[Enter, at one end, John Lincoln, with the two Bettses together; at the other end, enters Francis de Barde and Doll a lusty woman, he haling her by the arm.]
DOLL. Whether wilt thou hale me?
BARDE. Whether I please; thou art my prize, and I plead purchase of thee.
DOLL. Purchase of me! away, ye rascal! I am an honest plain carpenters wife, and though I have no beauty to like a husband, yet whatsoever is mine scorns to stoop to a stranger: hand off, then, when I bid thee!
BARDE. Go with me quietly, or I'll compel thee.
DOLL. Compel me, ye dog's face! thou thinkst thou hast the goldsmith's wife in hand, whom thou enticedst from her husband with all his plate, and when thou turndst her home to him again, madst him, like an ass, pay for his wife's board.
BARDE. So will I make thy husband too, if please me.
[Enter Caveler with a pair of doves; Williamson the carpenter, and Sherwin following him.]
DOLL. Here he comes himself; tell him so, if thou darst. CAVELER. Follow me no further; I say thou shalt not have them.
WILLIAMSON. I bought them in Cheapside, and paid my money for them.
SHERWIN. He did, sir, indeed; and you offer him wrong, both to take them from him, and not restore him his money neither.
CAVELER. If he paid for them, let it suffice that I possess them: beefs and brews may serve such hinds; are pigeons meat for a coarse carpenter?
LINCOLN. It is hard when Englishmen's patience must be thus jetted on by strangers, and they not dare to revenge their own wrongs.
GEORGE. Lincoln, let's beat them down, and bear no more of these abuses.
LINCOLN. We may not, Betts: be patient, and hear more.
DOLL. How now, husband! what, one stranger take they food from thee, and another thy wife! by our Lady, flesh and blood, I think, can hardly brook that.
LINCOLN. Will this gear never be otherwise? must these wrongs be thus endured?
GEORGE. Let us step in, and help to revenge their injury.
BARDE. What art thou that talkest of revenge? my lord ambassador shall once more make your Major have a check, if he punish thee for this saucy presumption.
WILLIAMSON. Indeed, my lord Mayor, on the ambassador's complaint, sent me to New gate one day, because (against my will) I took the wall of a stranger: you may do any thing; the goldsmith's wife and mine now must be at your commandment.
GEORGE. The more patient fools are ye both, to suffer it.
BARDE. Suffer it! mend it thou or he, if ye can or dare. I tell thee, fellows, and she were the Mayor of London's wife, had I her once in my possession, I would keep her in spite of him that durst say nay.
GEORGE. I tell thee, Lombard, these words should cost thy best cape, were I not curbed by duty and obedience: the Mayor of London's wife! Oh God, shall it be thus?
DOLL. Why, Betts, am not I as dear t m husband as my lord Mayor's wife to him? and wilt thou so neglectly suffer thine own shame?--Hands off, proud stranger! or, by him that bought me, if men's milky hearts dare not strike a stranger, yet women beat them down, ere they bear these abuses.
BARDE. Mistress, I say you shall along with me.
DOLL. Touch not Doll Williamson, least she lay thee along on God's dear earth.--And you, sir [To Caveler], that allow such coarse cates to carpenters, whilst pigeons, which they pay for, must serve your dainty appetite, deliver them back to my husband again, or I'll call so many women to mine assistance as will not leave one inch untorn of thee: if our husbands must be bridled by law, and forced to bear your wrongs, their wives will be a little lawless, and soundly beat ye.
