Dan. (turns). Remember, Geoffrey, thou’st promised.
[Exit.
Geof. In truth I am in a sore strait; for Sir Jasper is a man of proud blood, who would laugh to scorn such humble love as mine. And oh, Dorothy, if thou art taken from me, why, my life may go too! And if I cannot yield thee up, how can I ask him to do so! Oh, Dan’l Druce, Dan’l Druce, my heart is with thine in this thing, and I’ll keep thy secret, never fear!
Enter Reuben.
Reu. Why, whom have we here in Dorothy’s house? A whelp—a very whelp, cur, or puppy, to be beckoned to, whistled to, frowned at, scowled at, whipped with whips, beaten with sticks, and slapped with the flat of hand!
Geof. Your servant, sir. Who are you?
Reu. Why, sir, I am an old horse-soldier, and yet not so very old neither but that I can wield quarter-staff or give the Cornish fling as well as another. No mere trooper neither, but a sergeant of horse, if you please; and one that hath cut his way through war’s intestine, as a hot knife cuts butter. One who has so snicked, chipped, chopped, slashed, cut, drilled, and carbonaded, with sword, with pistolet, with mace, with arquebus, with petronel, and with what-not, that he’d make no more of passing a rapier through that boy’s body of thine than of spitting a penny herring. And now, sir, who are you?
Geof. Why, sir, I am a sailor, and I hate brag.
Reu. Come, come, civil words, young master, lest we quarrel; and when I quarrel, sextons lay in tolling grease and grave-diggers strip to their work. Dost thou know this Dan’l Druce?
Geof. I do.