Saw. I shall run mad. Dog. Do so, thy time is come to curse, and rave, and die; the glass of thy sins is full, and it must run out at gallows. Saw. It cannot, ugly cur, I'll confess nothing; Dog. Choose, and be hang'd or burn'd. I'll muzzle up my tongue from telling tales. Saw. Yes! when? Dog. And ere the executioner catch thee full in's claws, thou❜lt confess all. Saw. Out dog! Dog. Out witch! thy trial is at hand: Our prey being had, the devil does laughing stand. Banks. No, no, no, old crone; your mittimus shall be made thither, but your own jailors shall receive you. Away with her! Saw. My Tommy! my sweet Tom-boy! Oh, thou dog! Dost thou now fly to thy kennel and forsake me! Let not the world witches or devils condemn; Enter CUDDY BANKS. Cud. I would fain meet with mine ingle once more; he has had a claw amongst them: my rival that loved my wench is like to be hang'd like an innocent. A kind cur where he takes, but where he takes not, a dogged rascal; I know the villain loves me. [Dog barks.] No! art thou there? [Seeing the Dog,] that's Tom's voice, but 'tis not he; this is a dog of another hair, this. Bark, and not speak to me? not Tom then; there's as much difference betwixt Tom and this, as betwixt white and black. Dog. Hast thou forgot me? Cud. That's Tom again; prithee, ningle, speak, is thy name Tom? Dog. Whilst I serv'd my old dame Sawyer, it was; I am gone from her now. Cud. Gone? away with the witch then too! she'll never thrive if thou leav'st her; she knows no more how to kill a cow, or a horse, or a sow, without thee, than she does to kill a goose. Dog. No, she has done killing now, but must be killed for what she has done; she's shortly to be hang'd. Cud. Is she? in my conscience if she be, 'tis thou hast brought her to the gallows, Tom. Dog. Right; I serv'd her to that purpose; 'twas part of my wages. Cud. This was no honest servant's part, by your leave, Tom. This remember, I pray you, between you and I; I entertain'd you ever as a dog, not as a devil. Dog. True; And so I used thee doggedly, not devilishly; The wench thou seek'st after thou never spak'st with, Cud. I do not then wonder at the change of your garments, if you can enter into shapes of women too. Dog. Any shape, to blind such silly eyes as thine; but chiefly those coarse creatures, dog, or cat, hare, ferret, frog, toad. Cud. Louse or flea? Dog. Any poor vermin. Cud. It seems you devils have poor thin souls, that you can bestow yourselves in such small bodies. But pray you, Tom, one question at parting;4 (I think I shall never see you more;) where do you borrow those bodies that are none of your own?—the garment-shape you may hire at brokers. + But pray you, Tom, one question, &c.] There is no reader, I believe, who does not wish that this had been spared. The humour of Tom and his friend had been previously drained to the very dregs; and it must have required all the enduring credulity of the audience to tolerate this idle buffoonery after the supernatural agency of the drama had found a close. Dog. Why would'st thou know that, fool? it avails thee not. Cud. Only for my mind's sake, Tom, and to tell some of my friends. Dog. I'll thus much tell thee: thou never art so distant From an evil spirit, but that thy oaths, Thou never tell'st a lie, but that a devil Are ever haunted; but when they come to act, Although thou lose, yet he will gain by thee. Cud. Ay? then he comes in the shape of a rook? Dog. The old cadaver of some self-strangled wretch We sometimes borrow, and appear humane; 5 Didst never hear? if not, it has been done, &c.] Enough of this is to be found in Delrio, Remigius, and other superstitious and credulous writers; but the immediate allusion in this place is, I conceive, to the Sophonisba of Marston, where a loathsome scene of this kind takes place between Syphax and Erectho. An hot luxurious letcher in his twines, When he has thought to clip his dalliance, Cud. Yes, I am partly a witness to this; but I never could embrace her; I thank thee for that, Tom. Well, again I thank thee, Tom, for all this counsel; without a fee, too! there's few lawyers of thy mind now. Certainly, Tom, I begin to pity thee." Dog. Pity me! for what? Cud. Were it not possible for thee to become an honest dog yet?-'Tis a base life that you lead, Tom, to serve witches, to kill innocent children, to kill harmless cattle, to destroy corn and fruit, and so forth: 'twere better yet to be a butcher and kill for yourself. Dog. Why, these are all my delights, my pleasures, fool. Cud. Or, Tom, if you could give your mind to ducking, (I know you can swim, fetch, and carry,) some shopkeeper in London would take great de 6 Certainly, Tom, I begin to pity thee.] Burns had assuredly never read Ford; yet his peculiar vein of humour has thrown him upon a kindred thought. ben. "So fare you weel, auld Nickie-ben! O! wad ye tak a thought an' men'! I'm wae to think upo' your den E'en for your sake." Dignity and decorum, however, are all on the side of Nickie |