NEW. Help to tie their hands, before ye be gone.
SEV. Now they are bound, I will send one to you anon. [_Exit._
NEW. Ah, my masters, how like you this play? You shall take possession of your land to-day! I will help to bridle the two-legged mare, And both you for to ride need not to spare. Now, so God help me, I swear by this bread, I marvel who shall play the knave, when you twain be dead.
CUTHB. O cursed caitiff, born in an evil hour, Woe unto me, that ever I did thee know. For of all iniquity thou art the bow'r; The seed of Satan thou dost always sow. Thou only hast given me the overthrow. Woe worth the hour, wherein I was born! Woe worth the time that ever I knew thee! For now in misery I am forlorn; O, all youth take example by me: Flee from evil company, as from a serpent you would flee; For I to you all a mirror may be. I have been daintily and delicately bred, But nothing at all in virtuous lore: And now I am but a man dead, Hanged I must be, which grieveth me full sore. Note well the end of me therefore; And you that fathers and mothers be, Bring not up your children in too much liberty.
PIERCE. Sith that by the law we are now condemned, Let us call to God for his mercy and his grace; And exhort that all vice may be amended, While we in this world have time and space. And though our lives have licentiously been spent, Yet at the last to God let us call; For he heareth such as are ready to repent, And desireth not that sinners should fall. Now are we ready to suffer, come when it shall.
NEW. Come, Hankin Hangman, let us two cast lots, And between us divide a couple of coats: Take thou the one, and the other shall be mine. Come, Hankin Hangman, thou cam'st in good time. [_They take off the coats, and divide them._
HANKIN. Thou should'st have one, Nichol, I swear by the mass, For thou bringest work for me daily to pass; And through thy means I get more coats in one year, Than all my living is worth beside, I swear. Therefore, Nichol Newfangle, we will depart never: For like will to like, quoth the Devil to the Collier.
NEW. Now, farewell, Hankin Hangman, farewell to thee.
HANKIN. Farewell, Nichol Newfangle: come you two with me. [HANKIN _goeth out, and leadeth the one in his right hand, and the other in his left, having halters about their necks_.