If I may be so bold, by your mistress-ship's license,
As to speak and show my mind and sentence,
I think of this you may the boy thank;
For I know that he playeth you many a like prank,
And that would you say, if you knew as much as we,
That his daily conversation and behaviour see;
For if you command him to go speak with some one,
It is an hour, ere he woll be gone;
Then woll he run forth, and play in the street,
And come again, and say that he cannot with him meet.
DAME COY.
Nay, nay, it is his master's play:
He serveth me so almost every third day;
But I woll be even with him, as God give me joy,
And yet the fault may be in the boy--
As ungracious a graft, so mot I thrive,
As any goeth on God's ground alive!
CAREAWAY.
My wit is breeched in such a brake,
That I cannot devise what way is best to take.
I was almost as far as my master is;
But then I began to remember this,
And to cast the worst, as one in fear:
If he chance to see me and keep me there,
Till he come himself, and speak with my mistress,
Then am I like to be in shrewd distress:
Yet were I better, thought I, to turn home again.
And first speak with her, certain--
Cock's body, yonder she standeth at the door!
Now is it worse than it was before.
Would Christ I could get again out of her sight:
For I see by her look she is disposed to fight.
By the Lord, she hath there an angry shrew's look--
DAME COY.
Lo, yonder cometh that unhappy hook!
CAREAWAY.
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