Jolly. Send him up alone, and stand you ready at the stairs' feet.
Care. How can that be?[244]
Jolly. It is the scrivener at the corner. Pick a quarrel with him for coming into our company. The drawers will be armed behind them, and we will so rout the rascals! Take your swords, and let him[245] sleep.
Care. What scrivener?
Jolly. Crop the Brownist: he that the ballad was made on.
Care. What ballad?
Jolly. Have you not heard of the scrivener's wife, that brought the blackmoor from the holy land, and made him a Brownist, and in pure charity lay with him, and was delivered of a magpie, a pied prophet, which when the elect saw, they prophesied, if it lived, 'twould prove a great enemy to their sect, for the midwife cried out 'twas born a bishop, with tippet and white sleeves: at which the zealous mother cried, Down with the idol! So the midwife and she, in pure devotion, killed it.
Wild. Killed it! what became of them?
Jolly. Why, they were taken and condemned, and suffered under a Catholic sheriff, that afflicted them with the litany all the way from Newgate to the gallows; which in roguery he made to be set up altarwise, too, and hanged them without a psalm.
Wild. But how took they that breach of privilege?