SCENE I.--_The Witch’s Cottage.

_Enter_ MOTHER SAWYER.

Mother Sawyer. Still wronged by every slave, and not a dog Bark in his dame’s defence? I am called witch, Yet am myself bewitched from doing harm. Have I given up myself to thy black lust Thus to be scorned? Not see me in three days! I’m lost without my Tomalin; prithee come, Revenge to me is sweeter far than life; Thou art my raven, on whose coal-black wings Revenge comes flying to me. O, my best love! I am on fire, even in the midst of ice, Raking my blood up, till my shrunk knees feel Thy curled head leaning on them: come, then, my darling; If in the air thou hover’st, fall upon me In some dark cloud; and as I oft have seen Dragons and serpents in the elements, Appear thou now so to me. Art thou i’ th’ sea? Muster-up all the monsters from the deep, And be the ugliest of them: so that my bulch[455] Show but his swarth cheek to me, let earth cleave And break from hell, I care not! Could I run Like a swift powder-mine beneath the world, Up would I blow it all, to find out thee, Though I lay ruined in it. Not yet come! I must, then, fall to my old prayer: _Sanctibicetur nomen tuum._

[455] Literally, a bull-calf, sometimes used, as here, as an expression of kindness; but generally indicative of familiarity and contempt.--_Gifford._

Not yet come! the worrying of wolves, biting of mad dogs, the manges, and the--

_Enter the ~Dog~ which is now white._

_Dog._ How now! whom art thou cursing?

_M. Saw._ Thee! Ha! no, it is my black cur I am cursing For not attending on me.

_Dog._ I am that cur.

_M. Saw._ Thou liest: hence! come not nigh me.

_Dog._ Baw, waw!

_M. Saw._ Why dost thou thus appear to me in white, As if thou wert the ghost of my dear love?

_Dog._ I am dogged, and list not to tell thee; yet,--to torment thee,--my whiteness puts thee in mind of thy winding-sheet.

_M. Saw._ Am I near death?

_Dog._ Yes, if the dog of hell be near thee; when the devil comes to thee as a lamb, have at thy throat!

_M. Saw._ Off, cur!

_Dog._ He has the back of a sheep, but the belly of an otter; devours by sea and land. “Why am I in white?” didst thou not pray to me?

_M. Saw._ Yes, thou dissembling hell-hound! Why now in white more than at other times?

_Dog._ Be blasted with the news! whiteness is day’s footboy, a forerunner to light, which shows thy old rivelled face: villanies are stripped naked; the witch must be beaten out of her cockpit.

_M. Saw._ Must she? she shall not: thou’rt a lying spirit: Why to mine eyes art thou a flag of truce? I am at peace with none; ’tis the black colour, Or none, which I fight under: I do not like Thy puritan paleness; glowing furnaces Are far more hot than they which flame outright. If thou my old dog art, go and bite such As I shall set thee on.

_Dog._ I will not.

_M. Saw._ I’ll sell myself to twenty thousand fiends To have thee torn in pieces, then.

_Dog._ Thou canst not; thou art so ripe to fall into hell, that no more of my kennel will so much as bark at him that hangs thee.

_M. Saw._ I shall run mad.

_Dog._ Do so, thy time is come to curse, and rave, and die; the glass of thy sins is full, and it must run out at gallows.

_M. Saw._ It cannot, ugly cur; I’ll confess nothing; And not confessing, who dare come and swear I have bewitched them? I’ll not confess one mouthful.

_Dog._ Choose, and be hanged or burned.

_M. Saw._ Spite of the devil and thee, I’ll muzzle up my tongue from telling tales.

_Dog._ Spite of thee and the devil, thou’lt be condemned.

_M. Saw._ Yes! when?

_Dog._ And ere the executioner catch thee full in’s claws, thou’lt confess all.

_M. Saw._ Out, dog!

_Dog._ Out, witch! thy trial is at hand: Our prey being had, the devil does laughing stand. [_Runs aside._

_Enter_ OLD BANKS, RATCLIFFE, _and ~Countrymen~._

_O. Banks._ She’s here: attach her.-- Witch you must go with us. [_They seize her._

_M. Saw._ Whither? to hell?

_O. Banks._ No, no, no, old crone; your mittimus shall be made thither, but your own jailors shall receive you.--Away with her!

_M. Saw._ My Tommy! my sweet Tom-boy! O, thou dog! Dost thou now fly to thy kennel and forsake me? Plagues and consumptions-- [_She is carried off._

_Dog._ Ha, ha, ha, ha! Let not the world witches or devils condemn; They follow us, and then we follow them.

_Enter_ CUDDY BANKS.

_Cud._ I would fain meet with mine ningle once more: he has had a claw amongst ’em: my rival that loved my wench is like to be hanged like an innocent. A kind cur where he takes, but where he takes not, a dogged rascal; I know the villain loves me. [_The ~Dog~ barks._] No! art thou there? [_Seeing the ~Dog~._] that’s Tom’s voice, but ’tis not he; this is a dog of another hair, this. Bark, and not speak to me? not Tom, then; there’s as much difference betwixt Tom and this as betwixt white and black.

_Dog._ Hast thou forgot me?

_Cud._ That’s Tom again.--Prithee, ningle, speak; is thy name Tom?

_Dog._ Whilst I served my old Dame Sawyer ’twas; I’m gone from her now.

_Cud._ Gone? Away with the witch, then, too! she’ll never thrive if thou leavest her; she knows no more how to kill a cow, or a horse, or a sow, without thee, than she does to kill a goose.

_Dog._ No, she has done killing now, but must be killed for what she has done; she’s shortly to be hanged.

_Cud._ Is she? in my conscience, if she be, ’tis thou hast brought her to the gallows, Tom.

_Dog._ Right; I served her to that purpose; ’twas part of my wages.

_Cud._ This was no honest servant’s part, by your leave, Tom. This remember, I pray you, between you and I; I entertained you ever as a dog, not as a devil.

_Dog._ True; And so I used thee doggedly, not devilishly; I have deluded thee for sport to laugh at: The wench thou seek’st after thou never spak’st with, But a spirit in her form, habit, and likeness. Ha, ha!

_Cud._ I do not, then, wonder at the change of your garments, if you can enter into shapes of women too.

_Dog._ Any shape, to blind such silly eyes as thine; but chiefly those coarse creatures, dog, or cat, hare, ferret, frog, toad.

_Cud._ Louse or flea?

_Dog._ Any poor vermin.

_Cud._ It seems you devils have poor thin souls, that you can bestow yourselves in such small bodies. But, pray you, Tom, one question at parting;--I think I shall never see you more;--where do you borrow those bodies that are none of your own?--the garment-shape you may hire at broker’s.

_Dog._ Why would’st thou know that, fool? it avails thee not.

_Cud._ Only for my mind’s sake, Tom, and to tell some of my friends.

_Dog._ I’ll thus much tell thee: thou never art so distant From an evil spirit, but that thy oaths, Curses, and blasphemies pull him to thine elbow; Thou never tell’st a lie, but that a devil Is within hearing it; thy evil purposes Are ever haunted; but when they come to act,-- As thy tongue slandering, bearing false witness, Thy hand stabbing, stealing, cozening, cheating,-- He’s then within thee: thou play’st, he bets upon thy part; Although thou lose, yet he will gain by thee.

_Cud._ Ay? then he comes in the shape of a rook?

_Dog._ The old cadaver of some self-strangled wretch We sometimes borrow, and appear human; The carcass of some disease-slain strumpet We varnish fresh, and wear as her first beauty. Did’st never hear? if not, it has been done; An hot luxurious lecher in his twines, When he has thought to clip his dalliance, There has provided been for his embrace A fine hot flaming devil in her place.

_Cud._ Yes, I am partly a witness to this; but I never could embrace her; I thank thee for that, Tom. Well, again I thank thee, Tom, for all this counsel; without a fee too! there’s few lawyers of thy mind now. Certainly, Tom, I begin to pity thee.

_Dog._ Pity me! for what?

_Cud._ Were it not possible for thee to become an honest dog yet?--’Tis a base life that you lead, Tom, to serve witches, to kill innocent children, to kill harmless cattle, to stroy[456] corn and fruit, etc.: ’twere better yet to be a butcher and kill for yourself.

[456] _i.e._ Destroy.

_Dog._ Why, these are all my delights, my pleasures, fool.

_Cud._ Or, Tom, if you could give your mind to ducking,--I know you can swim, fetch, and carry,--some shop-keeper in London would take great delight in you, and be a tender master over you: or if you have a mind to the game either at bull or bear, I think I could prefer you to Moll Cutpurse[457].

[457] A notorious character of those days, whose real name was Mary Frith. She appears to have excelled in various professions, of which far the most honest and praiseworthy was that of picking pockets. By singular good fortune she escaped the gallows, and died, “in a ripe and rotten old age,” some time before the Restoration. Moll is the heroine of _The Roaring Girl_, a lively comedy by Middleton and Dekker, who have treated her with kindness.--_Gifford._

_Dog._ Ha, ha! I should kill all the game,--bulls, bears, dogs and all; not a cub to be left.

_Cud._ You could do, Tom; but you must play fair; you should be staved-off else. Or if your stomach did better like to serve in some nobleman’s, knight’s, or gentleman’s kitchen, if you could brook the wheel and turn the spit--your labour could not be much--when they have roast meat, that’s but once or twice in the week at most: here you might lick your own toes very well. Or if you could translate yourself into a lady’s arming puppy, there you might lick sweet lips, and do many pretty offices; but to creep under an old witch’s coats, and suck like a great puppy! fie upon’t!--I have heard beastly things of you, Tom.

_Dog._ Ha, ha! The worse thou heard’st of me the better ’tis. Shall I serve thee, fool, at the selfsame rate?

_Cud._ No, I’ll see thee hanged, thou shalt be damned first! I know thy qualities too well, I’ll give no suck to such whelps; therefore henceforth I defy thee. Out, and avaunt!

_Dog._ Nor will I serve for such a silly soul: I am for greatness now, corrupted greatness; There I’ll shug in,[458] and get a noble countenance;[459] Serve some Briarean footcloth-strider,[460] That has an hundred hands to catch at bribes, But not a finger’s nail of charity. Such, like the dragon’s tail, shall pull down hundreds To drop and sink with him:[461] I’ll stretch myself, And draw this bulk small as a silver wire, Enter at the least pore tobacco-fume Can make a breach for:--hence, silly fool! I scorn to prey on such an atom soul.

[458] Creep in.

[459] Patronage, protection, responsibility.--_Gifford._

[460] Footcloths were the ornamental housings or trappings flung over the pads of state-horses. On these the great lawyers then rode to Westminster Hall, and, as our authors intimate, the great courtiers to St. James’s. They became common enough in aftertimes.--_Gifford._ Briareus, the hundred-handed giant. The allusion is obvious.

[461] Compare “Revelation.” ch. xii.

_Cud._ Come out, come out, you cur! I will beat thee out of the bounds of Edmonton, and to-morrow we go in procession, and after thou shalt never come in again: if thou goest to London, I’ll make thee go about by Tyburn, stealing in by Thieving Lane. If thou canst rub thy shoulder against a lawyer’s gown, as thou passest by Westminster-hall, do; if not, to the stairs amongst the bandogs, take water, and the Devil go with thee! [_Exit, followed by the ~Dog~ barking._