Act I. Scene 3. Hodge and Tib.

_Hodge._ "I am agast, by the masse, I wot not what to do; I had need blesse me well before I go them to: Perchance, some felon spirit may haunt our house indeed, And then I were but a noddy to venter where's no need."

_Tib._ "I'm worse than mad, by the masse, to be at this stay. I'm chid, I'm blam'd, and beaten all th' hours on the day. Lamed and hunger starved, pricked up all in jagges, Having no patch to hide my backe, save a few rotten ragges."

_Hodge._ "I say, Tib, if thou be Tib, as I trow sure thou be, What devil make ado is this between our dame and thee?"

_Tib._ "Truly, Hodge, thou had a good turn thou wart not here this while; It had been better for some of us to have been hence a mile: My Gammer is so out of course, and frantike all at once, That Cocke, our boy, and I poor wench, have felt it on our bones."

_Hodge._ "What is the matter, say on, Tib, whereat she taketh so on?"

_Tib._ "She is undone, she saith (alas) her life and joy is gone: If she hear not of some comfort, she is she saith but dead, Shall never come within her lips, on inch of meat ne bread. And heavy, heavy is her grief, as, Hodge, we all shall feel."

_Hodge._ "My conscience, Tib, my Gammer has never lost her neele?"

_Tib._ "Her neele."

_Hodge._ "Her neele?"

_Tib._ "Her neele, by him that made me!"

_Hodge._ "How a murrain came this chaunce (say Tib) unto her dame?"

_Tib._ "My Gammer sat her down on the pes, and bade me reach thy breches, And by and by, a vengeance on it, or she had take two stitches To clout upon the knee, by chaunce aside she lears, And Gib our cat, in the milk pan, she spied over head and ears. Ah! out, out, theefe, she cried aloud, and swapt the breeches down, Up went her staffe, and out leapt Gib at doors into the town: And since that time was never wight cold set their eyes upon it. God's malison she have Cocke and I bid twentie times light on it."

_Hodge._ "And is not then my breches sewed up, to-morrow that I shuld wear?"

_Tib._ "No, in faith, Hodge, thy breches lie, for all this never the near."

_Hodge._ "Now a vengeance light on al the sort, that better shold have kept it; The cat, the house, and Tib our maid, that better should have swept it. Se, where she cometh crawling! Come on, come on thy lagging way; Ye have made a fair daies worke, have you not? pray you, say."

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