Enter ABHORSON.

Abhor. Do you call, sir?

Prov. Sirrah, here's a fellow will help you tomorrow in your execution: if you think it meet, compound with him by the year, and let him abide here with you; if not, use him for the present, and dismiss him he cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd.

Abhor. A bawd, sir? Fy upon him, he will discredit our mystery.

Prov. Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale.

[Exit.

Clo. Pray, sir, by your good favour, (for, surely, sir, a good favour you have, but that you have a hanging look,) do you call, sir, your occupation a inystery?

Abhor. Ah, sir, a mystery.

Clo. Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and your whores, sir, being members of my occupation, using painting, do prove my occupation a mystery but what mystery there should be in hanging, if I should be hanged, I cannot imagine. Abhor. Sir, it is a mystery.

Clo. Proof.

Abhor. Every true man's apparel fits your thief: if it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough; if it be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough: so every true man's apparel fits your thief.

Re-enter Provost.

Prov. Are you agreed?

Clo. Sir, I will serve him; for I do find, your hangman is a more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth oftener ask forgiveness.

Prov. You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe, to-morrow, four o'clock.

Abhor. Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.

Clo. I do desire to learn, sir; and I hope, if you have occasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find me yare: for, truly, sir, for your kindness, I owe you a good turn.

Prov. Call hither Barnardine and Claudio : [Exeunt Clown and Abhorson. One has my pity; not a jot the other, Being a murderer, though he were my brother. Enter CLAUDIO.

Look,here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death: "Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow Thou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine? (labour Claud. As fast lock'd up in sleep, as guiltless When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones: He will not wake.

Prov.

Who can do good on him?
Well, go, prepare yourself. But hark, what noise?
(Knocking within.)
Heaven give your spirits comfort! [Exit Claudio.
By and by:-

I hope it is some pardon, or reprieve,
For the most gentle Claudio.-Welcome, father.
Enter Duke.

Duke. The best and wholesomest spirits of the night [late? Envelop you, good provost! Who called here of Prov. None, since the curfew rung. Duke.

Prov. No.

Not Isabel?

(As

For which the pardoner himself is in:
Hence hath offence his quick celerity,
When it is borne in high authority:
When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended,
That for the fault's love, is the offender friende
Now, sir, what news?

Prov. 1 told you: lord Angelo, belike, thin me remiss in mine office, awakens me with unwonted putting on: methinks, strangely; fa hath not used it before.

Duke. Pray you, let's hear.

Prov. (Reads.) Whatsoever you may hear to contrary, let Claudio be executed by four of clock; and, in the afternoon, Barnardine: for better satisfaction, let me have Claudio's head me by five. Let this bedulyperform'd; with a thon that more depends on it than we must yet dela Thus fail not to do your office, as you will assi it at your peril.-What say you to this, sir?

cuted in the afternoon? Duke. What is that Barnardine, who is to be

Prov. A Bohemian born; but here nursed up bred one that is a prisoner nine years old.

:

Duke. How came it, that the absent duke had either deliver'd him to his liberty, or executed I have heard, it was ever his manner to do so.

Prov. His friends still wrought reprieves for and, indeed, his fact, till now in the government lord Angelo, came not to an undoubtful proof. Duke. Is it now apparent?

Prov. Most manifest, and not denied by himsel Duke. Hath he borne himself penitently in How seems he to be touch'd?

Prov. A man that apprehends death no m dreadfully, but as a drunken sleep; careless, reck less, and fearless of what's past, present, or to come insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal. Duke. He wants advice.

Prov. He will hear none: he hath evermore had the liberty of the prison; give him leave to escape hence, he would not: drunk many times a day, if t many days entirely drunk. We have very ofte awaked him, as if to carry him to execution, du showed him a seeming warrant for it: it hath moved him at all.

Duke. More of him anon. There is written! your brow, Provost, honesty and constancy: