Act I. Scene 3. Hodge and Tib.
Hodge. “I am agast, by the masse, I wot not what to do;
I had need blesse me well before I go them to:
Perchance, some felon spirit may haunt our house indeed,
And then I were but a noddy to venter where’s no need.”
Tib. “I’m worse than mad, by the masse, to be at this stay.
I’m chid, I’m blam’d, and beaten all th’ hours on the day.
Lamed and hunger starved, pricked up all in jagges,
Having no patch to hide my backe, save a few rotten ragges.”
Hodge. “I say, Tib, if thou be Tib, as I trow sure thou be,
What devil make ado is this between our dame and thee?”
Tib. “Truly, Hodge, thou had a good turn thou wart not here this while;
It had been better for some of us to have been hence a mile:
My Gammer is so out of course, and frantike all at once,
That Cocke, our boy, and I poor wench, have felt it on our bones.”
Hodge. “What is the matter, say on, Tib, whereat she taketh so on?”
Tib. “She is undone, she saith (alas) her life and joy is gone:
If she hear not of some comfort, she is she saith but dead,
Shall never come within her lips, on inch of meat ne bread.
And heavy, heavy is her grief, as, Hodge, we all shall feel.”
Hodge. “My conscience, Tib, my Gammer has never lost her neele?”
Tib. “Her neele.”
Hodge. “Her neele?”