Doug. Talk not of dying: I am out of fear135
Of death or death's hand for this one half-year. [Exeunt.[2934]
Scene II. A public road near Coventry.[2935]
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 Co'fil' to-night.[2936]
Bard. Will you give me money, captain?
Fal. Lay out, lay out.5
Bard. This bottle makes an angel.
Fal. An if it do, take it for thy labour; and if it[2937]
make twenty, take them all; I'll answer the coinage. Bid
my lieutenant Peto meet me at town's end.[2938]
Bard. I will, captain: farewell. [Exit.10
Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused[2939]
gurnet. I have misused the king's press damnably. I have
got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred[2940]
and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders,[2941]
yeoman's sons; inquire me out contracted bachelors,[2941]15
such as had been asked twice on the banns; such a[2942]
commodity of warm slaves, as had as lieve hear the devil
as a drum; such as fear the report of a caliver worse than a[2943]
struck fowl or a hurt wild-duck. I pressed me none but[2944]
such toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger20
than pins'-heads, and they have bought out their services;[2945]
and now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals,
lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, slaves as ragged as
Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked[2946]
his sores; and such as indeed were never soldiers, but25
discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger
brothers, revolted tapsters and ostlers trade-fallen, the cankers[2947]
of a calm world and a long peace, ten times more[2948]
dishonourable ragged than an old faced ancient: and such have I, to[2949]
fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their[2950]30
services, that you would think that I had a hundred and fifty[2951]
tattered prodigals lately come from swine-keeping, from[2952]
eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way
and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed
the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll35
not march through Coventry with them, that's flat: nay,[2953]
and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had[2954]
gyves on; for indeed I had the most of them out of prison.
There's but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the[2955]
half shirt is two napkins tacked together and thrown over40
the shoulders like an herald's coat without sleeves; and the
shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Alban's,[2956]
or the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that's all one;[2957]
they'll find linen enough on every hedge.