[Exeunt LELIA and NURSE.

SOPHOS. 
Farewell, my love, fair fortune be thy guide! 
Now, Sophos, now bethink thyself, how thou
May’st win her father’s will to knit this happy knot. 
Alas! thy state is poor, thy friends are few. 
And fear forbids to tell my fate to friends:[145]
Well, I’ll try my fortunes;
And find out some convenient time,
When as her father’s leisure best shall serve
To confer with him about fair Lelia’s love.
                                  [Exit SOPHOS.

Enter GRIPE, old PLOD-ALL, CHURMS, and WILL CRICKET.

GRIPE.  Neighbour Plod-all and Master Churms, y’are welcome to my house.  What news in the country, neighbour?  You are a good husband; you ha’ done sowing barley, I am sure?

PLOD-ALL. 
Yes, sir, an’t please you, a fortnight since.

GRIPE. 
Master Churms, what say my debtors? can you get any money of them yet?

CHURMS.
Not yet, sir; I doubt they are scarce able to pay.  You must e’en forbear
them awhile; they’ll exclaim on you else.

GRIPE. 
Let them exclaim, and hang, and starve, and beg.  Let me ha’ my money.

PLOD-ALL. 
Here’s this good fellow too, Master Churms, I must e’en put him and his
father over into your hands; they’ll pay me no rent.

WILL CRICKET.  This good fellow, quotha?  I scorn that base, broking, brabbling, brawling, bastardly, bottle-nosed, beetle-browed, bean-bellied name.  Why, Robin Goodfellow is this same cogging, pettifogging, crackropes, calf-skin companion.  Put me and my father over to him?  Old Silver-top, and you had not put me before my father, I would ha’—­

PLOD-ALL. 
What wouldst ha’ done?

WILL CRICKET. 
I would have had a snatch at you, that I would.

CHURMS.
What, art a dog?

WILL CRICKET. 
No; if I had been a dog, I would ha’ snapped off your nose ere this, and
so I should have cosened the devil of a maribone.

GRIPE. 
Come, come:  let me end this controversy.  Prythee, go thy ways in, and
bid the boy bring in a cup of sack here for my friends.

WILL CRICKET. 
Would you have a sack, sir?

GRIPE. 
Away, fool:  a cup of sack to drink.

WILL CRICKET. 
O, I had thought you would have had a sack to have put this law-cracking
cogfoist in, instead of a pair of stocks.

GRIPE. 
Away, fool; get thee in, I say.

WILL CRICKET. 
Into the buttery, you mean?

GRIPE. 
I prythee, do.

WILL CRICKET. 
I’ll make your hogshead of sack rue that word. [Aside.  Exit.]

GRIPE. 
Neighbour Plod-all, I sent a letter to you by Master Churms; how like
you of the motion?

PLOD-ALL.  Marry, I like well of the motion.  My son, I tell you, is e’en all the stay I have, and all my care is to have him take one that hath something, for, as the world goes now, if they have nothing, they may beg.  But I doubt he’s too simple for your daughter; for I have brought him up hardly, with brown bread, fat bacon, puddings, and souse; and, by’r Lady, we think it good fare too.