_Speed._ Sir, we are undone; these are the villains 5 That all the travellers do fear so much. _Val._ My friends,-- _First Out._ That's not so, sir: we are your enemies. _Sec. Out._ Peace! we'll hear him. _Third Out._ Ay, by my beard, will we, for he's a proper man. 10 _Val._ Then know that I have little wealth to lose: A man I am cross'd with adversity; My riches are these poor habiliments, Of which if you should here disfurnish me, You take the sum and substance that I have. 15 _Sec. Out._ Whither travel you? _Val._ To Verona. _First Out._ Whence came you? _Val._ From Milan. _Third Out._ Have you long sojourned there? 20 _Val._ Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay'd, If crooked fortune had not thwarted me. _First Out._ What, were you banish'd thence? _Val._ I was. _Sec. Out._ For what offence? 25 _Val._ For that which now torments me to rehearse: I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent; But yet I slew him manfully in fight, Without false vantage or base treachery. _First Out._ Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so. 30 But were you banish'd for so small a fault? _Val._ I was, and held me glad of such a doom. _Sec. Out._ Have you the tongues? _Val._ My youthful travel therein made me happy, Or else I often had been miserable. 35 _Third Out._ By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar, This fellow were a king for our wild faction! _First Out._ We'll have him. Sirs, a word. _Speed._ Master, be one of them; it's an honourable kind of thievery. 40 _Val._ Peace, villain! _Sec. Out._ Tell us this: have you any thing to take to? _Val._ Nothing but my fortune. _Third Out._ Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen, Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth 45 Thrust from the company of awful men: Myself was from Verona banished For practising to steal away a lady, An heir, and near allied unto the duke. _Sec. Out._ And I from Mantua, for a gentleman, 50 Who, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart. _First Out._ And I for such like petty crimes as these. But to the purpose,--for we cite our faults, That they may hold excused our lawless lives; And partly, seeing you are beautified 55 With goodly shape, and by your own report A linguist, and a man of such perfection As we do in our quality much want,-- _Sec. Out._ Indeed, because you are a banish'd man, Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you: 60 Are you content to be our general? To make a virtue of necessity, And live, as we do, in this wilderness?