Enter [severally] HODGE and BOY.
HOD. Who's there? boy! honest boy, well-met: where hast thou been?
BOY. O Hodge, Dick Coomes hath been as good as a cry of hounds, to make a breath'd[400] hare of me! but didst thou see my master?
HOD. I met him even now, and he ask'd me for thee, and he is gone up and down, whooing like[401] an owl for thee.
BOY. Owl, ye ass!
HOD. Ass! no, nor glass, for then it had been Owlglass[402]: but who's that, boy?
BOY. By the mass, 'tis our Coomes and Nicholas; and it seems they are providing to fight.
HOD. Then we shall have fine sport, i'faith. Sirrah, let's stand close, and when they have fought a bout or two, we'll run away with the torch, and leave them to fight darkling, shall we?
BOY. Content; I'll get the torch: stand close.
COOMES. So now my back hath room to reach: I do not love to be lac'd in, when I go to lace a rascal. I pray God, Nicholas prove not a fly:[403] it would do me good to deal with a good man now, that we might have half-a-dozen good smart strokes. Ha, I have seen the day I could have danc'd in my fight, one, two, three, four, and five, on the head of him; six, seven, eight, nine, and ten on the sides of him; and, if I went so far as fifteen, I warrant I shewed[404] him a trick of one-and-twenty; but I have not fought this four days, and I lack a little practice of my ward; but I shall make a shift: ha, close [Aside]. —Are ye disposed, sir?