The Scornful Lady | Page 4

this house?
Abi. Sir, I am worthily proud to be a Servant of hers.
Wel. Lady, I should be as proud to be a Servant of yours, did not my so
late acquaintance make me despair.
Abi. Sir, it is not so hard to atchieve, but nature may bring it about.
Wel. For these comfortable words, I remain your glad Debtor. Is your
Lady at home?
Abi. She is no stragler Sir.
Wel. May her occasions admit me to speak with her?
Abi. If you come in the way of a Suitor, No.
Wel. I know your affable vertue will be moved to perswade her, that a
Gentleman benighted and strayed, offers to be bound to her for a nights
lodging.
Abi. I will commend this message to her; but if you aim at her body,
you will be deluded: other women of the household of good carriage
and government; upon any of which if you can cast your affection, they

will perhaps be found as faithfull and not so coy. [Exit Younglove.
Wel. What a skin full of lust is this? I thought I had come a wooing, and
I am the courted partie. This is right Court fashion: Men, Women, and
all woo, catch that catch may. If this soft hearted woman have infused
any of her tenderness into her Lady, there is hope she will be plyant.
But who's here?
Enter Sir Roger the Curate.
Roger. Gad save you Sir. My Lady lets you know she desires to be
acquainted with your name, before she confer with you?
Wel. Sir, my name calls me Welford.
Roger. Sir, you are a Gentleman of a good name. I'le try his wit.
Wel. I will uphold it as good as any of my Ancestors had this two
hundred years Sir.
Roger. I knew a worshipfull and a Religious Gentleman of your name
in the Bishoprick of Durham. Call you him Cousen?
Wel. I am only allyed to his vertues Sir.
Roger. It is modestly said: I should carry the badge of your Christianity
with me too.
Wel. What's that, a Cross? there's a tester.
Roger. I mean the name which your God-fathers and God-mothers gave
you at the Font.
Wel. 'Tis Harry: but you cannot proceed orderly now in your Catechism:
for you have told me who gave me that name. Shall I beg your name?
Roger. Roger.
Wel. What room fill you in this house?

Roger. More rooms than one.
Wel. The more the merrier: but may my boldness know, why your Lady
hath sent you to decypher my name?
Roger. Her own words were these: To know whether you were a
formerly denyed Suitor, disguised in this message: for I can assure you
she delights not in Thalame: Hymen and she are at variance, I shall
return with much hast. [Exit Roger.
Wel. And much speed Sir, I hope: certainly I am arrived amongst a
Nation of new found fools, on a Land where no Navigator has yet
planted wit; if I had foreseen it, I would have laded my breeches with
bells, knives, copper, and glasses, to trade with women for their
virginities: yet I fear, I should have betrayed my self to a needless
charge then: here's the walking night-cap again.
Enter Roger.
Roger. Sir, my Ladies pleasure is to see you: who hath commanded me
to acknowledge her sorrow, that you must take the pains to come up for
so bad entertainment.
Wel. I shall obey your Lady that sent it, and acknowledge you that
brought it to be your Arts Master.
Rog. I am but a Batchelor of Art, Sir; and I have the mending of all
under this roof, from my Lady on her down-bed, to the maid in the
Pease-straw.
Wel. A Cobler, Sir?
Roger. No Sir, I inculcate Divine Service within these Walls.
Wel. But the Inhabitants of this house do often imploy you on errands
without any scruple of Conscience.
Rog. Yes, I do take the air many mornings on foot, three or four miles
for eggs: but why move you that?

Wel. To know whether it might become your function to bid my man to
neglect his horse a little to attend on me.
Roger. Most properly Sir.
Wel. I pray you doe so then: the whilst I will attend your Lady. You
direct all this house in the true way?
Roger. I doe Sir.
Wel. And this door I hope conducts to your Lady?
Rog. Your understanding is ingenious. [Ex. severally.
Enter young Loveless and Savil, with a writing.
Sa. By your favour Sir, you shall pardon me?
Yo. Lo. I shall bear your favour Sir, cross me no more; I say they shall
come in.
Savil. Sir, you forget who I am?
Yo. Lo. Sir, I do not; thou art