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.

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 enterprize,
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.

4 The complexion, the character.

Ver. Pray Heaven, 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 madcap prince of Wales, And his comrades, that daff'd the world aside, And bid it pass?

Ver.

6

5

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 his seat,
As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,

8

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,

5 Threw contemptuously.
7 Fresh.

6 Ostriches.

8 Armour for the thighs.

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.
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 Publick 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.

VOL. V.

[Exit.

Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a souced gurnet. I have misused the king's press vilely. 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 bans; 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 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, and such as, indeed, were never soldiers, but discarded, unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a calm world, and a long peace; ten times more dishonourably ragged than an old faced ancient and such have I to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their services. 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 scare-crows. 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 a herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Alban's, or the rednose inn-keeper of Daintry. But that's all one; they'll find linen enough on every hedge.

I Standard.

2 Fetters.

9 A musket.
• Daventry, pronounced Daintry.

2

Enter Prince HENRY and WESTMORELAND.

P. Hen. How now, blown Jack? how now, quilt? Fal. 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.

West. '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.

Fal. Tut, never fear me; I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.

P. Hen. 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? Fal. Mine, Hal, mine.

P. Hen. I did never see such pitiful rascals.

Fal. 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. West. Ay, but, sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare; too beggarly.

Fal. 'Faith, for their poverty, - I know not where they had that: and for their bareness, I am sure they never learned that of me.

P. Hen. No, I'll be sworn; unless you call three fingers on the ribs, bare. But, sirrah, make haste; Percy is already in the field.

Fal. What, is the king encamped?

West. He is, sir John; I fear, we shall stay too long.

Fal. Well,

To the latter end of a fray, and the beginning of a

feast,

Fits a dull fighter, and a keen guest.

[Exeunt.