“Yes, yes, I know it!” whined Hodge; “and I pray you pick me up and take me, and above all things make your will!”
“No, I will not take you, and I shall not make my will! It is all over with, I tell you; and now you can go as soon as you please to Tib, who has called you so lovingly. But first give me back my sewing-needle, you magpie, you! Give me here my sewing-needle, which you have stolen. It is of no use to you now, for it is not necessary for me to go out in order that you may go and see Tib. We have nothing more to do with each other, and you can go where you wish. My sewing-needle, say I—my needle, or I will hang you as a scarecrow in my pea-patch, to frighten the sparrows out of it. My sewing-needle, or—”
She shook her clenched fist threateningly at Hodge, fully convinced that now, as always before, Hodge would retreat before this menacing weapon of his jealous and irritable lady-love, and seek safety under the bed or the table.
This time, however, she was mistaken. Hodge, who saw that all was lost, felt that his patience was at length exhausted; and his timidity was now changed to the madness of despair. The lamb was transformed into a tiger, and with a tiger’s rage he pounced upon Gammer Gurton, and, throwing aside her fist, he dealt her a good sound blow on the cheek.
The signal was given, and the battle began. It was waged by both sides with equal animosity and equal vigor; only Hodge’s bony hand made by far the most telling blows on Gammer Gurton’s mass of flesh, and was always certain, wherever he struck, to hit some spot of this huge mass; while Gammer Gurton’s soft hand seldom touched that thin, threadlike figure, which dexterously parried every blow.
“Stop, you fools!” suddenly shouted a stentorian voice. “See you not, you goblins, that your lord and master is here? Peace, peace then, you devils, and do not be hammering away at one another, but love each other.”
“It is the master!” exclaimed Gammer Gurton, lowering her fist in the utmost contrition.
“Do not turn me away, sir!” moaned Hodge; “do not dismiss me from your service because at last I have for once given the old hag a good bruising. She has deserved it a long time, and an angel himself must at last lose patience with her.”
“I turn you out of my service!” exclaimed John Heywood, as he wiped his eyes, wet with laughing. “No, Hodge, you are a real jewel, a mine of fun and merriment; and you two have, without knowing it, furnished me with the choicest materials for a piece which, by the king’s order, I have to write within six days. I owe you, then, many thanks, and will show my gratitude forthwith. Listen well to me, my amorous and tender pair of turtle-doves, and mark what I have to say to you. One cannot always tell the wolf by his hide, for he sometimes put on a sheep’s skin; and so, too, a man cannot always be recognized by his voice, for he sometimes borrows that of his neighbor. Thus, for example, I know a certain John Heywood, who can mimic exactly the voice of a certain little miss named Tib, and who knows how to warble as she herself: ‘Hodge, my dear Hodge!’” And he repeated to them exactly, and with the same tone and expression, the words that the voice had previously cried.
“Ah, it was you, sir?” cried Hodge, with a broad grin—“that Tib in the court there, that Tib about whom we have been pummelling each other?”