KEMPTHORN.
Come, drink about! Remember Parson Melham,
And bless the man who first invented flip!
They drink.
COLE.
Pray, Master Kempthorn, where were you last night?
KEMPTHORN.
On board the Swallow, Simon Kempthorn, master,
Up for Barbadoes, and the Windward Islands.
COLE.
The town was in a tumult.
KEMPTHORN.
And
for what?
COLE.
Your Quakers were arrested.
KEMPTHORN.
How
my Quakers?
COLE.
These you brought in your vessel from Barbadoes.
They made an uproar in the Meeting-house
Yesterday, and they’re now in prison for it.
I owe you little thanks for bringing them
To the Three Mariners.
KEMPTHORN.
They
have not harmed you.
I tell you, Goodman Cole, that Quaker girl
Is precious as a sea-bream’s eye. I tell
you
It was a lucky day when first she set
Her little foot upon the Swallow’s deck,
Bringing good luck, fair winds, and pleasant weather.
COLE.
I am a law-abiding citizen;
I have a seat in the new Meeting-house,
A cow-right on the Common; and, besides,
Am corporal in the Great Artillery.
I rid me of the vagabonds at once.
KEMPTHORN.
Why should you not have Quakers at your tavern
If you have fiddlers?
COLE.
Never!
never! never!
If you want fiddling you must go elsewhere,
To the Green Dragon and the Admiral Vernon,
And other such disreputable places.
But the Three Mariners is an orderly house,
Most orderly, quiet, and respectable.
Lord Leigh said he could be as quiet here
As at the Governor’s. And have I not
King Charles’s Twelve Good Rules, all framed
and glazed,
Hanging in my best parlor?
KEMPTHORN.
Here’s
a health
To good King Charles. Will you not drink the
King?
Then drink confusion to old Parson Palmer.
COLE.
And who is Parson Palmer? I don’t know
him.
KEMPTHORN.
He had his cellar underneath his pulpit,
And so preached o’er his liquor, just as you
do.
A drum within.
COLE.
Here comes the Marshal.
MERRY (within).
Make
room for the Marshal.
KEMPTHORN.
How pompous and imposing he appears!
His great buff doublet bellying like a mainsail,
And all his streamers fluttering in the wind.
What holds he in his hand?
COLE.
A
proclamation.
Enter the MARSHAL, with a proclamation; and MERRY, with a halberd. They are preceded by a drummer, and followed by the hangman, with an armful of books, and a crowd of people, among whom are UPSALL and JOHN ENDICOTT. A pile is made of the books.
MERRY.
Silence, the drum! Good citizens, attend
To the new laws enacted by the Court.