Bar. Faith, I ran when I saw others run. P. Hen. Tell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff's sword so hacked? Peto. Why, he hacked it with his dagger; and said, he would swear truth out of England, but he would make you believe it was done in fight; and persuaded us to do the like. Bar. Yea, and to tickle our noses with speargrass, to make them bleed; and then to beslubber our garments with it, and to swear it was the blood of true men. I did that I did not this seven year before; I blushed to hear his monstrous devices. P. Hen. O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner,1 and ever since thou hast blushed extempore. Thou hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou ran'st away: what instinct hadst thou for it? Bar. My lord, do you see these meteors? do you behold these exhalations? P. Hen. I do. Bar. What think you they portend? Re-enter FALSTAFF. Here comes lean Jack, here comes bare-bone. How 1 in the fact. 2 Drunkenness and poverty. now, my sweet creature of bombast? 1 How long is 't ago, Jack, since thou sawest thine own knee? Fal. My own knee? when I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle's talon in the waist; I could have crept into any alderman's thumb-ring. A plague of sighing and grief! it blows a man up like a bladder. There's villanous news abroad: here was sir John Bracy from your father; you must to the court in the morning. That same mad fellow of the north, Percy; and he of Wales, that gave Amaimon 2 the bastinado, and made Lucifer cuckold, and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook;-What, a plague, call you him? Poins. O, Glendower. Fal. Owen, Owen; the same; and his son-inlaw, Mortimer; and old Northumberland; and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs o' horseback up a hill perpendicular. P. Hen. He that rides at high speed, and with his pistol kills a sparrow flying. Fal. You have hit it. P. Hen. So did he never the sparrow. Fal. Well, that rascal hath good metal in him ; he will not run. P. Hen. Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so for running! 1 Bombast is the stuffing of clothes. 2 One of the ruling dæmons. Fal. O' horseback, ye cuckoo! but, afoot, he will not budge a foot. P. Hen. Yes, Jack, upon instinct. Fal. I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps 1 more. Worcester is stolen away to-night: thy father's beard is turned white with the news: you may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel. P. Hen. Why then, 'tis like, if there come a hot June, and this civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads as they buy hobnails, by the hundreds. Fal. By the mass, lad, thou sayest true; it is like, we shall have good trading that way. But, tell me, Hal, art thou not horribly afeard? thou being heir apparent, could the world pick thee out three such enemies again, as that fiend Douglas, that spirit Percy, and that devil Glendower? Art thou not horribly afraid? doth not thy blood thrill at it? P. Hen. Not a whit, i' faith; I lack some of thy instinct. Fal. Well, thou wilt be horribly chid to-morrow, when thou comest to thy father: if thou love me, practise an answer. P. Hen. Do thou stand for my father, and examine me upon the particulars of my life. Fal. Shall I content. This chair shall be my 1 Scotsmen in blue bonnets. |