But I be dead, so pricketh it my side.
La! how I cough and quiver when I stir! -
May I not ask some worthy officer
To speak for me, to what the bill may say?"

"Yea, certainly," this Sumner said, "ye may,
On paying--let me see--twelve pence anon.
Small profit cometh to myself thereon:
My master hath the profit, and not I.
Come--twelve pence, mother--count it speedily,
And let me ride: I may no longer tarry."

"Twelve pence!" quoth she; "now may the sweet Saint Mary
So wisely help me out of care and sin,
As in this wide world, though I sold my skin,
I could not scrape up twelve pence, for my life.
Ye know too well I am a poor old wife:
Give alms, for the Lord's sake, to me, poor wretch."

"Nay, if I quit thee then," quoth he, "devil fetch
Myself, although thou starve for it, and rot."
"Alas!" quoth she, "the pence I have 'em not."
"Pay me," quoth he, "or by the sweet Saint Anne,
I'll bear away thy staff and thy new pan
For the old debt thou ow'st me for that fee,
Which out of pocket I discharged for thee,
When thou didst make thy husband an old stag."
"Thou liest," quoth she; "so leave me never a rag,
As I was never yet, widow nor wife,
Summonsed before your court in all my life,