About half a mile off, on the high road between Stratford and Ilford, there was a colony of Irish, dirty and miserable, as such settlements in England usually are.

SIR FRANCIS ILFORD.

Enter SIR FRANCIS ILFORD, WENTLOE, and BARTLEY.

Enter SIR JOHN HARCOP, ILFORD, WENTLOE, BARTLEY, and Butler. HAR.

Enter ILFORD, and a PAGE with him.

Enter SCARBOROW, his wife KATHERINE, ILFORD, WENTLOE, BARTLEY, and BUTLER. ILF.

Enter ILFORD, WENTLOE, BARTLEY. WEN.

Master Ilford, there's a couple of strangers beneath desires to speak with you.

Enter ILFORD, led in by a couple of SERJEANTS, and GRIPE the usurer. SER.

How ill it will stand with the flourish of your reputations, when men of rank and note communicate that I, Frank Ilford, gentleman, whose fortunes may transcend to make ample gratuities future, and heap satisfaction for any present extension of his friends' kindness, was enforced from the Mitre in Bread Street to the Counter in the Poultry.

Enter ILFORD.

Enter SCARBOROW, having a boy carrying a torch with him: ILFORD, WENTLOE, and BARTLEY.

Enter WENTLOE, BARTLEY, and ILFORD with a letter in his hand.

not a man, [Betwixt this BUTLER leads ILFORD in.

Enter BUTLER and ILFORD above.

[Exit ILFORD with SCARBOROW'S SISTER.

ACT V. Enter ILFORD with SCARBOROW'S SISTER.

Here they make a pass one upon another, when at Scarborow's back come in ILFORD, WENTLOE, and BARTLEY.

Enter ILFORD and his Wife, the two Brothers, and SIR WILLIAM SCARBOROW.

Purgest is surely preferable, since Ilford has been just giving a list of those he has undone.]

[407] We must here suppose that butler whispers to Ilford the place where the lady lies or lodges.

[The two brothers, disguised for the purpose, pretend to be their sister's uncles, and engage in a conversation about her marriage, intended to be overheard by Ilford and the others below.

[Edit. 1607] says, Exit Ilford with his Sister, but this is obviously an error: it means with Scarborow's sister.

Half of her Ilford land had been taken by the government; and she had let the rest together with the house and orchard.

She loathed the flat Essex country and the streets of little white rough cast and red-tiled houses on the Ilford side where the clear fields had once lain beyond the tall elm rows.