_Ferryman._ Fie, what a mist is here! _Arden._ This mist, my friend, is mystical, Like to a good companion’s smoky brain, That was half drowned with new ale overnight. _Ferryman._ ’Twere pity but his skull were opened to make more chimney room. 10 _Franklin._ Friend, what’s thy opinion of this mist? _Ferryman._ I think ’tis like to a curst wife in a little house, that never leaves her husband till she have driven him out at doors with a wet pair of eyes; then looks he as if his house were a-fire, or some of his friends dead. _Arden._ Speaks thou this of thine own experience? _Ferryman._ Perhaps, ay; perhaps, no: For my wife is as other women are, that is to say, governed by the moon. 20 _Franklin._ By the moon? how, I pray thee? _Ferryman._ Nay, thereby lies a bargain, and you shall not have it fresh and fasting. _Arden._ Yes, I pray thee, good ferryman. _Ferryman._ Then for this once; let it be midsummer moon, but yet my wife has another moon. _Franklin._ Another moon? _Ferryman._ Ay, and it hath influences and eclipses. _Arden._ Why, then, by this reckoning you sometimes play the man in the moon? 30 _Ferryman._ Ay, but you had not best to meddle with that moon, lest I scratch you by the face with my bramble-bush. _Arden._ I am almost stifled with this fog; come, let’s away. _Franklin._ And, sirrah, as we go, let us have some more of your bold yeomanry. _Ferryman._ Nay, by my troth, sir, but flat knavery. [_Exeunt._ IV. ii. 5. This mist is not in Holinshed. It is our poet’s invention. IV. ii. 30. Cf. _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, V. i. 237, etc. SCENE III _Another place on the coast._ _Here enters Will at one door, and Shakebag at another._ _Shakebag._ Oh, Will, where art thou? _Will._ Here, Shakebag, almost in hell’s mouth, where I cannot see my way for smoke. _Shakebag._ I pray thee speak still that we may meet by the sound, for I shall fall into some ditch or other, unless my feet see better than my eyes. _Will._ Didst thou ever see better weather to run away with another man’s wife, or play with a wench at pot-finger? 9 _Shakebag._ No; this were a fine world for chandlers, if this weather would last; for then a man should never dine nor sup without candle-light. But, sirrah Will, what horses are those that passed? _Will._ Why, didst thou hear any? _Shakebag._ Ay, that I did. _Will._ My life for thine, ’twas Arden, and his companion, and then all our labour’s lost. _Shakebag._ Nay, say not so, for if it be they, they may haply lose their way as we have done, and then we may chance meet with them. 20 _Will._ Come, let us go on like a couple of blind pilgrims. [_Then Shakebag falls into a ditch._ _Shakebag._ Help, Will, help, I am almost drowned. _Here enters the Ferryman._ _Ferryman._ Who’s that that calls for help? _Will._ ’Twas none here, ’twas thou thyself.