HENRY THE FOURTH PART 1

Act 4 Scene 2

(Enter Sir John Oldcastle and Russell)
l1l	Sir John	 Russell, get thee before to Coventry# fill me a
l2l		bottle of sack. Our soldiers shall march through. We’ll
l3l		to Sutton Coldfield tonight.
l4l	Russell	Will you give me money, captain?
l5l	Sir John	Lay out, lay out.
l6l	Russell	This bottle makes an angel.
l7l	Sir John	(giving Russell money)
		 An if it do, take it for thy
l8l		labour# an if it make twenty, take them all# I’ll answer
l9l		the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Harvey meet me at
l10l		town’s end.
l11l	Russell	I will, captain. Farewell.
		(Exit)
l12l	Sir John	 If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused
l13l		gurnet. I have misused the King’s press damnably. I
l14l		have got in exchange of one hundred and fifty soldiers
l15l		three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but
l16l		good householders, yeomen’s sons, enquire me out
l17l		contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on
l18l		the banns, such a commodity of warm slaves as had
l19l		as lief hear the devil as a drum, such as fear the report
l20l		of a caliver worse than a struck fowl or a hurt wild
l21l		duck. I pressed me none but such toasts and butter,
l22l		with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins’ heads,
l23l		and they have bought out their services# and now my
l24l		whole charge consists of ensigns, corporals, lieutenants,
l25l		gentlemen of companies—slaves as ragged as Lazarus
l26l		in the painted cloth, where the glutton’s dogs licked
l27l		his sores—and such as indeed were never soldiers, but
l28l		discarded unjust servingmen, younger sons to younger
l29l		brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen, the
l30l		cankers of a calm world and a long peace, ten times
l31l		more dishonourable-ragged than an old feazed ensign#
l32l		and such have I to fill up the rooms of them as have
l33l		bought out their services, that you would think that I
l34l		had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals lately come
l35l		from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A
l36l		mad fellow met me on the way and told me I had
l37l		unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the dead bodies.
l38l		No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I’ll not march
l39l		through Coventry with them, that’s flat. Nay, and the
l40l		villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had
l41l		gyves on, for indeed I had the most of them out of
l42l		prison. There’s not a shirt and a half in all my company#
l43l		and the half-shirt is two napkins tacked together and
l44l		thrown over the shoulders like a herald’s coat without
l45l		sleeves# and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my
l46l		host at Saint Albans, or the red-nose innkeeper of
l47l		Daventry. But that’s all one# they’ll find linen enough
l48l		on every hedge.
		(Enter Prince Harry and the Earl of Westmorland)
l49l	Prince Harry	 How now, blown Jack? How now, quilt?
l50l	Sir John	What, Hal! How now, mad wag? What a devil
l51l		dost thou in Warwickshire? My good lord of
l52l		Westmorland, I cry you mercy! I thought your honour
l53l		had already been at Shrewsbury.
l54l	Westmorland	Faith, Sir John, ’tis more than time that I
l55l		were there, and you too# but my powers are there
l56l		already. The King, I can tell you, looks for us all. We
l57l		must away all night.
l58l	Sir John	Tut, never fear me. I am as vigilant as a cat to
l59l		steal cream.
l60l	Prince Harry	I think to steal cream indeed, for thy theft
l61l		hath already made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose
l62l		fellows are these that come after?
l63l	Sir John	Mine, Hal, mine.
l64l	Prince Harry	I did never see such pitiful rascals.
l65l	Sir John	Tut, tut, good enough to toss, food for powder,
l66l		food for powder. They’ll fill a pit as well as better. Tush,
l67l		man, mortal men, mortal men.
l68l	Westmorland	Ay, but Sir John, methinks they are
l69l		exceeding poor and bare, too beggarly.
l70l	Sir John	Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they
l71l		had that, and for their bareness, I am sure they never
l72l		learned that of me.
l73l	Prince Harry	No, I’ll be sworn, unless you call three
l74l		fingers in the ribs bare. But sirrah, make haste. Percy
l75l		is already in the field.
		(Exit)
l76l	Sir John	 What, is the King encamped?
l77l	Westmorland	He is, Sir John. I fear we shall stay too
l78l		long.
		(Exit)
l79l	Sir John	 Well, to the latter end of a fray
l80l		And the beginning of a feast
l81l		Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.
		(Exit)