Hodge. O master, good-morrow; y’are an early stirrer. Here’s a fair morning.—Good-morrow, Firk, I could have slept this hour. Here’s a brave day towards.
Eyre. Oh, haste to work, my fine foreman, haste to work.
Firk. Master, I am dry as dust to hear my fellow Roger talk of fair weather; let us pray for good leather, and let clowns and ploughboys and those that work in the fields pray for brave days. We work in a dry shop; what care I if it rain?
Enter Margery.
Eyre. How now, Dame Margery, can you see to rise? Trip and go, call up the drabs, your maids.
Marg. See to rise? I hope ’tis time enough, ’tis early enough for any woman to be seen abroad. I marvel how many wives in Tower Street are up so soon. Gods me, ’tis not noon,—here’s a yawling![28]
Eyre. Peace, Margery, peace! Where’s Cicely Bumtrinket, your maid? She has a privy fault, she farts in her sleep. Call the quean up; if my men want shoe-thread, I’ll swinge her in a stirrup.
Firk. Yet, that’s but a dry beating; here’s still a sign of drought.
Enter Lacy disguised, singing.