[Here they draw, WENTLOE and BARTLEY come in, and the two vintner’s boys with clubs.  All set upon the two brothers.  BUTLER, Scarborow’s man, comes in, stands by, sees them fight, takes part with neither.

BUT.  Do, fight.  I love you all well, because you were my old master’s sons, but I’ll neither part you, nor be partaker with you.  I come to bring my master news; he hath two sons born at a birth in Yorkshire, and I find him together by the ears with his brothers in a tavern in London.  Brother and brother at odds, ’tis naught:  sure it was not thus in the days of charity.  What’s this world like to?  Faith, just like an innkeeper’s chamber-pot, receives all waters, good and bad.  It had need of much scouring.  My old master kept a good house, and twenty or thirty tall sword-and-buckler men about him, and i’faith his son differs not much, he will have metal too; though he hath not store of cutler’s blades, he will have plenty of vintner’s pots.  His father kept a good house for honest men his tenants, that brought him in part; and his son keeps a bad house with knaves that help to consume all.  ’Tis but the change of time; why should any man repine at it?  Crickets, good, loving, and lucky worms, were wont to feed, sing, and rejoice in the father’s chimney, and now carrion crows build in the son’s kitchen.  I could be sorry for it, but I am too old to weep.  Well then, I will go tell him news of his offspring.
                          [Exit.

Enter the two brothers, THOMAS and JOHN SCARBOROW,
hurt, and SISTER.

SIS.  Alas! good brothers, how came this mischance?

THOM.  Our portions, our brother hath given us our portions, sister, hath he not?

SIS.  He would not be so monstrous, I am sure.

JOHN.  Excuse him not; he is more degenerate,
Than greedy vipers that devour their mother,
They eat on her but to preserve themselves,
And he consumes himself, and beggars us. 
A tavern is his inn, where amongst slaves
He kills his substance, making pots the graves
To bury that which our forefather’s gave. 
I ask’d him for our portions, told him that you
Were brought to London, and we were in want;
Humbly we crav’d our own; when his reply
Was, he knew none we had:  beg, starve, or die.

SIS.  Alas! 
What course is left us to live by, then?

THOM.  In troth, sister, we two to beg in the fields,
And you to betake yourself to the old trade,
Filling of small cans in the suburbs.

SIS.  Shall I be left then like a common road,
That every beast that can but pay his toll
May travel over, and, like to camomile,[396]
Flourish the better being trodden on.

    Enter BUTLER, bleeding.

BUT.  Well, I will not curse him:  he feeds now upon sack and anchovies, with a pox to him:  but if he be not fain, before he dies, to eat acorns, let me live with nothing but pollard, and my mouth be made a cucking-stool for every scold to set her tail on.