SYBIL

O Lord, help, for God’s sake! My mistress, O my young mistress!

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OATLEY

Where is thy mistress? What’s become of her?

SYBIL

She’s gone, she’s fled!

OATLEY Gone? Whither is she fled?

SYBIL

I know not, forsooth. She’s fled out of doors with Hans the

shoemaker. I saw them scud, scud, scud, apace, apace!

OATLEY

Which way? [Calls] What, John! - Where be my men? - Which

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way?

SYBIL

I know not, an’ it please your worship.

OATLEY

Fled with a shoemaker? Can this be true?

SYBIL

O Lord, sir, as true as God’s in heaven.

LINCOLN

[Aside] Her love turned shoemaker! I am glad of this.

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OATLEY

A Fleming butter-box, a shoemaker!

Will she forget her birth, requite my care

With such ingratitude? Scorned she young Hammon

To love a honnikin, a needy knave?

Well, let her fly. I’ll not fly after her.

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Let her starve if she will; she’s none of mine.

LINCOLN

Be not so cruel, sir.

SYBIL

[Aside] I am glad she’s ‘scaped.

OATLEY

I’ll not account of her as of my child.

Was there no better object for her eyes

But a foul drunken lubber, swill-belly,

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A shoemaker? That’s brave!

FIRK

Yea, forsooth, ‘tis a very brave shoe, and as fit as a pudding.

OATLEY

How now, what knave is this? From whence comest thou?

FIRK

No knave, sir. I am Firk the shoemaker, lusty Roger’s chief lusty

journeyman, and I come hither to take up the pretty leg of

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sweet Mistress Rose, and thus hoping your worship is in as

good health as I was at the making hereof, I bid you farewell,

Yours, Firk.

OATLEY

Stay, stay, sir knave.

LINCOLN Come hither, shoemaker.

FIRK

’Tis happy the knave is put before the shoemaker, or else I

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would not have vouchsafed to come back to you. I am moved,

for I stir.

OATLEY

My lord, this villain calls us knaves by craft.

FIRK

Then ‘tis by the Gentle Craft, and to call one ‘knave’ gently is no

harm. Sit your worship merry. [Aside] Sib, your young mistress!

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I’ll so bob them, now my master, Master Eyre, is Lord Mayor of

London!

OATLEY

Tell me, sirrah, whose man are you?

FIRK

I am glad to see your worship so merry. I have no maw to this

gear, no stomach as yet to a red petticoat. Pointing to SYBIL

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LINCOLN

He means not, sir, to woo you to this maid,

But only doth demand whose man you are.

FIRK

I sing now to the tune of Rogero. Roger, my fellow, is now my

master.

LINCOLN

Sirrah, knowest thou one Hans, a shoemaker?

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FIRK

Hans, shoemaker? O yes - stay, yes, I have him! I tell you what

- I speak it in secret - Mistress Rose and he are by this time –

no, not so, but shortly are to come over one another with ‘Can

you dance the shaking of the sheets?’ It is that Hans - [Aside]

I’ll so gull these diggers.

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OATLEY

Knowest thou then where he is?

FIRK

Yes, forsooth. Yea, marry.

LINCOLN

Canst thou, in sadness?

FIRK

No, forsooth. No, marry.

OATLEY

Tell me, good honest fellow, where he is,

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And thou shalt see what I’ll bestow of thee.

FIRK

Honest fellow? No, sir; not so, sir. My profession is the Gentle

Craft. I care not for seeing, I love feeling. Let me feel it here,

aurium tenus, ten pieces of gold, genuum tenus, ten pieces of

silver, and then Firk is your man in a new pair of stretchers.

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OATLEY

Here is an angel, part of thy reward

Which I will give thee: tell me where he is.

FIRK

No point. Shall I betray my brother? No. Shall I prove Judas to

Hans? No. Shall I cry treason to my corporation? No. I shall be

firked and yerked then. But give me your angel. Your angel shall

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tell you.

LINCOLN

Do so, good fellow; ‘tis no hurt to thee.

FIRK

Send simpering Sib away.

OATLEY

Huswife, get you in.