
Cart.
VVhy? is the Boy dead?
Kat.
Dead, Sir! O Father, we are cozen'd: you are told the Murtherer
sings in Prison, and he laughs here.
A bloody Knife in's Pocket.
Cart.
Bless me, patience!
Frank.
The Knife, the Knife, the Knife!
Kat.
VVhat Knife?
Exit Dog.
Frank.
To cut my Chicken up, my Chicken; be you my Carver,
Father.
That I will.
Kat.
How the Devil steels our brows after doing ill!
Frank.
My stomack and my sight are taken from me; all is not
well within me.
Cart.
I believe thee, Boy: I that have seen so many Moons clap
their Horns on other mens Foreheads to strike them sick, yet mine
to scape, and be well! I that never cast away a Fee upon Urinals,
but am as sound as an honest mans Conscience when hee'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 Villaine! 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?
Cart.
Yes, yes, and there's no way with thee but one.
Frank.
Would he were here to open them.
Cart.
Ile go to fetch him: Ile make an holiday to see thee as I
wish.
Exit to fetch Officers.
Frank.
A wondrous kinde old man.
Win.
Your sins the blacker, so to abuse his goodness. Master, how
do you?
Frank.
Pretty well now, boy: I have such odd qualms come cross
my stomack! Ile fall too: boy, cut me.
Win.
You have cut me, I'm sure, a Leg or Wing, Sir.
Frank.
No, no, no: a Wing? would I had Wings but to soar
up yon Tower: but here's a Clog that hinders me. What 's that?
[Father with her in a Coffin.]
Cart.
That? what? O now I see her; 'tis 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
crys, Help, help, stay that man; him I must have or none.
Frank.
For pities sake, remove her: see, she stares with one
broad open eye still in my face.
Cart.
Thou puttest both hers out, like a Villaine as thou art; yet
see, she is willing to lend thee one againe to finde out the Murtherer,
and that's thy self.
Frank.
Old man, thou liest.
Cart.
So shalt thou i'th' Goal. Run for Officers.
Kat.
O thou merciless Slave! she was (though yet above ground)
in her Grave to me, but thou hast torn it up againe. Mine eyes too
Cart.
Fetch Officers.
Exit Katharaine.
Frank.
For whom?
Cart.
For thee, sirrah, sirrah: some knives have foolish Posies
upon them, but thine has a villanous one; look, Oh! it is enammeld
with the Heart-Blood of thy hated Wife, my beloved Daughter.
What saist 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.
Cart.
O, Sir! you held his Horses, you are as arrant a Rogue as
he: up, go you too.
Frank.
As y'are a man, throw not upon that Woman your loads
of tyrannie, for she's innocent.
Cart.
How? how? a woman? is't grown to a fashion for women
in all Countries to wear the Breeches?
Win.
I am not as my disguise speaks me, Sir, his Page; but his
first onely wife, his lawful wife.
Cart.
How? how? more fire i'th' Bed-straw?
Win.
The wrongs which singly fell on your Daughter, on me are
multiplyed: she lost a life, but I, an Husband and my self must lose,
if you call him to a Bar for what he has done.
Cart.
He has done it then?
Win.
Yes, 'tis confess'd to me.
Frank.
Dost thou betray me?
Win.
O pardon me, dear heart! I am mad to lose thee, and know
not what I speak: but if thou didst, I must arraigne this Father for
two sins, Adultery and Murther.
Kat.
Sir, they are come.
Enter Katherine.
Cart.
Arraigne me for what thou wilt, all Middlesex knows me
better for an honest man, then the middle of a Market place knows
thee for an honest woman: rise, Sirrah, and don your Tacklings, rig
your self for the Gallows, or I'll carry thee thither, on my back: your
Trull shall to th'Goal go with you; there be as fine New-gate birds
as she, that can draw him in. Pox on's wounds.
Frank.
I have serv'd thee, and my wages now are paid,
Yet my worst punishment shall, I hope, be staid.
Exeunt.
| The Witch of Edmonton | |