All. Are you come, you old trot?

Banks. You hot whore, must we fetch

fire in your tail?

you with

1 Coun. This thatch is as good as a jury to prove she is a witch.

All. Out, witch! beat her, kick her, set fire on her.

Saw. Shall I be murdered by a bed of serpents? Help, help!

Enter Sir ARTHUR CLARINGTON, and a JUSTICE.

All. Hang her, beat her, kill her!

Just. How now? forbear this violence.

Saw. A crew of villains, a knot of bloody hang

men,

Set to torment me, I know not why.

Just. Alas, neighbour Banks, are you a ringleader in mischief? fie! to abuse an aged woman.

Banks. Woman? a she-hell-cat, a witch! To prove her one, we no sooner set fire on the thatch of her house, but in she came running, as if the devil had sent her in a barrel of gunpowder; which trick as surely proves her a witch, as the pox in a snuffling nose is a sign a man is a whore

master.

Just. Come, come; firing her thatch? ridiculous! Take heed, sirs, what you do; unless your proofs Come better arm'd, instead of turning her

Into a witch, you'll prove yourselves stark fools. All. Fools?

Just. Arrant fools.

Banks. Pray, master Justice what-do-you-call'em, hear me but in one thing. This grumbling devil owes me, I know, no good-will ever since I fell out with her.

Saw. And brak'st my back with beating me. Banks. I'll break it worse.

Saw. Wilt thou?

Just. You must not threaten her, 'tis against law;

Go on.

Banks. So, sir, ever since, having a dun cow tied up in my back-side, let me go thither, or but cast mine eye at her, and if I should be hang'd, I cannot choose, though it be ten times in an hour, but run to the cow, and taking up her tail, kiss (saving your worship's reverence) my cow behind, that the whole town of Edmonton has been ready to bepiss themselves with laughing me to scorn. Just. And this is long of her?

Banks. Who the devil else? for is any man such an ass to be such a baby, if he were not bewitch'd?

Sir Ar. Nay, if she be a witch, and the harms she does end in such sports, she may scape burning.

Just. Go, go; pray vex her not; she is a subject,

And you must not be judges of the law,

To strike her as you please.

All. No, no, we'll find cudgel enough to strike her.

Banks. Ay; no lips to kiss but my cow's![Exeunt BANKS and Countrymen. Saw. Rots and foul maladies eat up thee and thine!

Just. Here's none now, mother Sawyer, but this gentleman,

Myself, and you; let us, to some mild questions,
Have your mild answers: tell us honestly,

And with a free confession, (we'll do our best
To wean you from it,) are you a witch, or no?
Saw. I am none.

Just. Be not so furious.

Saw. I am none.

None but base curs so bark at me; I am none.
Or would I were! if every poor old woman,
Be trod on thus by slaves, reviled, kick'd, beaten,
As I am daily, she to be revenged

Had need turn witch.

Sir Ar. And you to be revenged
Have sold your soul to th' devil.

Saw. Keep thine own from him.
Just. You are too saucy and too bitter.
Saw, Saucy?

By what commission can he send my soul
On the devil's errand more than I can his?

Is he a landlord of my soul, to thrust it
When he list out of door?

Just. Know whom you speak to.
Saw. A man; perhaps no man.

clothes,

Men in gay

Whose backs are laden with titles and honours,

Are within far more crooked than I am,
And if I be a witch, more witch-like.

Sir Ar. You are a base hell-hound.

And now, sir, let me tell you, far and near
She's bruited for a woman that maintains
A spirit that sucks her.

Saw. I defy thee.

Sir Ar. Go, go;

I can, if need be, bring an hundred voices,
E'en here in Edmonton, that shall loud proclaim
Thee for a secret and pernicious witch.

Saw. Ha, ha!

Just. Do you laugh? why laugh you?
Saw. At my name,

The brave name this knight gives me, witch.
Just. Is the name of witch so pleasing to thine
ear?

Sir Ar. 'Pray, sir, give way; and let her tongue gallop on.

Saw. A witch! who is not?

Hold not that universal name in scorn then.
What are your painted things in princes' courts,
Upon whose eye-lids lust sits, blowing fires.
To burn men's souls in sensual hot desires;
Upon whose naked paps, a letcher's thought
Acts sin in fouler shapes than can be wrought?
Just. But those work not as you do.

Saw. No, but far worse.

These, by enchantments, can whole lordships change

To trunks of rich attire; turn ploughs and teams

To Flanders mares and coaches; and huge trains Of servitors, to a French butterfly.

Have you not city-witches, who can turn

Their husbands' wares, whole standing shops of

wares,

To sumptuous tables, gardens of stolen sin;
In one year wasting, what scarce twenty win?
Are not these witches?

Just. Yes, yes; but the law

Casts not an eye on these.
Saw. Why then on me,
Or any lean old beldam?
lean old beldam?

Had wont to wait on age;
Ill-favour'd grown

Reverence once

now an old woman,

with years,

if she be poor,

Must be call'd bawd or witch. Such so abused,

Are the coarse witches; t'other are the fine,
Spun for the devil's own wearing.

Sir Ar. And so is thine.

Saw. She, on whose tongue a whirlwind sits to blow

A man out of himself, from his soft pillow,
To lean his head on rocks and fighting waves,
Is not that scold a witch? The man of law
Whose honey'd hopes the credulous client draws,
(As bees by tinkling basons) to swarm to him,
From his own hive, to work the wax in his;
He is no witch, not he!

Sir Ar. But these men-witches

Are not in trading with hell's merchandize,
Like such as you, that for a word, a look,
Denial of a coal of fire, kill men,

Children and cattle.