HODGE. What, think'st that cham not able? Did not Tom Tankard rake his curtal t'o'er day standing in the stable?
GAMMER. Soft, be content, let's hear what news Cock bringeth from Master Rat.
COCK. Gammer, chave been there as you bad, you wot well about what. 'Twill not be long before he come, ich durst swear off a book, He bid you see ye be at home, and there for him to look.
GAMMER. Where didst thou find him, boy? was he not where I told thee?
COCK. Yes, yes, even at Hob Filcher's house, by him that bought and sold me: A cup of ale had in his hand, and a crab lay in the fire: Chad much a-do to go and come, all was so full of mire: And, gammer, one thing I can tell: Hob Filcher's nawl was lost, And Doctor Rat found it again, hard beside the door-post. Ich hold a penny can say something, your nee'le again to fet.[272]
GAMMER. Cham glad to hear so much, Cock, then trust he will not let To help us herein best he can; therefore, till time he come, Let us go in, if there be ought to get, thou shalt have some.
[245] [Altered by Dodsley. Old edition has _thing_.]
[246] _Curtal_ is a _small horse_; properly one who hath his tail _docked or curtailed_. So, in Dekker's "Villanies discovered by Lanthorne and Candlelight," &c., 1620, sig. H.: "He could shewe more crafty foxes in this wild goose chase, then there are white foxes in Russia; and more strange horse-trickes plaide by such riders, then _Bankes his curtal_ did ever practise (whose gambals of the two were the honester)."
[247] A naval phrase. The gib is the gib-sail. To set a sail, is also the technical term.--_S._
[249] _Friar Rush_ is mentioned in Reginald Scot's "Discoverie of Witchcraft," 1584, p. 522: "_Frier Rush_ was for all the world such another fellow as this _Hudgin_, and brought up even in the same schoole; to wit, in a kitchen: insomuch as the selfsame tale is written of the one as of the other concerning the skullian, which is said to have been slaine, &c. For the reading whereof I referre you to _Frier Rush_ his storie, or else to John Wierus 'De præstigiis demonum.'"
[252] Gabriel Harvey, in his "Pierces Supererogation," 1593, speaking of Long Meg of Westminster, says: "Although she were a lusty, bouncing _rampe_, somewhat like Gallimetta or maid Marian, yet was she not such a roinish rannel, such a dissolute flirt gillian," &c.