The Merry Devil eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 49 pages of information about The Merry Devil.

The Merry Devil eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 49 pages of information about The Merry Devil.

[Enter Host.]

Host. Ha, my Castilian dialogues! and art thou in breath still, boy?  Miller, doth the match hold?  Smith, I see by thy eyes thou hast been reading little Geneva print:  but wend we merrily to the forest, to steal some of the king’s Deer.  I’ll meet you at the time appointed:  away, I have Knights and Colonels at my house, and must tend the Hungarions.  If we be scard in the forest, we’ll meet in the Church-porch at Enfield; ist Correspondent?

Banks
Tis well; but how, if any of us should be taken?

Smith
He shall have ransom, by the Lord.

Host. Tush, the knave keepers are my bosonians and my pensioners.  Nine a clock! be valiant, my little Gogmagogs; I’ll fence with all the Justices in Hartford shire.  I’ll have a Buck till I die; I’ll slay a Doe while I live; hold your bow straight and steady.  I serve the good duke of Norfolk.

Smug
O rare! who, ho, ho, boy!

Sir John.  Peace, neighbor Smug.  You see this is a Boor, a Boor of the country, an illiterate Boor, and yet the Citizen of good fellows:  come, let’s provide; a hem, Grass and hay! we are not yet all mortall; we’ll live till we die, and be merry, and there’s an end.  Come, Smug1

Smug
Good night, Waltham—­who, ho, ho, boy!

[Exeunt.]

Scene II.  The George Inn.

[Enter the Knights and Gentlemen from breakfast again.]

Old MOUNTCHESNEY. 
Nor I for thee, Clare, not of this. 
What? hast thou fed me all this while with shalles. 
And com’st to tell me now, thou lik’st it not?

Clare
I do not hold thy offer competent;
Nor do I like th’ assurance of thy Land,
The title is so brangled with thy debts.

Old MOUNTCHESNEY. 
Too good for thee; and, knight, thou knowst it well,
I fawnd not on thee for thy goods, not I;
Twas thine own motion; that thy wife doth know.

Lady
Husband, it was so; he lies not in that.

Clare
Hold thy chat, queane.

Old MOUNTCHESNEY. 
To which I hearkned willingly, and the rather,
Because I was persuaded it proceeded
From love thou bor’st to me and to my boy;
And gav’st him free access unto thy house,
Here he hath not behaved him to thy child,
But as befits a gentleman to do: 
Nor is my poor distressed state so low,
That I’ll shut up my doors, I warrant thee.

Clare
Let it suffice, Mountchensey, I mislike it;
Nor think thy son a match fit for my child.

Mountchensey
I tell thee, Clare, his blood is good and clear
As the best drop that panteth in thy veins: 
But for this maid, thy fair and vertuous child,
She is no more disparaged by thy baseness
Then the most orient and the pretious jewell,
Which still retains his lustre and his beauty,
Although a slave were owner of the same.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Merry Devil from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.