SUM.  Since thou art so perverse in answering,
Harvest, hear what complaints are brought to me. 
Thou art accused by the public voice
For an engrosser of the common store;
A carl that hast no conscience nor remorse,
But dost impoverish the fruitful earth,
To make thy garners rise up to the heavens. 
To whom giv’st thou? who feedeth at thy board? 
No alms, but [an] unreasonable gain
Digests what thy huge iron teeth devour: 
Small beer, coarse bread, the hind’s and beggar’s cry,
Whilst thou withholdest both the malt and flour,
And giv’st us bran and water (fit for dogs).

HAR.  Hooky, hooky! if you were not my lord, I would say you lie.  First and foremost, you say I am a grocer.  A grocer is a citizen:  I am no citizen, therefore no grocer.  A hoarder up of grain:  that’s false; for not so much for my elbows eat wheat every time I lean upon them.[71] A carl:  that is as much as to say, a coneycatcher of good fellowship.  For that one word you shall pledge me a carouse:  eat a spoonful of the curd to allay your choler.  My mates and fellows, sing no more Merry, merry, but weep out a lamentable Hooky, hooky, and let your sickles cry—­

    Sick, sick, and very sick,
      And side, and for the time;
    For Harvest your master is
      Abusd without reason or rhyme.

I have no conscience, I?  I’ll come nearer to you, and yet I am no scab, nor no louse.  Can you make proof wherever I sold away my conscience, or pawned it?  Do you know who would buy it, or lend any money upon it?  I think I have given you the pose.  Blow your nose, Master Constable.  But to say that I impoverish the earth, that I rob the man in the moon, that I take a purse on the top of St Paul’s steeple; by this straw and thread, I swear you are no gentleman, no proper man, no honest man, to make me sing, O man in desperation.[72]

SUM.  I must give credit unto what I hear! 
For other than I hear detract[73] I nought.

HAR.  Ay, ay; nought seek, nought have:  An ill-husband is the first step to a knave.  You object, I feed none at my board:  I am sure, if you were a hog, you would never say so:  for, sir reverence of their worships, they feed at my stable-table every day.  I keep good hospitality for hens and geese:  gleaners are oppressed with heavy burthens of my bounty:  They take me and eat me to the very bones, Till there be nothing left but gravel and stones; And yet I give no alms, but devour all!  They say, what a man cannot hear well, you hear with your harvest-ears; but if you heard with your harvest-ears, that is, with the ears of corn which my alms-cart scatters, they would tell you that I am the very poor man’s box of pity; that there are more holes of liberality open in Harvest’s heart than in a sieve or a dust-box.  Suppose you were a craftsman or an artificer, and should come to buy corn of me, you should have bushels of me; not like the baker’s loaf, that should weigh but six ounces, but usury for your money, thousands for one.  What would you have more?  Eat me out of my apparel,[74] if you will, if you suspect me for a miser.