Gerv. O lord, sir, are we alive!

Wood. Alive! why, we were never in any danger:  Well, she is a rare manager of a fool!

Gerv. Are you disposed yet to receive good counsel?  Has affliction wrought upon you?

Wood. Yes, I must ask thy advice in a most important business.  I have promised a charity to Mrs Saintly, and she expects it with a beating heart a-bed:  Now, I have at present no running cash to throw away; my ready money is all paid to Mrs Tricksy, and the bill is drawn upon me for to-night.

Gerv. Take advice of your pillow.

Wood. No, sirrah; since you have not the grace to offer yours, I will for once make use of my authority and command you to perform the foresaid drudgery in my place.

Gerv. Zookers, I cannot answer it to my conscience.

Wood. Nay, an your conscience can suffer you to swear, it shall suffer you to lie too:  I mean in this sense.  Come, no denial, you must do it; she is rich, and there is a provision for your life.

Gerv. I beseech you, sir, have pity on my soul.

Wood. Have you pity of your body:  There is all the wages you must expect.

Gerv. Well, sir, you have persuaded me:  I will arm my conscience with a resolution of making her an honourable amends by marriage; for to-morrow morning a parson shall authorise my labours, and turn fornication into duty.  And, moreover, I will enjoin myself, by way of penance, not to touch her for seven nights after.

Wood. Thou wert predestinated for a husband, I see, by that natural instinct:  As we walk, I will instruct thee how to behave thyself, with secrecy and silence.

Gerv. I have a key of the garden, to let us out the back-way into the street, and so privately to our lodging.

Wood. ’Tis well:  I will plot the rest of my affairs a-bed; for it is resolved that Limberham shall not wear horns alone:  and I am impatient till I add to my trophy the spoils of Brainsick. [Exeunt.

ACT V.—­SCENE I.

  Enter WOODALL and JUDITH.

Jud. Well, you are a lucky man!  Mrs Brainsick is fool enough to believe you wholly innocent; and that the adventure of the garden-house, last night, was only a vision of Mrs Saintly’s.

Wood. I knew, if I could once speak with her, all would be set right immediately; for, had I been there, look you—­

Jud. As you were, most certainly.

Wood. Limberham must have found me out; that fe-fa-fum of a keeper would have smelt the blood of a cuckold-maker:  They say, he was peeping and butting about in every cranny.

Jud. But one.  You must excuse my unbelief, though Mrs Brainsick is better satisfied.  She and her husband, you know, went out this morning to the New Exchange:  There she has given him the slip; and pretending to call at her tailor’s to try her stays for a new gown—­