Scene II A Yard
Enter Nicholas, Jenkin, Jack Slime, and Roger Brickbat, with Country Wenches, and two or three Musicians.
Jenkin.
Come, Nick, take you Joan Miniver to trace withal; Jack Slime, traverse you with Cicely Milk-pail: I will take Jane Trubkin, and Roger Brickbat shall have Isbel Motley; and now that they are busy in the parlour, come, strike up; we’ll have a crash7 here in the yard.
Nicholas.
My humour is not compendious; dancing I possess not, though I can foot it; yet, since I am fallen into the hands of Cicely Milk-pail, I consent.
Slime.
Truly Nick, though we were never brought up like serving courtiers, yet we have been brought up with serving creatures, ay, and God’s creatures too; for we have been brought up to serve sheep, oxen, horses, hogs, and such like: and, though we be but country fellows, it may be in the way of dancing we can do the horse-trick as well as serving-men.
Brickbat.
Ay, and the cross-point too.
Jenkin.
O Slime, O Brickbat, do not you know that comparisons are odious? now we are odious ourselves too, therefore there are no comparisons to be made betwixt us.
Nicholas.
I am sudden, and not superfluous;
I am quarrelsome, and not seditious;
I am peaceable, and not contentious;
I am brief, and not compendious.
Slime.
Foot it quickly: if the music overcome not my melancholy, I shall quarrel; and if they do not suddenly strike up, I shall presently strike them down.
Jenkin.
No quarrelling, for God’s sake: truly, if you do, I shall set a knave between ye.
Slime.
I come to dance, not to quarrel. Come, what shall it be? “Rogero?”8
Jenkin.
“Rogero!” no; we will dance “The Beginning of the World.”
Cicely.
I love no dance so well as “John come kiss me now.”
Nicholas.
I, that have ere now deserved a cushion, call for the “Cushion-dance.”
Brickbat.
For my part, I like nothing so well as “Tom Tyler.”
Jenkin.
No; we’ll have “The Hunting of the Fox.”
Slime.
“The Hay,” “The Hay;” there’s nothing like “The Hay.”
Nicholas.
I have said, I do say, and I will say again—
Jenkin.
Every man agree to have it as Nick says.
All.
Content.
Nicholas.
It hath been, it now is, and it shall be—
Cicely.
What, Master Nicholas, what?
Nicholas.
“Put on your smock a’ Monday.”
Jenkin.
So the dance will come cleanly off. Come, for God’s sake agree of something: if you like not that, put it to the musicians; or let me speak for all, and we’ll have “Sellenger’s round.”
All.
That, that, that.
Nicholas.
No, I am resolved, thus it shall be:
First take hands, then take ye to your heels.
Jenkin.
Why, would ye have us run away?
Nicholas.
No; but I would have you shake your heels.
Music, strike up!
[They dance. Nicholas whilst dancing speaks stately and scurvily, the rest after the country fashion.
Jenkin.
Hey! lively, my lasses! here’s a turn for thee!
[Exeunt.