Peasant am I, so to misterm my love: Although a millers daughter by her birth, Yet may her beauty and her vertues well suffice To hide the blemish of her birth in h.e.l.l, Where neither envious eyes nor thought can pierce, But endless darkness ever smother it.

Go, William Conqueror, and seek thy love, Whilest I draw back and court mine own the while, Decking her body with such costly robes As may become her beauties worthiness; That so thy labors may be laughed to scorn, And she thou seekest in foreign regions Be darkened and eclipst when she arrives By one that I have chosen nearer home.

MANVILE.

What! comes he too, to intercept my love?

Then hie thee Manvile to forestall such foes.

[Exit Manvile.]

MOUNTNEY.

What now, Lord Valingford, are you behind?

The king had chosen you to go with him.

VALINGFORD.

So chose he you, therefore I marvel much That both of us should linger in this sort.

What may the king imagine of our stay?

MOUNTNEY.

The king may justly think we are to blame: But I imagined I might well be spared, And that no other man had borne my mind.

VALINGFORD.

The like did I: in friendship then resolve What is the cause of your unlookt for stay?

MOUNTNEY.

Lord Valingford, I tell thee as a friend, Love is the cause why I have stayed behind.

VALINGFORD.

Love, my Lord? of whom?

MOUNTNEY.

Em, the millers daughter of Manchester.

VALINGFORD.

But may this be?

MOUNTNEY.

Why not, my Lord? I hope full well you know That love respects no difference of state, So beauty serve to stir affection.

VALINGFORD.

But this it is that makes me wonder most: That you and I should be of one conceit I such a strange unlikely pa.s.sion.

MOUNTNEY.

But is that true? My Lord, I hope you do but jest.

VALINGFORD.

I would I did; then were my grief the less.

MOUNTNEY.

Nay, never grieve; for if the cause be such To join our thoughts in such a Simpathy, All envy set aside, let us agree To yield to eithers fortune in this choice.

VALINGFORD.

Content, say I: and what so ere befall, Shake hands, my Lord, and fortune thrive at all.

[Exeunt.]

ACT II.

SCENE I. Manchester. The Mill.

[Enter Em and Trotter, the Millers man, with a kerchife on his head, and an Urinall in his hand.]

EM.

Trotter, where have you been?

TROTTER.

Where have I been? why, what signifies this?

EM.

A kerchiefe, doth it not?

TROTTER.

What call you this, I pray?

EM.

I say it is an Urinall.

TROTTER.

Then this is mystically to give you to understand, I have been at the Phismicaries house.

EM.

How long hast thou been sick?

TROTTER.

Yfaith, even as long as I have not been half well, and that hath been a long time.

EM.

A loitering time, I rather imagine.

TROTTER.

It may be so: but the Phismicary tells me that you can help Me.

EM.

Why, any thing I can do for recovery of thy health be right well a.s.sured of.

TROTTER.

Then give me your hand.