Fal. What thing? why, a thing to thank God on.

Host. I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou should'st know it: I am an honest man's wife; and, setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so.

Fal. Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.

Host. Say, what beast, thou knave thou?
Fal. What beast? why an otter..

P. Hen. An otter, Sir John: why an otter?

Fal. Why? she's neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her.

Host. Thou art an unjust man in saying so: thou or any man knows where to have me, thou knave thou!

P. Hen. Thou sayest true, hostess; and he slanders thee most grossly.

Host. So he doth you, my lord; and said this other day, you ought him a thousand pound.

P. Hen. Sirrah! do I owe you a thousand pound?

Fal. A thousand pound, Hal! a million: thy love is worth a million; thou owest me thy love.

Host. Nay, my lord, he called you Jack, and said he would cudgel you.

Fal. Did I, Bardolph?

Bard. Indeed, Sir John, you said so.

Fal. Yea; if he said my ring was copper.

P. Hen. I say, 't is copper: darest thou be as good as thy word now?

Fal. Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare; but as thou art prince, I fear thee, as I fear the roaring of the lion's whelp.

P. Hen: And why not, as the lion.

Fal. The king himself is to be feared as the lion. Dost thou think, I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? nay, an I do, I pray God, my girdle break!

P. Hen. O! if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees! But, sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth, nor honesty, in this bosom of thine; it is filled up with guts and midriff. Charge

an honest woman with picking thy pocket! Why, thou whoreson, impudent, embossed rascal, if there were any thing in thy pocket but tavern reckonings, memorandums of bawdy-houses, and one poor penny-worth of sugar-candy to make thee long winded; if thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries but these, I am a villain: and yet you will stand to it; you will not pocket up wrong. Art thou not ashamed?

Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? thou knowest in the state of innocency, Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do, in the days of villainy? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty. You confess, then, you picked my pocket?

P. Hen. It appears so by the story.

Fal. Hostess, I forgive thee. Go, make ready breakfast; love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests: thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason: thou seest, I am pacified. - Still? — Nay, pr'ythee, begone. [Exit Hostess.] Now, Hal, to the news at court: for the robbery, lad, how is that answered?

P. Hen. O! my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee. The money is paid back again.

Fal. O! I do not like that paying back; 't is a double labour. P. Hen. I am good friends with my father, and may do any thing.

Fal. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou dost, and do it with unwashed hands too.

Bard. Do, my lord.

P. Hen. I have procured thee, Jack, Fal. I would, it had been of horse. that can steal well? O! for a fine thief,

a charge of foot.
Where shall I find one
of the age of two-and-

twenty, or thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for these rebels; they offend none but the virtuous: I laud them, I praise them.

P. Hen. Bardolph!

Bard. My lord.

P. Hen.

Go bear this letter to lord John of Lancaster,

To my brother John; this to my lord of Westmoreland.

Go, Poins, to horse, to horse! for thou, and I,
Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.
Jack, meet me to-morrow in the Temple-hall
At two o'clock in the afternoon:

There shalt thou know thy charge; and there receive
Money, and order for their furniture.

The land is burning, Percy stands on high,
And either they, or we, must lower lie.

[Exeunt Prince, POINS, and BARDOLPH. - Hostess, my breakfast;

Fal. Rare words! brave world!

come.

O! I could wish, this tavern were my drum.

The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury.

Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER, and DOUGLAS.

Hot. Well said, my noble Scot: if speaking truth, In this fine age were not thought flattery,

Such attribution should the Douglas have,

As not a soldier of this season's stamp

Should go so general current through the world.
By God, I cannot flatter: I defy

The tongues of soothers; but a braver place
In my heart's love hath no man than yourself.
Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.
Doug. Thou art the king of honour:
No man so potent breathes upon the ground,
But I will beard him.

Enter a Messenger, with Letters.

What letters hast thou there? - I can but thank you.

Mess. These letters come from your father.
Hot. Letters from him! why comes he not himself?
Mess. He cannot come, my lord: he's grievous sick.

[Exit.

Hot. 'Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick, In such a justling time? Who leads his power? Under whose government come they along?

Mess. His letters bear his mind, not I, my lord. Wor. I pr'ythee, tell me, doth he keep his bed? Mess. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth; And at the time of my departure thence,

He was much fear'd by his physicians.

Wor. I would the state of time had first been whole, Ere he by sickness had been visited:

His health was never better worth than now.

Hot. Sick now! droop now! this sickness doth infect The very life-blood of our enterprize:

'Tis catching hither, even to our camp.
He writes me here, that inward sickness.
And that his friends by deputation could not
So soon be drawn; nor did he think it meet,
To lay so dangerous and dear a trust
On any soul remov'd, but on his own.
Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,
That with our small conjunction we should on,
To see how fortune is dispos'd to us;
For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,
Because the king is certainly possess'd
Of all our purposes. What say you to it?

Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us.
Hot. A perilous gash, a very limb lopp'd off:
And yet, in faith, 't is not; his present want
Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good,
To set the exact wealth of all our states
All at one cast? to set so rich a main
On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?
It were not good; for therein should we read
The very bottom and the soul of hope,

The very list, the very utmost bound
Of all our fortunes.

Doug.

'Faith, and so we should,

Where now remains a sweet reversion:
We may boldly spend upon the hope
Of what is to come in:

A comfort of retirement lives in this.

Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, If that the devil and mischance look big

Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.

Wor. But yet, I would your father had been here. The quality and hair of our attempt

Brooks no division: it will be thought

By some, that know not why he is away,
That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike
Of our proceedings, kept the earl from hence.
And think, how such an apprehension
May turn the tide of fearful faction,

And breed a kind of question in our cause :
For, well you know, we of the offering side
Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement,
And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence
The eye of reason may pry in upon us.

This absence of your father's draws a curtain,
That shows the ignorant a kind of fear

Before not dreamt of.

I, rather, of his absence make this use:

It lends a lustre, and more great opinion,
A larger dare to our great enterprize,

Than if the earl were here: for men must think,
If we, without his help, can make a head
To push against the kingdom, with his help,
We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.

Yet all goes well; yet all our joints are whole.

Doug. As heart can think: there is not such a word Spoke of in Scotland as this term of fear.

Enter Sir RICHARD VERNON.

Hot. My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul.