Enter PEG and her GRANAM.
PEG. Granam, give me but two crowns of red gold, and I'll give you twopence of white silver, if Robin the devil be not a water-witch.
MOTHER MIDNIGHT.
Marry, Jesus bless us! why, prythee?
PEG. Marry, I'll tell you why. Upon the morrow after the blessed new year, I came trip, trip, trip, over the market hill, holding up my petticoat to the calves of my legs, to show my fine coloured stockings, and how finely I could foot it in a pair of new corked shoes I had bought; and there I spied this Monsieur Muffe lie gaping up into the skies, to know how many maids would be with child in the town all the year after. O, 'tis a base vexation slave! How the country talks of the large-ribbed varlet!
MOTHER MIDNIGHT. Marry, out upon him. What a Friday-faced slave it is: I think in my conscience, his face never keeps holiday.
PEG. Why, his face can never be at quiet. He has such a choleric nose, I durst ha' sworn by my maidenhead (God forgive me, that I should take such an oath), that if William had had such a nose, I would never ha' loved him.
Enter WILLIAM CRICKET.
WILL CRICKET. What a talking is here of noses? Come, Peg, we are toward marriage; let us talk of that may do us good. Granam, what will you give us toward housekeeping?
MOTHER MIDNIGHT.
Why, William, we are talking of Robin Goodfellow. What think you of him?
WILL CRICKET. Marry, I say, he looks like a tankard-bearer that dwells in Petticoat Lane at the sign of the Mermaid; and I swear by the blood of my codpiece, and I were a woman, I would lug off his lave[160] ears, or run him to death with a spit. And, for his face, I think 'tis pity there is not a law made, that it should be felony to name it in any other places than in bawdy-houses. But, Granam, what will you give us?