t kept such open house,
That he hath sold my hangings, and my bedding!
I left him nothing else. If he have eat them,
A plague o' the moth, say I! Sure he has got
Some bawdy pictures to call all this ging!
The friar and the nun; or the new motion
Of the knight's courser covering the parson's mare;
Or 't may be, he has the fleas that run at tilt
Upon a table, or some dog to dance.
When saw you him?
1 NEI. Who, sir, Jeremy?
2 NEI. Jeremy butler?
We saw him not this month.
LOVE. How!
4 NEI. Not these five weeks, sir.
6 NEI. These six weeks at the least.
LOVE. You amaze me, neighbours!
5 NEI. Sure, if your worship know not where he is,
He's slipt away.
6 NEI. Pray God, he be not made away.
LOVE. Ha! it's no time to question, then.
[KNOCKS AT THE DOOR.]
6 NEI. About
Some three weeks since, I heard a doleful cry,
As I sat up a mending my wife's stockings.
LOVE. 'Tis strange that none will answer! Didst thou hear
A cry, sayst thou?
6 NEI. Yes, sir, like unto a man
That had been strangled an hour, and could not speak.
2 NEI. I heard it too, just this day three weeks, at two o'clock
Next morning.
LOVE. These be miracles, or you make them so!
A man an hour strangled, and could not speak,
And both you heard him cry?
3 NEI. Yes, downward, sir.
Love, Thou art a wise fellow. Give me thy hand, I pray thee.
What trade art thou on?
3 NEI. A smith, an't please your worship.
LOVE. A smith! then lend me thy help to get this door open.
3 NEI. That I will presently, sir, but fetch my tools--
[EXIT.]
1 NEI. Sir, best to knock again, afore you break it.
LOVE [KNOCKS AGAIN]. I will.
[ENTER FACE, IN HIS BUTLER'S LIVERY.]
FACE. What mean you, sir?
1, 2, 4 NEI. O, here's Jeremy!
FACE. Good sir, come from the door.
LOVE. Why, what's the matter?
FACE. Yet farther, you are too near yet.
LOVE. In the name of wonder,
What means the fellow!
FACE. The house, sir, has been visited.
LOVE. What, with the plague? stand thou then farther.
FACE. No, sir,
I had it not.
LOVE. Who had it then? I left
None else but thee in the house.
FACE. Yes, sir, my fellow,
The cat that kept the buttery, had it on her
A week before I spied it; but I got her
Convey'd away in the night: and so I shut
The house up for a month--
LOVE. How!
FACE. Purposing then,
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