In December three, the 6th, 8th, and 9th.
Observe my Rules of all these days,
And then you will your Fortunes raise.
This said, old Mother Bunch gave them a cup of her cordial water, and so dismiss’d them, the young Damsels returning her hearty thanks for her motherly advice.
After Mother Bunch had dined, the young men came, as Tom the Miller, Ralph the Thatcher, and Robin the Ploughman, with a great many of other trades and callings, whom Mother Bunch invited to sit down, that so she might the better deliver her salutary counsel to them.
And first, she begins with Tom the Miller, saying, Ah, Tom, thou art a sad fellow, there’s not a maid comes to the mill but you will be bobbing under their aprons; but take my word for it, if you don’t leave off, you’ll be ruined. What woman will have such a one? She may justly conclude, you will be caterwauling still. You know what I mean Tom. Yes, yes, mother, but sure you don’t take me for such a one. Yes Tom, I do, and I am but seldom mistaken; ’tis you millers that fill the country with crack’d maidenheads, that the honest husbandman already finds the ground till’d up. But farewell, I will have nothing to do with such as you.
Then turning to Ralph the Thatcher, she said, I find you are desirous of a wife, and your ambition is such, she must be rich, young and beautiful. So you can’t be content with honest Joan, to whom you promis’d marriage, but must change her for a finikin madam; but I can tell you she won’t stand picking of straws with you; her fair face will find her many friends in a corner; and so you may chance to be a cuckold, and indeed but justly served in your kind; and therefore I pray you to return to your old lover, for she is an honest girl, and therefore far more fit for you than such a butterfly as you have lately followed.
Then she stretched forth her hand to Robin the Plowman, saying, Thou art an honest fellow, and good luck will attend thee; I don’t mean bags of gold nor heaps of silver, but thou shalt have an industrious wife, one who will be willing to labour, a true and faithful yokemate, who will be a chearful partner in thy weal or woe, to support thee under thy troubles, as the Poet has it,
The Burden may be borne by two, with care,
Which is, perhaps, too much for one to bear.