part, sir, I do not care; but rather, because I am unwilling, and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my friends: else, sir, I did not care for mine own part so much. Bard. Go to; stand aside. Moul. And good master corporal captain, for my old dame's sake, stand my friend: she has nobody to do anything about her, when I am gone; and she is old, and cannot help herself. forty, sir. Bard. Go to; stand aside. You shall have Fee. By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once ;—we owe God a death. I'll ne'er bear a base mind :-an 't be my destiny, so; an 't be not, So. No man's too good to serve his prince; and let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next. Bard. Well said; thou'rt a good fellow. Re-enter FALSTAFF and Justices. Fal. Come, sir, which men shall I have? Shal. Four of which you please. Bard. Sir, a word with you.-I have three pound to free Mouldy and Bull-calf. Fal. Go to; well. Shal. Come, Sir John, which four will you have? Fal. Do you choose for me. Shal. Marry, then,-Mouldy, Bull-calf, Feeble, and Shadow. Fal. Mouldy and Bull-calf: for you, Mouldy, stay at home till you are past service :—and, for your part, Bull-calf, grow till you come unto it: I will none of you. Shal. Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong: they are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best. Fal. Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man? Give me the spirit, Master Shallow.-Here's Wart ;— you see what a ragged appearance it is: 'a shall charge you, and discharge you, with the motion of a pewterer's hammer; come off, and on, swifter than he that gibbets-on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced fellow, Shadow,-give me this man: he presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife. And, for a retreat,—how swiftly will this Feeble, the woman's tailor, run off! O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones.—Put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph. So : Bard. Hold, Wart, traverse; thus, thus, thus. Fal. Come, manage me your caliver. very well-go to:-very good:-exceeding good. --O, give me always a little, lean, old, chapped, bald shot. Well said, i̇' faith, Wart: thou 'rt a good scab hold, there's a tester for thee. Shal. He is not his craft's master; he doth not do it right. I remember at Mile End Green,— when I lay at Clement's Inn,-I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show, there was a little quiver fellow, and 'a would manage you his piece thus: and 'a would about, and about, and come you in: 'rah, tah, tah,' would 'a say; 'bounce,' would 'a say; and away again would 'a go, and again would 'a come.- -I shall ne 'er see such a fellow. Fal. These fellows will do well, Master Shallow. -God keep you, Master Silence: I will not use many words with you.-Fare you well, gentlemen both I thank you: I must a dozen mile to-night. -Bardolph, give the soldiers coats. : Shal. Sir John, the Lord bless you, and God prosper your affairs! God send us peace! As you return, visit my house; let our old acquaintance be renewed: peradventure, I will with you to the court. Fal. 'Fore God, I would you would, Master Shallow. Shal. Go to; I have spoke at a word. well. Fare you Fal. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. [Exeunt SHALLOW and SILENCE.] On, Bardolph; lead the men away. [Exeunt BARDOLPH, Recruits, &c.] As I return, I will fetch off these justices: I do see the bottom of Justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about Turnbull Street; and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at Clement's Inn, like a man made after supper of a cheeseparing when he was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife; he was so forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight were invisible: 'a' was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores called him mandrake. He came ever in the rearward of the fashion, and sung those tunes to the overscutched huswives that he heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were his Fancies, or his Good-nights. men. And now is this Vice's dagger become a squire, and talks as familiarly of John o' Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him; and I'll be sworn he never saw him but once in the Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head for crowding among the marshal's I saw it, and told John o' Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have thrust him and all his apparel into an eel-skin: the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a court; and now has he land and beeves. Well, I'll be acquainted with him, if I return; and it shall go hard but I will make him a philosopher's two stones to me. If the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end. [Exit. ACT IV. SCENE I.-A Forest in Yorkshire. Enter the Archbishop of YORK, MOWBRAY, HASTINGS, and others. Arch. What is this forest called? Hast. "T is Gaultree Forest, an 't shall please your grace. |