Enter Bastard and Hubert, severally.HUBERT Who’s there? Speak ho! Speak quickly, or I shoot.BASTARD A friend. What art thou?HUBERT Of the part of England.BASTARD Whither dost thou go?HUBERT 5 What’s that to thee?⌜BASTARD⌝ Why may not I demand of thine affairs As well as thou of mine? Hubert, I think?HUBERT Thou hast a perfect thought. I will upon all hazards well believe10 Thou art my friend, that know’st my tongue so well. Who art thou?BASTARD Who thou wilt. An if thou please, Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think I come one way of the Plantagenets.HUBERT 15 Unkind remembrance! Thou and endless night Have done me shame. Brave soldier, pardon me That any accent breaking from thy tongue Should ’scape the true acquaintance of mine ear.BASTARD Come, come. Sans compliment, what news abroad?
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HUBERT 20 Why, here walk I in the black brow of night To find you out.BASTARD Brief, then; and what’s the news?HUBERT O my sweet sir, news fitting to the night, Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.BASTARD 25 Show me the very wound of this ill news. I am no woman; I’ll not swoon at it.HUBERT The King, I fear, is poisoned by a monk. I left him almost speechless, and broke out To acquaint you with this evil, that you might30 The better arm you to the sudden time Than if you had at leisure known of this.BASTARD How did he take it? Who did taste to him?HUBERT A monk, I tell you, a resolvèd villain, Whose bowels suddenly burst out. The King35 Yet speaks and peradventure may recover.BASTARD Who didst thou leave to tend his Majesty?HUBERT Why, know you not? The lords are all come back, And brought Prince Henry in their company, At whose request the King hath pardoned them,40 And they are all about his Majesty.BASTARD Withhold thine indignation, mighty ⌜God,⌝ And tempt us not to bear above our power. I’ll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night, Passing these flats, are taken by the tide.45 These Lincoln Washes have devourèd them. Myself, well mounted, hardly have escaped.
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Away before. Conduct me to the King. I doubt he will be dead or ere I come.They exit.