They drop their abuse and pursue their vocation. Leatherhead calls, “What do you lack? what is’t you buy? what do you lack? rattles, drums, halberts, horses, babies o’ the best? fiddles o’ the finest?” Trash cries, “Buy my gingerbread, gilt gingerbread!” A “costard-monger” bawls out, “Buy any pears, pears! fine, very fine pears!” Nightingale, another character, sings,
“Hey, now the Fair’s a filling
O, for a tune to startle
The birds o’ the booths, here billing
Yearly with old Saint Barthle!
The drunkards they are wading,
The punks and chapmen trading,
Who’ld see the Fair without his lading?
Buy my ballads! new ballads!”
Ursula, “a pig-woman,” laments her vocation:—“Who would wear out their youth and prime thus, in roasting of pigs, that had any cooler occupation? I am all fire and fat; I shall e’en melt away—a poor vex’d thing I am; I feel myself dropping already as fast as I can: two stone of sewet a-day is my proportion: I can but hold life and soul together.” Then she soliloquizes concerning Mooncalf, her tapster, and her other vocations: “How can I hope that ever he’ll discharge his place of trust, tapster, a man of reckoning under me, that remembers nothing I say to him? but look to’t, sirrah, you were best; threepence a pipe-full I will ha’ made of all my whole half pound of tobacco, and a quarter of a pound of colts-foot, mixt with it too, to eech it out. Then six-and-twenty shillings a barrel I will advance o’ my beer, and fifty shillings a hundred o’ my bottle ale; I ha’ told you the ways how to raise it. (a knock.) Look who’s there, sirrah! five shillings a pig is my price at least; if it be a sow-pig sixpence more.” Jordan Knockhum, “a horse-courser and a ranger of Turnbull,” calls for “a fresh bottle of ale, and a pipe of tobacco.” Passengers enter, and Leatherhead says, “What do you lack, gentlemen? Maid, see a fine hobby-horse for your young master.” A corn-cutter cries, “Ha’ you any corns i’ your feet and toes?” Then “a tinder-box man” calls, “Buy a mouse-trap, a mouse-trap, or a tormentor for a flea!” Trash cries, “Buy some gingerbread!” Nightingale bawls, “Ballads, ballads, fine new ballads!” Leatherhead repeats, “What do you lack, gentlemen, what is’t you lack? a fine horse? a lion? a bull? a bear? a dog? or a cat? an excellent fine Bartholmew bird? or an instrument? what is’t you lack?” The pig-woman quarrels with her guests and falls foul on her tapster: “In, you rogue, and wipe the pigs, and mend the fire, that they fall not; or I’ll both baste and wast you till your eyes drop out, like ’em.” Knockhum says to the female passengers, “Gentlewomen, the weather’s hot! whither walk you? Have a care o’ your fine velvet caps, the Fair is dusty. Take a sweet delicate booth, with boughs, here, i’ the way, and cool yourselves i’ the shade; you and your friends. The best pig and bottle ale i’ the Fair, sir, old Urs’la is cook; there, you may read; the pig’s head speaks it.” Knockhum adds, that she roasted her pigs “with fire o’ juniper, and rosemary branches.” Littlewit, the proctor, and his wife, Win-the-fight, with her mother, dame Purecroft, and Zeal-of-the-land enter. Busy Knockhum suggests to Ursula that they are customers of the right sort, “In, and set a couple o’ pigs o’ the board, and half a dozen of the bygist bottles afore ’em—two to a pig, away!” In another scene Leatherhead cries, “Fine purses, pouches, pincases, pipes; what is’t you lack? a pair o’ smiths to wake you i’ the morning? or a fine whistling bird?” Bartholomew Cokes, a silly “esquire of Harrow,” stops at Leatherhead’s to purchase: “Those six horses, friend, I’ll have; and the three Jews trumps; and a half a dozen o’ birds; and that drum; and your smiths (I like that device o’ your smiths,)—and four halberts; and, let me see, that fine painted great lady, and her three women for state, I’ll have. A set of those violins I would buy too, for a delicate young noise I have i’ the country, that are every one a size less than another, just like your fiddles.” Trash invites him to buy her gingerbread, and he turns to her basket, whereupon Leatherhead says, “Is this well, Goody Joan, to interrupt my market in the midst, and call away my customers? Can you answer this at the Pie-pouldres?” whereto Trash replies, “Why, if his master-ship have a mind to buy, I hope my ware lies as open as anothers; I may shew my ware as well as you yours.” Nightingale begins to sing,
“My masters and friends, and good people draw near.”
Cokes hears this, and says, “Ballads! hark, hark! pray thee, fellow, stay a little! What ballads hast thou? let me see, let me see myself—How dost thou call it? ‘A Caveat against Cut-purses!’—a good jest, i’ faith; I would fain see that demon, your cut-purse, you talk of.” He then shows his purse boastingly, and inquires, “Ballad-man, do any cut-purses haunt hereabout? pray thee raise me one or two: begin and shew me one.” Nightingale answers, “Sir, this is a spell against ’em, spick and span new: and ’tis made as ’twere in mine own person, and I sing it in mine own defence. But ’twill cost a penny alone if you buy it.” Cokes replies, “No matter for the price; thou dost not know me I see, I am an odd Bartholmew.” The ballad has “pictures,” and Nightingale tells him, “It was intended, sir, as if a purse should chance to be cut in my presence, now; I may be blameless though; as by the sequel will more plainly appear.” He adds, it is “to the tune of ‘Paggington’s Pound,’ sir,” and he finally sings—
A Caveat against Cut-purses.
My masters, and friends, and good people draw near,
And look to your purses, for that I do say;
And though little money, in them you do bear,
It cost more to get, than to lose in a day,
You oft’ have been told,
Both the young and the old,
And bidden beware of the cut-purse so bold.
Then if you take heed not, free me from the curse,
Who both give you warning, for, and the cut-purse.
Youth, youth, thou hadst better been starved by thy nurse,
Than live to be hanged for cutting a purse.
It hath been upbraided to men of my trade,
That oftentimes we are the cause of this crime:
Alack, and for pity, why should it be said?
As if they regarded or places, or time.
Examples have been
Of some that were seen
In Westminster-hall, yea, the pleaders between;
Then why should the judges be free from this curse
More than my poor self, for cutting the purse?
Youth, youth, thou hadst better been starved by thy nurse,
Than live to be hanged for cutting a purse.
At Worc’ter ’tis known well, and even i’ the jail,
A knight of good worship did there shew his face
Against the foul sinners in zeal for to rail,
And lost, ipso facto, his purse in the place.
Nay, once from the seat
Of judgment so great,
A judge there did lose a fair pouch of velvet;
O, Lord for thy mercy, how wicked, or worse,
Are those that so venture their necks for a purse.
Youth, youth, thou hadst better been starved by thy nurse,
Than live to be hanged for stealing a purse.