SCENE 1. The Rebel Camp, near SHREWSBURY.
Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER, and DOUGLAS.
Hot. Well said, my noble Scot: if speaking truth,
In this fine age, were not thought flattery,
Such attribution should the Douglas have,
As not a soldier of this season's stamp
Should go so general current through the world.
By heaven, I cannot flatter; I defy

The tongues of smoothers; but a braver place
In my heart's love, hath no man than yourself:
Nay, task me to the word; approve me, lord.
Doug. Thou art the king of honour:

No man so potent breathes upon the ground,
But I will beard him.

Hot.

Do so,

and 'tis well:

Enter a Messenger, with Letters.

What letters hast thou there?-I can but thank you. Mess. These letters come from your father,

Hot. Letters from him! why comes he not himself? Mess. He cannot come, my ford; he's grievous sick. Hot. Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick, In such a justling time? Who leads his power? Under whose government come they along?

Mess. His letters bear his mind, not I, my lord. Wor. I pr'ythee, tell me, doth he keep his bed? Mess. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth; And at the time of my departure thence,

He was much fear'd by his physicians.

Wor. I would, the state of time had first been whole, Ere he by sickness had been visited;

His health was never better worth than now.

Hot. Sick now! droop now! this sickness doth infect The very life-blood of our enterprise;

'Tis catching hither, even to our camp.-
He writes me here,-that inward sickness-
And that his friends by deputation could not
So soon be drawn; nor did he think it meet,
To lay so dangerous and dear a trust

On any soul remov'd, but on his own.
Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,-
That with our small conjunction, we should on,
To see how fortune is dispos'd to us:
For, as he writes, there is no quailing now;
Because the king is certainly possess'd
Of all our purposes. What say you to it?
Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us.
Hot. A perilous gash, a very limb lopp'd off':-
And yet, in faith, 'tis not; his present want
Seems more than we shall find it :-Were it good,
To set the exact wealth of all our states

All at one cast? to set so rich a main
On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?
It were not good: for therein should we read
The very bottom and the soul of hope;
The very list, the very utmost bound

Of all our fortunes.

Doug.

'Faith, and so we should;

Where now remains a sweet reversion:

We may boldly spend upon the hope of what
Is to come in:

A comfort of retirement lives in this.

Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, If that the devil and mischance look big Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.

Wor. But yet, I would your father had been here; The quality and hair of our attempt

Brooks no division: It will be thought
By some, that know not why he is away,
That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike
Of our proceedings, kept the earl from hence;
And think, how such an apprehension
May turn the tide of fearful faction,
And breed a kind of question in our cause:
For, well you know, we of the offering side
Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement;
And stop all sight-holes, every loop, from whence
The eye of reason may pry in upon us :
This absence of your father's draws a curtain,
That shows the ignorant a kind of fear
Before not dreamt of.

Hot.

You strain too far.

I, rather, of his absence make this use ;-
It lends a lustre, and more great opinion,
A larger dare to our great enterprise,

Than if the earl were here: for men must think,
If we without his help, can make a head
To push against the kingdom; with his help,
We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.-
Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.

Doug. As heart can think: there is not such a word Spoke of in Scotland, as this term of fear.

Enter SIR RICHARD VERNON.

Hot. My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul. Ver. Pray God, my news be worth a welcome, lord. The earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong, Is marching hitherwards; with him, prince John. Hot. No harm: What more?

Ver

And further, I have learn❜d,—

The king himself in person is set forth,
Or hitherwards intended speedily,
With strong and mighty preparation.
Hot. He shall be welcome too.
Where is his son,
The nimble-footed mad-cap prince of Wales,
And his comrades, that daff'd the world aside,
And bid it pass?

Ver.
All furnish'd, all in arms,
All plum'd like estridges that wing the wind;
Bated like eagles having lately bath'd;
Glittering in golden coats, like images;
As full of spirit as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,-
Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into bis seat,
As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,

And witch the world with noble horsemanship.

Hot. No more, no more; worse than the sun in March,
This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come;
They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-ey'd maid of smoky war,
All hot, and bleeding, will we offer them:
The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit,
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire,
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,

And yet not ours:-Come, let me take my horse,
Who is to bear me, like a thunderbolt,

Against the bosom of the prince of Wales:

Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,

Meet, and ne'er part, till one drop down a corse.—
O, that Glendower were come!

Ver.

There is more news:

I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along,

He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.

Doug. That's the worst tidings that I hear of yet.

E

Wor. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.
Hot. What may the king's whole battle reach unto?
Ver. To thirty thousand.

Hot.
Forty let it be;
My father and Glendower being both away,
The powers of us may serve so great a day.
Come, let us make a muster speedily:
Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.

Doug. Talk not of dying; I am out of fear
Of death, or death's hand, for this one half year.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. A public Road near COVENTRY.

Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH.

Fal. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack: our soldiers shall march through; we'll to Sutton-Colfield to-night.

Bard. Will you give me money, captain?

Fal. Lay out, lay out.

Bard. This bottle makes an angel.

Fal. An if it do, take it for thy labour; and if it make twenty, take them all, I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end. Bard. I will, captain: farewell. [Exit. Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a souced gurnet. I have misused the king's press damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeomen's sons: inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the banns; such a commodity of warm slaves, as had as lief hear the devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a caliver, worse than a struck fowl, or a hurt wild-duck. I pressed me none but such toasts and butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glut