ur selfe so cruel vnto him, who disdayning all other,
hath made you so frank an offer both of himselfe and of al that
he hath to commaund." The maide not greatly trusting his words,
feared that he prolonged time to make hir stay till hys seruants
came to steale hir away: And therefore without further aunswere,
she taking vp hir payles, and half running till she came neere
the Myll, escaped his hands, telling hir father no part of that
talk betwene them: who began already to doubt the treason,
deuised by the Gentleman, agaynst the pudicity of his daughter,
vnto whom he neuer disclosed his suspition, were it that he knew
hir to be vertuous inough, and constant to resist the luring
assaults of loue, or considred the imbecillity of our flesh, and
the malice of the same, which dayly aspireth things thereunto
defended, and by lawes limitted and prescribed, which lawes it
ought not to excede, and yet therof it wisheth the abolishment.
The Gentleman seeinge that the mayden had forsaken hym, and
little esteemed hys amorous onset, outraged for loue, and chased
wyth choler, spake these wordes to hymselfe: "Ah foolish and
dastard louer, what didst thou meane when thou hadst hir so
neere thee, in place so commodious, where shee durst not
gaynesay thee that thou didst no better pursue hir? And what
knowest thou if shee came of purpose to ease thy payne and to
finish thy troublesome trauels? Surely I suppose she did so, but
that shame and duety forced hir to vse those wordes, to make mee
thinke, that lyghtly she would not bee ouercome by persuasions:
And put the case that it were not so, who coulde haue let mee to
take by force that, whereunto willingly she would not accorde:
But what is she to be reuenged of sutch an iniury? She is for
conclusion the daughter of a Miller, and may make hir vaunte,
that she hath mocked a Gentleman, who beinge alone wyth hir, and
burninge wyth loue, durst not staunch hys thirst (although full
dry) so neere the fountayne: And by God (sayd he rising from a
greene banke neere the fountayne's side) if I dy therefore,
I wyll haue it eyther by loue or force." In this wicked and
tyrannicall mynde, hee returned to hys place, where his
companions seeing him so out of quiet, sayd vnto him: "Is thys
the guise of a gentle minde, to abase it selfe to the pursute of
so simple a Wench? Doe not you know the malice of that sexe, and
the guiles wherewith those Serpents poyson men? Care you so
little for a woman as she