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260 WILLIAM CONGREVE [ACT Iv<br />
thought it more fitting for her to learn her sampler and<br />
make dirt-pies, than to look after a husband; for my part<br />
I was none of her man.—I had another voyage to make, let<br />
him take it as he will.<br />
Mrs. Frail. So then, you intend to go to sea again?<br />
Ben. Nay, nay, my mind run upon you,—but I would not<br />
tell him so much.—So he said he'd make my heart ache;<br />
and if so be that he could get a woman to his mind, he'd<br />
marry himself. Gad, says I, an you play the fool and marry<br />
at these years, there's more danger of your head's aching<br />
than my heart.—He was woundy angry when I gav'n that<br />
wipe.—He hadn't a word to say, and so I left'n and the<br />
green girl together; mayhap the bee may bite, and he'll<br />
marry her himself; with all my heart.<br />
Mrs. Frail. And were you this undutiful and graceless<br />
wretch to your father?<br />
Ben. Then why was he graceless first?—If I am undutiful<br />
and graceless, why did he beget me so? I did not get myself.<br />
Mrs. Frail. D impiety! how have I been mistaken! what<br />
an inhuman merciless creature have I set my heart upon! D,<br />
I am happy to have discovered the shelves and quicksands<br />
that lurk beneath that faithless smiling face!<br />
Ben. Hey toss? what's the matter now? why, you bcn't<br />
angry, be you?<br />
Mrs. Frail. D see me no more! for thou wert born<br />
amongst rocks, suckled by whales, cradled in a tempest, and<br />
whistled to by winds; and thou art come forth with fins and<br />
scales, and three rows of teeth, a most outrageous fish of<br />
prey.<br />
Ben. O Lord, O Lord, she's mad! poor young woman;<br />
love has turned her senses, her brain is quite overset! Well-aday,<br />
how shall I do to set her to rights?<br />
Mrs. Frail. No, no, I am not mad, monster, I am wise<br />
enough to find you out. Hadst thou the impudence to aspire<br />
at being a husband with that stubborn and disobedient<br />
temper?—You that know not how to submit to a father,<br />
presume to have a sufficient stock of duty to undergo a<br />
wife? I should have been finely fobbed indeed, very finely<br />
fobbed.<br />
Ben. Hark ye, forsooth; if so be that you are in your right<br />
senses, d'ye see; for aught as I perceive I'm like to be finely<br />
fobbed,—if I have got anger here upon your account, and<br />
you are tacked about already.—What d'ye mean, after all
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