Thereupon appeared a little remnant of a man, a dapper Spaniard, with a kind of a besome-beard, and a voice not unlike the yapping of a foysting cur. As he came near the company, he set up his throat, and called out, “Ah jade!” says he, “I shall now take ye to task, ye whore you, for making me father my negro’s bastard, and for the estate I settled upon him. I did ever misdoubt foul play, but should never have dreamt of that ugly toad, when there was such choice of handsome, lusty young fellows about us; but it may be she had them too. I cursed the monks many and many a time, I remember, to the pit of hell, heaven forgive me for’t; for the strumpet would be perpetually gadding abroad, under colour of going to confession, and in sooth I was never any great friend to penance and mortification. And then would I be easing my mind ever and anon to this cursed Moor. ‘I cannot imagine,’ said I, ‘where this mistress of thine should commit all the sins that she goes every hour of the day to confess at yonder monastery.’ And then would this dog-Moor answer me. ‘Alas, good lady! I would e’en venture my soul with hers with all my heart; she spends all her time you see in holy duties.’ I was at that time so innocent, that I suspected nothing more than a pure respect and civility to my wife; but I have learnt better since, and that effectually his soul and hers were commonly ventured in the same bottom; yes, and their bodies too, as I perceive by their magpie issue, for the bastards take after both father and mother.”
“So that at this rate,” cried the adopted fathers, “the husband of a whore has a pleasant time on’t. First, he’s subjected to all the pukings, longings, and peevish importunities, that a breeding woman gives those about her till she’s laid; and then comes the squalling of the child, and the twittle-twattle-gossipings of the nurse and midwife, that must be well treated too, well lodged, and well paid. ‘A sweet baby,’ says one (to the jade the mother on’t) ‘’tis e’en as like the father as if he had spit it out on’s mouth; it has the very lips, the very eyes of him,’ when ’tis no more like him than an apple is like an oyster. And, in conclusion, when we have borne all this, and twenty times more in t’other world with a Christian patience, we are hurried away to hell, and here we lie a company of damned cuckolds of us; and here we are like to lie, for ought I see, in _sæcula sæculorum_: which is very hard, and in truth out of all reason.”