Pinter! Give us the 'Golden Glove', Pinter!"

Thus warmed up, Pinter starts with an explanatory "spoken" to the effect
that the song he is about to sing illustrates some of the little ways of
woman, and how, no matter what you say or do, she is bound to have her
own way in the end; also how, in one instance, she set about getting it.

Hoh!

Now, it's of a young squoire near Timworth did dwell,
Who courted a nobleman's daughter so well--

The song has little or nothing to do with the "squire", except so far as
"all friends and relations had given consent," and--

The troo-soo was ordered--appointed the day,
And a farmer were appointed for to give her away--

which last seemed a most unusual proceeding, considering the wedding was
a toney affair; but perhaps there were personal interests--the nobleman
might have been hard up, and the farmer backing him. But there was an
extraordinary scene in the church, and things got mixed.

For as soon as this maiding this farmer espied:
"Hoh, my heart! Hoh, my heart!
Hoh, my heart!" then she cried.

Hysterics? Anyway, instead of being wed--

This maiden took sick and she went to her bed.

(N.B.--Pinter sticks to 'virging'.)

Whereupon friends and relations and guests left the house in a body (a
strange but perhaps a wise proceeding, after all--maybe they smelt a
rat) and left her to recover alone, which she did promptly. And then:

Shirt, breeches, and waistcoat this maiding put on,
And a-hunting she went with her dog and her gun;
She hunted all round where this farmier did dwell,
Because in her own heart she love-ed him well.

The cat's out of the bag now:

And often she fired, but no game she killed--

which was not surprising--

Till at last the young farmier came into the field--

No wonder. She put it to him straight:

"Oh, why are you not at the wedding?" she cried,
"For to wait on the squoire, and to give him his bride."

He was as prompt and as delightfully unconventional in his reply as the
young lady in Covent Gardings:

"Oh, no! and oh, no! For the truth I must sa-a-y,
I love her too well for to give her a-w-a-a-y!"

which was satisfactory to the disguised "virging".

".... and I'd take sword in hand,
And by honour I'd win her if she would command."

Which was still more satisfactory.

Now this virging, being--
(Jimmy Nowlett: "Maiden, Pinter--" Jim is throw