Cit. If I could but see Ralph again, I were as merry as mine Host i'faith.
[Hum.] The cause you seem to ask, I thus declare;
Help me oh Muses nine, your Daughter sware
A foolish oath, the more it was the pity:
Yet none but my self within this City
Shall dare to say so, but a bold defiance
Shall meet him, were he of the noble Science.
And yet she sware, and yet why did she swear?
Truly I cannot tell, unless it were
For her own ease: for sure sometimes an oath,
Being sworn thereafter, is like cordial broth.
And this it was, she swore never to marry,
But such a one whose mighty arm could carry
(As meaning me, for I am such a one)
Her bodily away through stick and stone,
Till both of us arrive at her request,
Some ten miles off in the wide Waltham Forrest.
Merch. If this be all, you shall not need to fear
Any denial in your love, proceed,
I'll neither follow, nor repent the deed.
Hum. Good night, twenty good nights, and twenty more,
And twenty more good nights, that makes threescore. [Exeunt.
Enter Mistriss Merry-thought, and her Son Michael.
Mist. Mer. Come Michael, art thou not weary Boy?
Mich. No forsooth Mother not I.
Mist. Mer. Where be we now child?
Mich. Indeed forsooth Mother I cannot tell, unless we be at Mile-end, is not all the world Mile-end, Mother?
Mist. Mer. No Michael, not all the world boy; but I can assure thee Michael, Mile-end is a goodly matter, there has been a pitcht field my child, between the naughty Spaniels, and the Englishmen, and the Spaniels ran away Michael, and the Englishmen followed: my neighbor Coxstone was there boy, and kill'd them all with a birding-piece.