Act 5. Scene IV

SCENE IV. The palace yard.

Noise and tumult within. Enter Porter and his Man
Porter
You'll leave your noise anon, ye rascals: do you
take the court for Paris-garden? ye rude slaves,
leave your gaping.

Within

Good master porter, I belong to the larder.

Porter
Belong to the gallows, and be hanged, ye rogue! is
this a place to roar in? Fetch me a dozen crab-tree
staves, and strong ones: these are but switches to
'em. I'll scratch your heads: you must be seeing
christenings? do you look for ale and cakes here,
you rude rascals?

Man
Pray, sir, be patient: 'tis as much impossible--
Unless we sweep 'em from the door with cannons--
To scatter 'em, as 'tis to make 'em sleep
On May-day morning; which will never be:
We may as well push against Powle's, as stir em.

Porter
How got they in, and be hang'd?

Man
Alas, I know not; how gets the tide in?
As much as one sound cudgel of four foot--
You see the poor remainder--could distribute,
I made no spare, sir.

Porter
You did nothing, sir.

Man
I am not Samson, nor Sir Guy, nor Colbrand,
To mow 'em down before me: but if I spared any
That had a head to hit, either young or old,
He or she, cuckold or cuckold-maker,
Let me ne'er hope to see a chine again
And that I would not for a cow, God save her!

Within

Do you hear, master porter?

Porter
I shall be with you presently, good master puppy.
Keep the door close, sirrah.

Man
What would you have me do?

Porter
What should you do, but knock 'em down by the
dozens? Is this Moorfields to muster in? or have
we some strange Indian with the great tool come to
court, the women so besiege us? Bless me, what a
fry of fornication is at door! On my Christian
conscience, this one christening will beget a
thousand; here will be father, godfather, and all together.

Man
The spoons will be the bigger, sir. There is a
fellow somewhat near the door, he should be a
brazier by his face, for, o' my conscience, twenty
of the dog-days now reign in's nose; all that stand
about him are under the line, they need no other
penance: that fire-drake did I hit three times on
the head, and three times was his nose discharged
against me; he stands there, like a mortar-piece, to
blow us. There was a haberdasher's wife of small
wit near him, that railed upon me till her pinked
porringer fell off her head, for kindling such a
combustion in the state. I missed the meteor once,
and hit that woman; who cried out 'Clubs!' when I
might see from far some forty truncheoners draw to
her succor, which were the hope o' the Strand, where
she