Anne. The dinner is on the table; my father desires your worships' company. Shal. I will wait on him, fair mistress Anne. Evans. Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace. [Exeunt Shallow and Sir H. Evans. Anne. Will 't please your worship to come in, sir? Slen. No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well. Anne. The dinner attends you, sir. Slen. I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. -Go, sirrah, for all you are my man, go, wait upon my cousin Shallow. [Exit Simple.] A justice of peace sometime may be beholden to his friend for a man :-I keep but three men and a boy yet, till my mother be dead. But what though? yet I live like a poor gentleman born. Anne. I may not go in without your worship: they will not sit, till you come. Slen. I'faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as though I did. Anne. I pray you, sir, walk in. 1 Slen. I had rather walk here, I thank you: I bruised my shin the other day with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence, (three veneys 1 for a dish of stewed prunes) and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your dogs bark so? be there bears i' the town? Three bouts or hits: a technical term. Anne. I think, there are, sir; I heard them talked of. Slen. I love the sport well; but I shall as soon quarrel at it as any man in England.-You are afraid, if you see the bear loose, are you not? Anne. Ay, indeed, sir. Slen. That's meat and drink to me now: I have seen Sackerson 1 loose twenty times; and have taken him by the chain: but, I warrant you, the women have so cried and shrieked at it, that it passed: -but women, indeed, cannot abide 'em ; they are very ill-favored rough things. Re-enter PAGE. Page. Come, gentle master Slender, come; we stay for you. Slen. I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir. Page. By cock and pye,3 you shall not choose, sir: come, come. Slen. Nay, pray you, lead the way. Page. Come on, sir. Slen. Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first. Anne. Not I, sir; pray you, keep on. Slen. Truly, I will not go first; truly, la: I will not do you that wrong. 1 The name of a bear, exhibited, in our author's time, at Paris Garden, in Southwark. 2 It surpassed all description. 3 A popular adjuration. |