Enter the Witch Margery Jourdain, the two Priests, Hume, Southwell and Bolingbroke.
HUME.
Come, my masters. The duchess, I tell you, expects performance of your promises.
BOLINGBROKE.
Master Hume, we are therefore provided. Will her ladyship behold and hear our exorcisms?
HUME.
Ay, what else? Fear you not her courage.
BOLINGBROKE.
I have heard her reported to be a woman of an invincible spirit. But it shall be convenient, Master Hume, that you be by her aloft while we be busy below; and so, I pray you go, in God’s name, and leave us.
[Exit Hume.]
Mother Jourdain, be you prostrate and grovel on the earth. John Southwell, read you; and let us to our work.
Enter Duchess aloft, Hume following.
ELEANOR.
Well said, my masters; and welcome all. To this gear, the sooner the better.
BOLINGBROKE.
Patience, good lady; wizards know their times.
Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,
The time of night when Troy was set on fire,
The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl,
And spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves;
That time best fits the work we have in hand.
Madam, sit you and fear not. Whom we raise
We will make fast within a hallowed verge.