I will not lose my oil and labour too.
You're for the worshipful, I take it, Abigail.

Abig. Oh, take it so, and then I am for thee.
Rog. Ilike these symptoms well, and this humbling

also,

They are symptoms of contrition, as a father saith. If I should fall into my fit again,

Would you not shake me into a quotidian coxcomb, Would you not use me scurvily again,

And give me possets with purging comfits in them? I tell thee, gentlewoman, thou hast been harder to me Than a long chapter with a pedigree.

Abig. Oh, curate, cure me;

I will love thee better, dearer, longer;
1 will do any thing-betray the secrets
Of the main household to thy reformation;
My lady shall look lovingly on thy learning:
And when due time shall point thee for a parson,

I will convert thy eggs to penny custards,

And thy tithe goose shall graze and multiply.
Rog. I am mollified,

As well shall testify this faithful kiss.

But have a great care, Mistress Abigail,
How you depress the spirit any more,

With your rebukes and mocks, for certainly

The edge of such a folly cuts itself.

Abig. Oh, Sir, you've pierc'd me thorough! Here

I vow

A recantation to those malicious faults

I ever did against you. Never more

Will I despise your learning; never more
Pin cards and cony tails upon your cassock;
Never again reproach your reverend nightcap,
And call it by the mangy name of murrion;
Never your reverend person more, and say
You look like one of Baal's priests i' the hanging;
Never again, when you say grace, laugh at you,
Nor put you out at pray'rs; never cramp you more
With the great book of Martyrs; nor, when you ride,
Get soap and thistles for you-No, my Roger,
These faults shall be corrected and amended,
As by the tenor of my tears appears.

JULIO TANTALIZED BY BUSTOPHA ABOUT THE FATE OF HIS NEPHEW ANTONIO.

THE MAID OF THE MILL, ACT IV. SCENE II.

Julio. My mind's unquiet; while Antonio My nephew's abroad, my heart's not at home; Only my fears stay with me-bad company, But I cannot shift 'em off. This hatred Betwixt the house of Bellides and us

Is not fair war-'tis civil, but uncivil ;

We are near neighbours, were of love as near,
Till a cross misconstruction ('twas no more
In conscience,) put us so far asunder.

I would 'twere reconciled; it has lasted
Too many sunsets: if grace might moderate,

Man should not lose so many days of peace
To satisfy the anger of one minute.

I could repent it heartily. I sent
The knave to attend my Antonio too,

Yet he returns no comfort to me neither.

Enter BUSTOPHA.

Bust. No, I must not.

Jul. Ha! he is come.

Bust. I must not:

'Twill break his heart to hear it.

Jul. How! there's bad tidings.

I must obscure and hear it: he'll not tell it

For breaking of my heart. It's half split already.

Bust. I have spied him. Now to knock down a don With a lie a silly, harmless lie: 'twill be Valiantly done, and nobly, perhaps.

Jul. I cannot hear him now.

Bust. Oh, the bloody days that we live in! The envious, malicious, deadly days

That we draw breath in.

Jul. Now I hear too loud.

Bust. The children that never shall be born may

rue,

For men that are slain now, might have lived

To have got children that might have curs'd
Their fathers.

Jul. Oh, my posterity is ruin'd.

Bust. Oh, sweet Antonio!

Jul. O dear Antonio !

Bust. Yet it was nobly done of both parts,

When he and Lisauro met.

Jul. Oh, death has parted them!

Bust. Welcome, my mortal foe! says one. Wel

come,

My deadly enemy! says t'other. Off go their doublets, They in their shirts, and their swords stark naked. Here lies Antonio-here lies Lisauro.

He comes upon him with an embroccado,

Then he puts by with a puncta reversa. Lisauro Recoils me two paces, and some six inches back Takes his career, and then-Oh !

Jul. Oh!

Bust. Runs Antonio

Quite through.

Jul. Oh, villain!

Bust. Quite through, between the arm

And the body, so that he had no hurt at that bout.

Jul. Goodness be prais'd!

Bust. But then, at next encounter,

He fetches me up Lisauro; Lisauro

Makes out a lunge at him, which he thinking

To be a passado, Antonio's foot

Slipping down-oh! down

Jul. Oh, now thou art lost!

Bust. Oh, but the quality of the thing; both gentlemen,

Both Spanish Christians-yet one man to shed-
Jul. Say his enemy's blood.

By divers casualties, though he never go
Into the field with his foe; but a man

To lose nine ounces and two drams of blood

At one wound, thirteen and a scruple at another,
And to live till he die in cold blood; yet the surgeon
That cur'd him said, that if pia mater had not
Been perish'd, he had been a lives man

Till this day.

Jul. There he concludes-he is gone.

Bust. But all this is nothing,-now I come to the

point.

Jul. Ay, the point-that's deadly; the ancient

blow

Over the buckler ne'er went half so deep.

Bust. Yet pity bids me keep in my charity; For me to pull an old man's ears from his head With telling of a tale. Oh, foul tale! no, be silent,

tale.

Furthermore, there is the charge of burial.

Every one will cry blacks, blacks, that had

But the least finger dipt in his blood, though ten
Degrees removed when 'twas done. Moreover,
The surgeons that made an end of him will be paid
Sugar-plums and sweet-breads; yet, say I,
The man may recover again, and die in his bed.
Jul. What motley stuff is this? Sirrah, speak
truth.

What hath befallen my dear Antonio?

Restrain your pity in concealing it;

Tell me the danger full. Take off your care