Page:Mother Bunch's closet newly broke open (1).pdf/21

Rh conclude, that you will still run a catterwauling after young wenches, and leave her to sigh and weep, for want of the comforts of matrimony,you know what I mean, Tom.

Yes, yes, Mother, quoth Tom, but sure you do not take me for such a one. Yes, Tom, I do, and am seldom mistaken. It is you millers, that fill the country so full of crack'd maidenheads, that when an honest husband comes to take possession, he finds the ground tilled before he comes with his plow. But farewell, I'll have no more to say to such a fellow as you.

Then turning to Ralph the thatcher, she said, I find you are very desirous of a wife, and your ambition is such, that she must be rich, young, and beautiful: cannot you content yourself with honest Joan, to whom you gave promise of marriage, and now I find you have a mind to leave her, which if you do, and obtain such a one as you desire, I can tell you what will follow: She won't stand picking of straws with you, her fair face will find many friends in a corner, and you may chance to be a cuckold, and indeed but justly served in your kind; and therefore, I advise you to return to your old love for she is a very honest girl, and therefore far more fit for you, than such a gay butterfly as you have lately followed.

Then she stretched forth her hand to Robin the ploughman, saying, Thou art an honest fellow, and good fortune will always attend thee; I mean not bags of gold, nor heaps of silver; but thou shalt have a careful and industrious wife, one that will ever be willing and ready to labour, a true and a faithful yoke-mate, and one that will be a chearful partner in thy weal and woe, to comfort and support thee under the greatest and most severe trials. For, as the Poet has it,