WID. Yes, faith, if it be but to bury my servant Sad; for he cannot last above another fall. And how, think you, will your servant take it? PLEA. Mine! O, God help me, mine's a healthy fool. I would he were subject to pine, and take things unkindly: there were some hope to be rid of him; for I'll undertake to use him as ill as anybody. WID. As I live, I am easily resolved: for if I would marry, I know neither who nor what humour to choose. SEC. By my troth, madam, you are hard to please, else the courtier might have served turn. WID. Serve turn! Prythee, what haste, Secret, that I should put myself to bed with one I might make a shift with? When I marry, thou shalt cry, _Ay marry, madam, this is a husband!_ without blushing, wench, and none of your so-so husbands. Yet he might have[203] overcome my aversion, I confess. PLEA. Overcome! I think so: he might have won a city his way; for when he saw you were resolved he should not eat with you, he would set himself down as if he meant to besiege us, and had vowed never to rise till he had taken us in; and because our sex forbad force, he meant to do it by famine. Yet you may stay, and miss a better market; for, hang me, I am of Secret's opinion, he had but two faults--a handsome fellow, and too soon denied. WID. 'Tis true, he was a handsome fellow, and a civil, that I shall report him; for as soon as it was given him to understand I desired he would come no more, I never saw him since, but by chance. PLEA. Why did you forbid him? WID. There were divers exceptions; but that which angered me then was, he came with the king's letters patents, as if he had been to take up a wife for his majesty's use. PLEA. Alas! was that all? Why, 'tis their way at court, a common course among them. And was it not one the king had a great care of? When my mother was alive, I had such a packet from the court: directed unto me: I bid them pay the post, and make the fellow drink; which he took as ill as I could wish, and has been ever since such a friendly enemy---- WID. Nay, as I live, she was for the captain too: his scarf and feather won her heart. SEC. Truly, madam, never flatter yourself; for the gentleman did not like you so well as to put you to the trouble of saying no. PLEA. Lord, how I hated and dreaded that scarf and buff-coat! SEC. Why, Mistress Pleasant, a captain is an honourable charge. WID. Prythee, Secret, name them no more. Colonel and captain, commissioner, free-quarters, ordnance and contribution. When Buff utters these words, I tremble and dread the sound: it frights me still when I do but think on them. Cud's body, they're twigs of the old rod, wench, that whipped us so lately.