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Surely some occasion would have turned up before long of selling the greensick minx advantageously to an old lover or a young one; and this might have succeeded too, why should not it? if she had not lockt up a silly young fellow in her heart, whom she loves, as she tells me." "O have done, gammer!" screamed Beresynth, reeling and already half asleep.
Come for an alms-drink, comrade. Would I had as many gold-pieces as we have burnt alnights i' this very tavern! And is it thus we meet after all these years? It doth seem but yesterday that we supped under this very roof as juvenals. Dost thou mind thee o' the night that we gave old Gammer Lick-the-Dish a bath in his own sack, for that he served us in a foul jerkin? By'r lay'kin, those were days!
And now she turned to address the woman, though in language quite beyond my comprehension, stabbing her staff at us all four in turn. "No, gammer no!" cried the girl passionately, but at the ancient woman's commanding gesture she fell mute, though she scowled in sullen defiance and I saw the knife glitter where she gripped it, half concealed by a fold of her petticoat.
"Would she have me become the model country parson, preaching to the squire and other yokels on Sunday, and chatting about their souls to wheezy Granfer this, and Gammer that?" He had read the works of Mr. Thomas Hardy. "Does she suppose that I was made for such a life as that? Poor Phyllis! When will she awake from this dream of hers?"
To Gammer Gurton if it give the bays, And yet deny The Careless Husband praise, Or say our fathers never broke a rule; Why then, I say, the public is a fool. See ante, April 6, 1775. See page 402 of vol. i. Milton's L'Allegro, 1. 36. 'CATESBY. My Liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken. RICHARD. Off with his head. So much for Buckingham. Colley Gibber's Richard III, iv. Ars Poetica, i. 128.
The Interlude, that was the progenitor of English Comedy, next arrived. The origin of the Interlude is credited to John Heywood. It is interesting to note that a play, entitled, "Gammer Gurton's Needle," is credited with being our first English Comedy, though its humour and wit, it is stated, is of a low and sordid kind. Others make claim for the comedy, "Ralph Roister Doister."
"You shall pay me for that, you double-faced, thread-bare lout!" screamed Gammer Gurton, as she rushed on Hodge with clenched fist. But John Heywood's cunning servant had anticipated this; he had already slipped under the large table which stood in the middle of the room.
I gathered that the new rector was an earnest young man and a hard worker; but, evidently, those of Gammer Joy's generation preferred my father's aloofness in conjunction with his regular material dispensations, and his habit of leaving folk severely to themselves, so far as their thoughts and feelings were concerned.
"Lord God, where in the world can it be, the unlucky needle? I must have it, I must find it, so that Gammer Gurton may take her will to the justice of the peace!" And in frantic desperation, Hodge searched all about on the floor for the lost needle, and Gammer Gurton stuck her large spectacles on her flaming red nose and peered about on the table.
"There again verily is my sweet, charming housekeeper, Gammer Gurton," said John Heywood, laughing; "and she no doubt is quarrelling again with my excellent servant, that poor, long-legged, blear-eyed Hodge. Ah! ha! Yesterday I surprised her as she applied a kiss to him, at which he made as doleful a face as if a bee had stung him. To-day I hear how she is boxing his ears.
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