CHANGEABLE

I have overheard all, My blessing on you both: Slightall, I love thee, and am glad th'hast sped; How I have pleaded for thee, Minion, you know. Fear not that wench, how I have laboured with her You know well, but no consent from her, it is impossible: What I have stored for thee high Heaven does know, But it's my love, which still continues to this wayward Girl Who never could have pleased her Father better Then in this mutual and conjoined assent. Ent. Mrs. Changeable, & Mr. Treatwell. Further I would proceed, but see, my wife Consorted with a stranger. He shall stay, he's now ingraft ascien in our Family: Therefore what us concerns must needs touch him, Son, son, be constant to your place I charge you. Remove for no man, now sir speak your mind. Yes, even here. Came it from on of the Guard, from Sir John Falstaff? Nay, Hercules himself; with bombast limbs It should have public audience. Now your big man, name him I pray. I cry you mercy, my honourable friend, I pray What service will't please him to command us? How spoke you that? His fair Bride? I wish his Lord ship had not sent so late, My word is passed unto this gentleman; Which to my power I will not change, nor break For any King or Caesar. Without our approbation? What should I say? or how in equal Balance bear my self? For all the stile of honour in the World, I would not break my faith. Son Slightall, for that Title I'll still fasten Upon thy name, advice Me what shall we do? Son, what say you? Sir be my witness, I have no hand in this. Crossed at these years? Tax my wit? a woman too, to do't? And Age indeed, when smocks must read to britches; Go to wife, thou seekest to make us two that should be one, Instead of me, th'art wedded to thy will; I fear we shall repent it. But I say, ill, ill woman. I would not built so many stories high On such a weak foundation, lest the Garret Reared on such thin supporters sink it self into the Cellar. Thou art a shrew. And angry woman. Sir me no sirs, I am no Knight nor Churchman, There is a third, make me not that by breaking of my faith. So; I had rather see her a good Gentlewoman, Lawfully great in belly and in purse, Than swelled with poisoned Titles; it to me Appears no better than a Timpany, A grief not easily cured. So, so. Gentle wife, have patience, and be quiet, I'll give way; I never hear thy tongue in this high Key, But I still think of the Tower Ordnance, Or of the peal of Chambers, that's still fired When my Lord Major takes Barge, I will do any thing, Good wife please thy self, and I am contented. You crave his love whose service you Command. I am plain sir; I have not much to give, yet I would stretch My utmost, to my poor ability, To show my self a Father, what she wants In means she hath in Gentry; that my blood Can witness for her: something too beside Though not sufficient to ennoble her, Yet still to make her a good Gentlewoman, And that's all my ambition. Provided still, all be with her consent, For I'll force nothing, were't from a stranger, Much less from my Child. My good wench, I do commend thee for't. No more wife, I have done. This I told you. Nought, nought. Use you your humours, And jest at his distress; but when I think What he hath been of late, what come to now, I cannot choose but sorrow; and the more When I Record the ground of his distress; But my soul's clear of all. Enter Anne. How? Why Daughter, daughter? Yes for a needs. But why fool? O wife, wife, wife. And as I told thee Nan, be swayed by me, I'll make him thine, employ my industry, counsel and pains, to wean him by degrees From his wild course of desperate Melancholy: I'll seek him out, persuade him, lay thy love As open as the midday: hope in me And doubt not to prevail. I held it wife, a deed of charity, & did it for the Lords sake. Marry Heaven continue it wife, it's but needs; In conscience thou hast been froward long enough. A woman's sure. Troth she was somewhat shrewish Like my wife, But yet I think not hers. This apparition was the full portrait of a young beauteous Lady. Like a woman sir, but with such horror And astonishment, I tremble once to speake't. Sure this Friar is wittily conceited? As lovely to the view as flourishing May, Clad in the pride of Spring. Press him not, if he be so precise. Tush, Scholars still are Cowards, let him pass, Daughter, you still are mine? Enough; will any of you Gentlemen, In that my last: nights lodging second me? Or any here? It shall be then my care to find out one To conjure down this spirit, and doubt it not. I have been labouring, toiling and moiling, To find the cause of this so strange distemperature, Questioned Divines, and talked with cunning men, With Fortune-tellers, skilled in Palmistry, Not a tained Gipsy can escape my search, but I with such Have Traffic. Troth small, or none yet, most in this conclude, That pretend Judgement; that till we find some one To lodge without companion in that Bed, And in the dead of darkness question it, Why, to what end, and for what cause it walks, The Vision shall continue: this they said, But none amongst them all so resolute as to Attempt th'adventure. Not so; for coming from the Friery late, I met a man by chance that crossed my way, Whom rather too much spirit had possessed, Or too much folly made mere desperate; Would willingly attempt it, and indeed He did entreat it of me as a Suit. Because he's mad: For who of understanding, or of sense, Would willingly confront great Belzebub, Perhaps despair, distraction, discontent Or fury hath possessed him; be't what will, What's that to us? his is the certain danger, Ours the assured gain. One Like enough, were Hurcules alive, With him in Thesius stead to enter Hell; A mad companion whom you all well know, One that was once a Suitor to my Daughter. But we have those Within, can tame him were he twice so wild. See your error, What better way, more secret, and more safe Can we devise to be revenged, than this? To have him piecemeal torn by Hags and Fiends; He hath no prayer to arm him against their assault, His Oaths will be assistant to their fury, And further not repel it: You by this Are from a Rival freed; my daughter Nan, From and importunate Suitor, Beggar too; We all from a disturber, and a man That wronged our common quiet. But where's Nan? The worse for her, Yet for our purpose better, as it haps, Because she shall not see him, nor he her; Hark, there's one knocks, it's Slightall on my life; Disperse I do entreat, I'll answer him. Within. I am the Lord Of this poor Manor; now, I cannot tell By what hard Fate distressed. My greater grief sir. I would not wish you sir. Sir, I know you, And ever wished you to your hearts desire, How well you may remember; if forgotten, In you it's error, and no fault in me. Yes, Like a woman's sure. I must confess A Devil of her tongue, but no way else sir. Instantly. Here be your Lights. It shall be done. I have brought your Livery. Rest may your Body, And peace possess your thoughts. Think upon thy Bound. Thou knowest my mind, what thou hast undertook Manage with good discretion. Farewell good Roger, but no word to your Master Of what I have revealed thee kept from him. Now my Lord; I am still labouring for the general Good, to have my house at peace, and you content; But Wife, how is't with Nan? alas poor Girl. And sir, I'll doe't, No other tongue this night shall trouble her, nor presence Save my own; shall I entreat your Lordship, you good Wife, and those you think best to associate you, To stand in sighed of all such Apparitions As shall in this room be made visible? My life shall for your safety be ngag'd, in it can be no Danger. The word and faith of some approved religious, Who have promised, at my great intercession, that this Night shall be the last of all my progidies That thus afflict my house. I do not think wife but there will be visions Worthy both sighed and observation to; What will you say if Slightall be this night Contract to a she fury? but no words, I'll not tell you all I know; he's passed his sense And apt for any stratagem of Hell: I am promised Much fair hope; will you ascend and guide my Lord to a Convenient place, where you may view this object? To watch with Nan, And in her great despair to comfort her; Nought but the dangerous sickness of my Girl Could keep me from you, but the hour draws on, Which Ghosts ever are tied to. My Girl's my Charge, she hath been ever so, and therefore ought This night; and since one Devil some Few days since began to haunt my house She never had peace of thought, health, nor content, Or least essential comfort; which to compass, All Art, wit, learning, this night I'll implore To drive him hence, shall haunt my house no more. Exit. Thunder. Enter above Lord, Wife, Treatwell, and Geoffrey. And so the Devil does, for your kind consent my Lord I thank you, And gentle wife for yours. That anon, my Daughter making known your Deep despair, your help I studied both of purse and brain, And fearing a lost soul, I then turned Devil, To prove your better Angel; talk with her, For I must arm for thunder. Yes, and his Dam in presence; she looked on. Yes, my sweet wench Nan. So I have herd; but this cannot be she, For this had with her beauty so much terror, So much affright and horror in her looks, Such a confused noise, with hellish sounds Able to drive the senses retrograde; Turn reason into madness, and invert Capacity to fury; that, I vow I would not to be heir of all the World Endure Like night again. Enter Geoffrey & Friar John. None sir, I assure you. You hear that news of M. Slightals frenzy, and his un doing? Thou knowest he loves me; I was still his friend, And friend with friend what cannot he perform? Make thy self mine, I'll cross thy Mother's workings, And fool that Lords attempts; only be you of a more Temperate humour, and more stayed, observing but what I Shall project for you, and doubt not my performance. Then enough. In the mean time't shall be my providence To have my house unhaunted; come my Lord, Lead you the way, my wife and I will follow. Remember Nan. Exeunt. He. Even the same. It's the same, I know him by his roaring. Enter Slightall. This. There Shall I be plain, my Lord? I crave your pardon, Wife, for your rage I am armed, yes, If thou couldst encounter with Flesh-hooks, and with Firebrands; for I tell thee I am practised in the Devil: but to you, my Lord, I passed my faith unto this Gentleman, Had it been done to you I never had broke it. Did you call? The Devil Belzebub, whom thou so late so loud didst invocate As if all habits, fashions, and attires Were not with me familiar? I sometime Into a Lawyer can transform my self To delay Causes; then to a Divine, To devise new Sects, Scismes, and Heresies: To a Taylor for new fashions: to a Sempster, I was first Father for this yellow Sterch, Which did succeed the blue; to a Feather-maker For Gentlewoman's Fans, men's sprigs, and falls; Sometime I am a Page, and daily attend Upon my Lords luxurious appetites: Then can I play the Master, Knight, and Lord, And then coin strange varieties of riots, Lustest, and excesses, never herd before. Indeed, what can I not? It never was my study, and of all things I only except that. Yes, both on soul and body, where I am suffered. How then came all those Pulpit Heresies That have with Christians, Christians set at odds? I read to that great Doctor Arius, That poisoned three parts of the Christian World; There's not a Sectary, nor a Scismaticke, To whom I am not Tutor. No. Tush, that with ease I can. At pleasure. Am I not Titled Prince of all the World? And lies there that in this great Universe Excepted from my large Dominion? Am I not Mammon too, the God of gold, Sovereign of all Exchequors, treasures, mints, And those rich Mines that set the World at odds? In search of which men hazard dangerous Seas, Expose them to diseases, and strange Climates, Above their nature's: Gold? I am Father of it, And have it in abundance. I will; but on condition. That when thy wishes have attained effect, Thou art full handled, hast paid all thy debts, And nothing owest to any, I may then Most freely claim thy soul. Thy conscience is a Thousand, that shall serve; Let me but have't confirmed beneath thy hand, And my Exchequor's open. Come, withdraw, we'll Have't confirmed within. Exeunt. You are sad sir? No such thing; the business that I come to treat with thee Is of another nature. Have I not kept my word? Stored thee with all the supplements Men use can ask. Nay, was not I assistant in this quarrel, prompting thy Man to come to thy release, just at the instant danger: Then speak freely, Didst ever in thy life time meet a friend, Whose word, assured trust, and constancy Could rank with mine in all things? Proof of thy gratitude, or to be termed unthankful. Wilt thou in mere Requital of so many, do to me one fair Office? There's a house haunted with a she spirit, one of my Servants, and Kitchen maids in Hell, employed by me For some known causes, who hath played such pranks there No man's so bold dares lodge within the room, This bed would I have thee to undertake. Still amiss; have not I power over all my creatures there To limit and command them? art not thou One of our house by Indenture? though to them She appeared ghastly, horrid, and deformed, To thee she shall seem fair and beautiful, No whit inferior to that Grecian Queen, That launched 1 000. Ships from Aulis Gulf, And brought them to the fatal siege of Troy. And so confirm thee A Minion to the mighty Belzebub, And great in our black Kingdom. Exeunt. Now. It's vanished into Air, whence it was formed. Not possible, until you meet in Hell; so near Thy Fate, and cannot now the terror of that place Cool thy hight courage? see the forfeiture, And here I do arrest thee. Canst thou deny thy deed? Who shall doe't. If I can prove that all thy debts be paid Thou art my own, was't not, and speak thy conscience, Our joint condition? That Usurer's one of thy main Creditors, But when thou wast so free to pay thy debts, thou never Dreamest of thy forfeit; propose to him thy question. It's confessed. These are discharged, what refuge hast thou now? Nay bring me unto all thy Creditors; I'll prove thy debts discharged. But I must have my bargain. Hast thou not owed to these? Resolve me friends, as you are Gentlemen, In what known sums did this man stand engaged to Each of you? That's all Gentlemen—morrow Do but name the man, to whom thou canst appeal. And to whom there? Then to these, to both, or either, freely take thy choice. Read there, and tell me what thou thinkest of that. In interim, what's the best news in the parish? Yes. I claim a soul. Show me reasons why. All this I grant, and call to witness none Save his own Conscience; art thou not at freedom, And clear from all the world? Speak, how that? Some fifteen thousand pounds, which I have paid, And now the man owes nothing; therefore duly I Claim both soul and body. To whom? And am I tripped? Nay then I see vainly we Devils stand against the Church, they have still the upper hand, I yield me vanquished; in the meame time Friar read And conceal. Gives him another paper to read. Yet for my love, For all the good thou hast received by me, For all my cost and charges, large expense, As I acquit thee truly, so thou freely Lend me thine ear. Presume thou shalt. And enjoy her to: Do thou but hazard as thou didst before And doubt not, she's thine own. As a contracted Bride and Bedfellow. None. I am content, it's done; how ere thy soul I'm confident is wone. Exeunt.