A little thing with a hole in the end, as bright as any siller [silver],
Small, long, sharp at the point, and strait as any pillar.
Dic. I know not what a devil thou meanest, thou bring’st me more in doubt.
Hodge. (answers with disdain). Know’st not with what Tom tailor’s man sits broching through a clout?
A neele, a neele, my Gammer’s neele is gone.’
The rogue Diccon threatens to shew Hodge a spirit; but though Hodge runs away through pure fear before it has time to appear, he does not fail, in the true spirit of credulity, to give a faithful and alarming account of what he did not see to his mistress, concluding with a hit at the Popish Clergy.
‘By the mass, I saw him of late call up a great black devil.
Oh, the knave cried, ho, ho, he roared and he thunder’d;
And ye had been there, I am sure you’d murrainly ha’ wonder’d.
Gam. Wast not thou afraid, Hodge, to see him in his place?