Dom. Fresh straw, and a dark chamber; a most manifest judgment! there never comes better of railing against the church.

Gom. Why, what will you have me say?  I think you’ll make me mad:  truth has been at my tongue’s end this half hour, and I have not power to bring it out, for fear of this bloody-minded colonel.

Alph. What colonel?

Gom. Why, my colonel—­I mean my wife’s colonel, that appears there to me like my malus genius, terrifies me.

Alph. [Turning.] Now you are mad indeed, Gomez; this is my son Lorenzo.

Gom. How? your son Lorenzo! it is impossible.

Alph. As true as your wife Elvira is my daughter.

Lor. What, have I taken all this pains about a sister?

Gom. No, you have taken some about me; I am sure, if you are her brother, my sides can show the tokens of our alliance.

Alph. to Lor. You know I put your sister into a nunnery, with a strict command not to see you, for fear you should have wrought upon her to have taken the habit, which was never my intention; and consequently, I married her without your knowledge, that it might not be in your power to prevent it.

Elv. You see, brother, I had a natural affection to you.

Lor. What a delicious harlot have I lost!  Now, pox upon me, for being so near a-kin to thee!

Elv. However, we are both beholden to friar Dominick; the church is an indulgent mother, she never fails to do her part.

Dom. Heavens! what will become of me?

Gom. Why, you are not like to trouble heaven; those fat guts were never made for mounting.

Lor. I shall make bold to disburden him of my hundred pistoles, to make him the lighter for his journey:  indeed, ’tis partly out of conscience, that I may not be accessory to his breaking his vow of poverty.

Alph. I have no secular power to reward the pains you have taken with my daughter; but I shall do it by proxy, friar:  your bishop’s my friend, and is too honest to let such as you infect a cloister.

Gom. Ay, do, father-in-law, let him be stript of his habit, and disordered.—­I would fain see him walk in querpo, like a cased rabbit, without his holy fur upon his back, that the world may once behold the inside of a friar.

Dom. Farewell, kind gentlemen; I give you all my blessing before I go.—­May your sisters, wives, and daughters, be so naturally lewd, that they may have no occasion for a devil to tempt, or a friar to pimp for them. [Exeunt, with a rabble pushing him.

  Enter TORRISMOND, LEONORA, BERTRAN, RAYMOND, TERESA, &c.

Tor. He lives! he lives! my royal father lives! 
Let every one partake the general joy. 
Some angel with a golden trumpet sound,
King Sancho lives! and let the echoing skies
From pole to pole resound, king Sancho lives!—­
Bertran, oh! no more my foe, but brother;
One act like this blots out a thousand crimes.