[Enter Banks the Miller, wet on his legs.]
BANKS.
S’foot, here’s a dark night indeed! I think I have been
in fifteen ditches between this and the forest. Soft, here’s
Enfield Church: I am so wet with climing over into an
orchard for to steal some filberts. Well, here I’ll sit in
the Church porch, and wait for the rest of my consort.
[Enter the Sexton.]
SEXTON.
Here’s a sky as black as Lucifer. God bless us! here was
goodman Theophilus buried; he was the best Nutcracker that
ever dwelt in Enfield. Well, tis 9. a clock, tis time to
ring curfew. Lord bless us, what a white thing is that in
the Church porch! O Lord, my legs are too weak for my body,
my hair is too stiff for my night-cap, my heart fails; this
is the ghost of Theophilus. O Lord, it follows me! I
cannot say my prayers, and one would give me a thousand
pound. Good spirit, I have bowled and drunk and followed
the hounds with you a thousand times, though I have not the
spirit now to deal with you. O Lord!
[Enter Priest.]
PRIEST.
Grass and hey, we are all mortall. Who’s there?
SEXTON.
We are grass and hay indeed; I know you to be Master
Parson by your phrase.
PRIEST.
Sexton!
PRIEST.
I, sir.
PRIEST.
For mortalities sake, What’s the matter?
SEXTON.
O Lord, I am a man of another element; Master Theophilus
Ghost is in the Church porch. There was a hundred Cats,
all fire, dancing here even now, and they are clomb up
to the top of the steeple; I’ll not into the belfry for a
world.
PRIEST.
O good Salomon; I have been about a deed of darkness to
night: O Lord, I saw fifteen spirits in the forest, like
white bulls; if I lie, I am an arrant thief: mortality
haunts us—grass and hay! the devils at our heels, and let’s
hence to the parsonage.
[Exeunt.]
[The Miller comes out very softly.]
MILLER.
What noise was that? tis the watch, sure; that villanous
unlucky rogue, Smug, is tain, upon my life; and then all
our villeny comes out; I heard one cry, sure.
[Enter Host Blague.]
HOST.
If I go steal any more venison, I am a Paradox: s’foot,
I can scarce bear the sin of my flesh in the day, tis so
heavy; if I turn not honest, and serve the good Duke of
Norfolk, as true mareterraneum skinker should do, let me
never look higher then the element of a Constable.
MILLER.
By the Lord, there are some watchmen; I hear them name
Maister Constable; I would to God my Mill were an Eunuch,
and wanted her stones, so I were hence.
HOST.
Who’s there?
MILLER.
Tis the Constable, by this light; I’ll steal hence, and if
I can meet mine host Blague, I’ll tell him how Smug is
tain, and will him to look to himself.
[Exit.]
HOST.
What the devil is that white thing? this same is a Church-
yard, and I have heard that ghosts and villenous goblins
have been seen here.
[Enter Sexton and Priest.]
PRIEST.
Grass and hay! O, that I could conjure! we saw a spirit
here in the Church-yard; and in the fallow field there’s
the devil with a man’s body upon his back in a white sheet.
SEXTON.
It may be a woman’s body, Sir John.
PRIEST.
If she be a woman, the sheets damn her; Lord bless us, what
a night of mortality is this!
HOST.
Priest!
PRIEST.
Mine host!
HOST.
Did you not see a spirit all in white cross you at the stile?
SEXTON.
O no, mine host; but there sate one in the porch; I have not
breath ynough left to bless me from the Devil.
HOST.
Who’s that?
PRIEST.
The Sexton, almost frighted out of his wits. Did you see
Banks or Smug?
HOST.
No, they are gone to Waltham, sure: I would fain hence; come,
let’s to my house: I’ll ne’er serve the duke of Norfolk in
this fashion again whilst I breath. If the devil be amongst
us, tis time to hoist sail, and cry roomer. Keep together;
Sexton, thou art secret, what? let’s be comfortable one to
Another.
PRIEST.
We are all mortal, mine host.
HOST.
True; and I’ll serve God in the night hereafter afore the
Duke of Norfolk.
[Exeunt.]