fetch a Babe out of the Parsley-bed.

But Uds-lid this is a great-surprizal; for a little while ago she said
that she was but seventh months gone of her reckoning. How then?
should she have jested upon it? or has the good woman lost her book,
and so made a false account? Yet this being the first time of her
reckoning, ought the more favourably to be passed by as long as the
Trade goes forwards.

[Illustration: Folio 116. _Published by The Navarre Society, London._]

There's now no small alarm in the Watch. Who is there that is but near
or by the hand that is not set a work! Oh, was Dorothy the Semstress,
and Jane the laundress now here, what a helping hand we might have of
them! Where are now the two Chair-women also, they were commonly every
day about the house, and now we stand in such terrible need of them,
they are not to be found? Herewith must the poor Drone, very
unexpectedly, get out of bed, almost stark naked, having hardly time
to put on his shoes and stockins; for the labour comes so pressing
upon her, that it is nothing but, hast, hast, hast, fetch the Midwife
with all possible speed, and alas, there is so many several occasions
for help, that she cannot miss her maid the twinkling of an eye;
neither dare she trust it to the Maids fetching, for fear she should
not find the Midwives house; and she hath not shewed it her, because
she made her reckoning that she had yet two months more to go.

Therefore without denial away the good man himself must to fetch the
Midwife; for who knows whether or no she would come so quick if the
maid went; nay it is a question also, being so late in the night,
whether she would come along with the maid alone, because she dwells
in a very solitary corner clearly at the t'other end of the City:
(for after a ripe deliberation of the good woman, the lot fell so that
she made choice of this grave and experienced Midwife).

Away runs the poor man without stop or stay, as if he were running for
a wager of some great concern. And though it be never so cold, the
sweat trickles down by the hair of his head, for fear he should not
find the Midwife at home; or that perhaps she might be fetcht out to
some other place, from whence she could not come. And if it should
happen so, we are all undone, for the good woman must have this
Midwife, or else she dies; neither can or dare she condescend to take
any of the other, for the reasons afore mentioned.

But what remedy? if there must come a