LACY

O, ick verstaw yow: Ick moet een halve dossen cans betaelen.

Here, boy, nempt dis skilling, tap eens freelicke.

EYRE

Quick, snipper-snapper, away! Firk, scour thy throat; thou shalt

wash it with Castilian liquor. [ Calls] Come, my last of the fives,

give me a can. Have to thee, Hans! Here, Hodge; here, Firk;

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drink, you mad Greeks, and work like true Trojans, and pray for

Simon Eyre the shoemaker. Here, Hans; and thou’rt welcome.

FIRK

Lo, dame, you would have lost a good fellow that will teach us

to laugh. This beer came hopping in well.

MARGERY

Simon, it is almost seven.

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EYRE

Is’t so, Dame Clapperdudgeon? Is’t seven o’clock and my men’s

breakfast not ready? Trip and go, you soused conger, away!

Come, you mad Hyperboreans; follow me, Hodge; follow me,

Hans; come after, my fine Firk – to work, to work a while, and

then to breakfast. Exit

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FIRK

Soft, yaw, yaw, good Hans. Though my master have no more

wit but to call you afore me, I am not so foolish to go behind

you, I being the elder journeyman.

HAMMON

Cousin, beat every brake. The game’s not far.

This way with winged feet he fled from death

Whilst the pursuing hounds, scenting his steps,

Find out his highway to destruction.

Besides, the miller’s boy told me even now

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He saw him take soil, and he hallooed him,

Affirming him so embossed

That long he could not hold.

WARNER If it be so,

’Tis best we trace these meadows by Old Ford.

HAMMON

How now, boy, where’s the deer? Speak, saw’st thou him?

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BOY

O yea, I saw him leap through a hedge, and then over a ditch,

then at my Lord Mayor’s pale. Over he skipped me, and in he

went me, and ‘holla’ the hunters cried, and ‘there

boy, there boy’. But there he is, ‘a mine honesty.

HAMMON

Boy, godamercy. Cousin, let’s away.

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I hope we shall find better sport today.

ROSE

Why, Sybil, wilt thou prove a forester?

SYBIL

Upon some, no! Forester, go by. No, faith, mistress, the deer

came running into the barn through the orchard, and over the

pale. I wot well I looked as pale as a new cheese to see him, but

’whip!’ says Goodman Pinclose, up with his flail, and our Nick

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with a prong, and down he fell, and they upon him, and I upon

them. By my troth, we had such sport! And in the end we ended

him, his throat we cut, flayed him, unhorned him, and my Lord

Mayor shall eat of him anon when he comes.

ROSE

Hark, hark, the hunters come. You’re best take heed.

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They’ll have a saying to you for this deed.