The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [1917]
Do you remember, husband, how he would mooch up my Cheese cakes? he hath forgot this now, but we'll remember him.
SEELY.
Aye, we shall have now three flaps with a Fox tail; but,
I faith, I'll gibber a joint, but I'll tell him his own. Stay,
who comes here? O stand up; here he comes; stand up.
[Enter Hodge very fine with a Tipstaff; Cromwell, the Mace carried before him; Norfolk, and Suffolk, and attendants.]
HODGE.
Come, away with these beggars here; rise up, sirra.
Come, out the good people: run afore there, ho!
[Friskiball riseth, and stands a far off.]
SEELY.
Aye, we are kicked away, now we come for our own; the time hath been he would a looked more friendly upon us. And you, Hodge, we know you well enough, though you are so fine.
CROMWELL.
Come hither, sirrah.—Stay, what men are these?
My honest Host of Hounslow and his wife!
I owe thee money, father, do I not?
SEELY.
Aye, by the body of me, dooest thou. Would thou wouldest pay me: good four pound it is, I have a the post at home.
CROMWELL.
I know tis true. Sirra, give him ten Angels:
And look your wife and you do stay to dinner:
And while you live, I freely give to you
Four pound a year, for the four pound I ought you.
SEELY.
Art not changed, art old Tom still! Now God bless the good Lord Tom. Home, Joan, home; I'll dine with my Lord Tom to day, and thou shalt come next week. Fetch my Cow; home, Joan, home.
WIFE.
Now God bless thee, my good Lord Tom; I'll fetch my cow presently.
[Exit Wife.]
[Enter Gardiner.]
CROMWELL.
Sirra, go to yon stranger; tell him I
Desire him stay at dinner. I must speak
With him.
GARDINER.
My Lord of Norfolk, see you this same bubble,
That same puff? but mark the end, my Lord,
Mark the end.
NORFOLK.
I promise you, I like not something he hath done,
But let that pass; the King doth love him well.
CROMWELL.
God morrow to my Lord of Winchester.
I know you bear me hard about the Abbey lands.
GARDINER.
Have I not reason, when religion is wronged?
You had no colour for what you have done.
CROMWELL.
Yes; the abolishing of Antichrist,
And of this Popish order from our Realm.
I am no enemy to religion,
But what is done, it is for England's good.
What did they serve for but to feed a sort
Of lazy Abbots and of full fed Friars?
They neither plow, nor sow, and yet they reap
The fat of all the Land, and suck the poor:
Look, what was theirs, is in King Henry's hands;
His wealth before lay in the Abbey lands.
GARDINER.
Indeed these things you have alleged, my Lord,
When God doth know the infant yet unborn
Will curse the time the Abbeys were pulled down.
I pray, now where is hospitality?
Where now may poor distressed people go,
For to relieve their need, or rest their bones,
When weary travel doth oppress their limbs?
And where religious men should take them in,
Shall now be kept back with a Mastiff do,
And thousand thousand—
NORFOLK.
O, my Lord, no more: things past redress
Tis bootless to complain.
CROMWELL.
What, shall we to the Convocation house?
NORFOLK.
We'll follow you, my Lord; pray, lead the way.
[Enter Old Cromwell like a Farmer.]
OLD CROMWELL.
How? one Cromwell made Lord Keeper since I
left Putney
And dwelt in Yorkshire. I never heard better news:
I'll see that Cromwell, or it shall go hard.
CROMWELL.
My aged father! state set aside,
Father, on my knee I crave your blessing:
One of my servants go and have him in;
At better leisure will we talk with him.
OLD CROMWELL.
Now if I die, how happy were the day!
To see this comfort rains forth showers of joy.
[Exit Old Cromwell.]
NORFOLK.
This duty in him shows a kind of grace.
CROMWELL.
Go on before, for time draws on apace.
[Exit all buy Friskiball.]
FRISKIBALL.
I wonder what this Lord would have with me.
His man so strictly gave me charge to stay:
I never did offend him to my knowledge.
Well, good or bad, I mean to bide it all;
Worse than I am now never can befall.
[Enter Banister and his wife.]
BANISTER.
Come, wife, I take it be almost dinner time,
For master Newton, and master Crosby sent
To me