Wan. Is this possible?
Par. Yes, most possible, and you shall see how I'll be revenged on him: I will immediately go seek the ordinance against reformadoes.
Wan. What ordinance?
Par. Why, they do so swarm about the town, and are so destructive to trade and all civil government, that the state has declared no person shall keep above two colonels and four captains (of what trade soever) in his family; for now the war is done, broken breech, woodmonger, ragman, butcher, and linkboy (comrades that made up the ragged regiment in this holy war), think to return and be admitted to serve out their times again.
Wan. Your ordinance will not touch the captain, for he is a known soldier.
Par. He a captain! an apocryphal modern one, that went convoy once to Brentford with those troops that conducted the contribution-puddings in the late holy war, when the city ran mad after their russet Levites, apron-rogues with horn hands. Hang him, he's but the sign of a soldier; and I hope to see him hanged for that commission, when the king comes to his place again.
Wan. You abuse him now he's gone; but——
Par. Why, dost thou think I fear him? No, wench, I know him too well for a cowardly slave, that dares as soon eat his fox,[202] as draw it in earnest: the slave's noted to make a conscience of nothing but fighting.
Wan. Well, if you be not a good man and a kind husband——
Par. Thou knowest the proverb, as happy as the parson's wife during her husband's life.