Wood. Come, come, no half resolutions among lovers; I’ll hear no more of him, till I have revenged you fully.  Go out and watch, Judith.
          
                                             [Exit JUDITH.

Mrs Brain. Yet, I could say, in my defence, that my friends married me to him against my will.

Wood. Then let us put your friends, too, into the quarrel:  it shall go hard, but I’ll give you a revenge for them.

Enter JUDITH again, hastily.

How now? what’s the matter?

Mrs Brain. Can’st thou not speak? hast thou seen a ghost?—­As I live, she signs horns! that must be for my husband:  he’s returned.
                             [JUDITH looks ghastly, and signs horns.

Jud. I would have told you so, if I could have spoken for fear.

Mrs Brain. Hark, a knocking!  What shall we do? [Knocking. There’s no dallying in this case:  here you must not be found, that’s certain; but Judith hath a chamber within mine; haste quickly thither; I’ll secure the rest.

Jud. Follow me, sir. [Exeunt WOODALL, JUDITH.

  Knocking again.  She opens:  Enter BRAINSICK.

Brain. What’s the matter, gentlewoman?  Am I excluded from my own fortress; and by the way of barricado?  Am I to dance attendance at the door, as if I were some base plebeian groom?  I’ll have you know, that, when my foot assaults, the lightning and the thunder are not so terrible as the strokes:  brazen gates shall tremble, and bolts of adamant dismount from off their hinges, to admit me.

Mrs Brain. Who would have thought, that ’nown dear would have come so soon?  I was even lying down on my bed, and dreaming of him.  Tum a’ me, and buss, poor dear; piddee buss.

Brain. I nauseate these foolish feats of love.

Mrs Brain. Nay, but why should he be so fretful now? and knows I dote on him? to leave a poor dear so long without him, and then come home in an angry humour! indeed I’ll ky.

Brain. Pr’ythee, leave thy fulsome fondness; I have surfeited on conjugal embraces.

Mrs Brain. I thought so:  some light huswife has bewitched him from me:  I was a little fool, so I was, to leave a dear behind at Barnet, when I knew the women would run mad for him.

Brain. I have a luscious air forming, like a Pallas, in my brain-pain:  and now thou com’st across my fancy, to disturb the rich ideas, with the yellow jaundice of thy jealousy. [Noise within. Hark, what noise is that within, about Judith’s bed?

Mrs Brain. I believe, dear, she’s making it.—­Would the fool would go! [Aside.

Brain. Hark, again!

Mrs Brain. [Aside] I have a dismal apprehension in my head, that he’s giving my maid a cast of his office, in my stead.  O, how it stings me! [WOODALL sneezes.