GRIM.  O Master Parson, write down this sweet saying of her in Grim’s commendations.  She hath made my heart leap like a hobby-horse!  O Joan, this speech of thine will I carry with me even to my grave.

SHO.  Be silent, then.

CLACK.  Well, then, I perceive you mean to lead your life in a coalpit, like one of the devil’s drudges, and have your face look like the outward side of an old iron pot or a blacking-box.

GRIM.  He calleth my trade into question, I cannot forbear him.

SHO.  Nay, then you spoil all:  neighbour Grim,
I warrant you, she will answer him.

JOAN.  What I intend, I am not bound to show
To thee, nor any other but my mother,
To whom in duty I submit myself: 
Yet this I tell thee, though my birth be mean,
My honest virtuous life shall help to mend it;
And if I marry any in all this life,
He shall say boldly he hath an honest wife.

GRIM.  O, that it were my fortune to light upon her, on condition my horses were dead, and my cart broken, and I bound to carry coals, as long as I live, from Croydon to London on my bare shoulders!  Master Parson, the flesh is frail, he shall tempt her no longer.  She is but weak, and he is the stronger.  I’ll upon him.  Miller, thou art my neighbour, and therein charity holds my hands; but methinks you, having a water-gap of your own, you may do as other millers do, grind your grist at home, knock your cogs into your own mill; you shall not cog with her.

    She doth descry thee;
    And I defy thee
    To a mortal fight;
    And so, miller, good night. 
    And now, sweet Joan,
    Be it openly known
    Thou art my own.

CLACK.  Well, Grim, since thou art so collier-like choleric—­

GRIM.  Miller, I will not be mealy-mouth’d.

CLACK.  I’ll give thee the fewer words now, because the next time we meet, I’ll pay thee all in dry blows.  Carry coals[447] at a collier’s hands! if I do, let my mill be drowned up in water, and I hanged in the roof.

JOAN.  And if thou lov’st me, Grim, forbear him now.

GRIM.  If I love thee! dost thou doubt of that? nay, rip me up, and look into my heart, and thou shalt see thy own face pictured there as plainly as in the proudest looking-glass in all Croydon.  If I love thee! then, tears, gush out, and show my love.

CLACK.  What, Master Parson, are you there?  You remember you promised to win Joan for my own wearing?

SHO.  I warrant thee, Clack, but now begone;
Leave me to work that here alone.

CLACK.  Well, farewell, Master Shorthose; be true when you are trusted.
          
                                              [Exit CLACK.

SHO.  She shall be neither his nor thine,
For I intend to make her mine.

GRIM.  If I love thee, Joan!  Those very words are a purgation to me.  You shall see desperation in my face, and death marching in my very countenance.  If I love!