Enter a Messenger, with Letters. AVhat 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 Lord; 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, 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. The very life-blood of our enterprize; To see how fortune is dispos'd to us! For; as he writes, there is no quailing now; 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 Doug. 'Faith, and so we should; Where now remains a sweet reversion; 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, And stop all sight-holes, every loop, from whence Hot. You strain too far. I, rather, of his. absence make this use; Than if the Earl were here: for men must think, 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 cousiu 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 harin: What more? Ver. And further, I have learn'd, The King himself in person is set forth, 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 And bid it pass? Ver. All furnish'd, all in arms, All plum'd like estridges, that wing the wind; His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,· This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come; And yet not ours: -Come, let me take my horse, Ver. There it more news: I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along, Wor. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound. Hot. What may the King's whole battle reach Ver. To thirty thousand. Hot. Forty let it be; unto? My father and Glendower being both away, 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 inakes 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 |