JOAN. Like enough, Clack; I had as live[446] they as I, and a great deal rather too. You, that take toll of so many maids, shall never toll me after you. O God! what a dangerous thing it is but to peep once into love! I was never so haunted with my harvest-work as I am with love's passions. CLACK. Ay, but Joan, bear old proverbs in your memory; soft and fair; now, sir, if you make too much haste to fall foul, ay, and that upon a foul one too, there fades the flower of all Croydon. Tell me but this: is not Clack the miller as good a name as Grim the collier? JOAN. Alas! I know no difference in names To make a maid or choose or to refuse. CLACK. You were best to say, no, nor in men neither. Well, I'll be sworn I have; but I have no reason to tell you so much, that care so little for me [_aside_]: yet hark. [CLACK _speaketh in her ear_. _Enter_ GRIM _and_ PARSON SHORTHOSE. GRIM. O Master Parson, there he stands like a scarecrow, to drive me away from her that sticks as close to my heart as my shirt to my back, or my hose to my heel. O Master Parson Shorthose, Grim is but a man as another man is: colliers have but lives, as other men have. All is gone if she go from me: Grim is nobody without her. My heart is in my mouth; my mouth is in my hand; my hand threatens vengeance against the miller, as it were a beadle with a whip in his hand, triumphing o'er a beggar's back! SHO. Be silent, Grim; stand close, and see; So shall we know how all things be. GRIM. In wisdom I am appeased; but in anger I broil, as it were a rasher upon the coals. JOAN. I'll not despise the trades ye either have; Yet Grim the collier may, if he be wise, Live even as merry as the day is long; For, in my judgment, in his mean estate Consists as much content as in more wealth. GRIM. O Master Parson, write down this sweet saying of her in Grim's commendations. She hath made my heart leap like a hobby-horse! O Joan, this speech of thine will I carry with me even to my grave. SHO. Be silent, then. CLACK. Well, then, I perceive you mean to lead your life in a coalpit, like one of the devil's drudges, and have your face look like the outward side of an old iron pot or a blacking-box. GRIM. He calleth my trade into question, I cannot forbear him. SHO. Nay, then you spoil all: neighbour Grim, I warrant you, she will answer him. JOAN. What I intend, I am not bound to show To thee, nor any other but my mother, To whom in duty I submit myself: Yet this I tell thee, though my birth be mean, My honest virtuous life shall help to mend it; And if I marry any in all this life, He shall say boldly he hath an honest wife.