BEN. Why, an you do, you may run the risk to be overset, and then you’ll carry your keels above water, he, he, he! ANG. I swear, Mr. Benjamin is the veriest wag in nature—an absolute sea-wit. SIR SAMP. Nay, Ben has parts, but as I told you before, they want a little polishing. You must not take anything ill, madam. BEN. No, I hope the gentlewoman is not angry; I mean all in good part, for if I give a jest, I’ll take a jest, and so forsooth you may be as free with me. ANG. I thank you, sir, I am not at all offended. But methinks, Sir Sampson, you should leave him alone with his mistress. Mr. Tattle, we must not hinder lovers. TATT. Well, Miss, I have your promise. [_Aside to Miss_.] SIR SAMP. Body o’ me, madam, you say true. Look you, Ben, this is your mistress. Come, Miss, you must not be shame-faced; we’ll leave you together. MISS. I can’t abide to be left alone; mayn’t my cousin stay with me? SIR SAMP. No, no. Come, let’s away. BEN. Look you, father, mayhap the young woman mayn’t take a liking to me. SIR SAMP. I warrant thee, boy: come, come, we’ll be gone; I’ll venture that. SCENE VII. BEN, _and_ MISS PRUE. BEN. Come mistress, will you please to sit down? for an you stand a stern a that’n, we shall never grapple together. Come, I’ll haul a chair; there, an you please to sit, I’ll sit by you. MISS. You need not sit so near one, if you have anything to say, I can hear you farther off, I an’t deaf. BEN. Why that’s true, as you say, nor I an’t dumb, I can be heard as far as another,—I’ll heave off, to please you. [_Sits farther off_.] An we were a league asunder, I’d undertake to hold discourse with you, an ’twere not a main high wind indeed, and full in my teeth. Look you, forsooth, I am, as it were, bound for the land of matrimony; ’tis a voyage, d’ye see, that was none of my seeking. I was commanded by father, and if you like of it, mayhap I may steer into your harbour. How say you, mistress? The short of the thing is, that if you like me, and I like you, we may chance to swing in a hammock together. MISS. I don’t know what to say to you, nor I don’t care to speak with you at all. BEN. No? I’m sorry for that. But pray why are you so scornful? MISS. As long as one must not speak one’s mind, one had better not speak at all, I think, and truly I won’t tell a lie for the matter. BEN. Nay, you say true in that, it’s but a folly to lie: for to speak one thing, and to think just the contrary way is, as it were, to look one way, and to row another. Now, for my part, d’ye see, I’m for carrying things above board, I’m not for keeping anything under hatches,—so that if you ben’t as willing as I, say so a God’s name: there’s no harm done; mayhap you may be shame-faced; some maidens thof they love a man well enough, yet they don’t care to tell’n so to’s face. If that’s the case, why, silence gives consent.