tattered prodigals lately come from
swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad
fellow met me on the way and told me I had unloaded
all the gibbets and pressed the dead bodies. No eye
hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through
Coventry with them, that's flat: nay, and the
villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had
gyves on; for indeed I had the most of them out of
prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my
company; and the half shirt is two napkins tacked
together and thrown over the shoulders like an
herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say
the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Alban's, or
the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that's all
one; they'll find linen enough on every hedge.
How now, blown Jack! how now, quilt!
What, Hal! how now, mad wag! what a devil dost thou
in Warwickshire? My good Lord of Westmoreland, I
cry you mercy: I thought your honour had already been
at Shrewsbury.
Faith, Sir John,'tis more than time that I were
there, and you too; but my powers are there already.
The king, I can tell you, looks for us all: we must
away all night.
Tut, never fear me: I am as vigilant as a cat to
steal cream.
I think, to steal cream indeed, for thy theft hath
already made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose
fellows are these that come after?
Mine, Hal, mine.
I did never see such pitiful rascals.
Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food
for powder; they'll fill a pit as well as better:
tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.
Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor
and bare, too beggarly.
'Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had
that; and for their bareness, I am sure they never
learned that of me.
No I'll be sworn; unless you call three fingers on
the ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste: Percy is
already in the field.
What, is the king encamped?
He is, Sir John: I fear we shall stay too long.
Well,
To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast
Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.
We'll fight with him to-night.
It may not be.
You give him then the advantage.
Not a whit.
Why say you so? looks he not for supply?
So do we.
His is certain, ours is