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.

SUM. I credit thee, and think thou wert belied.
But tell me, hast thou a good crop this year?

HAR. Hay, good[75] plenty, which was so sweet
and so good, that when I jerted my whip, and said
to my horses but _hay_, they would go as they were
mad.

SUM. But _hay_ alone thou sayst not, but _hay-ree_[76].

HAR. I sing hay-ree, that is, hay and rye; meaning that they shall have
hay and rye, their bellyfuls, if they will draw hard. So we say, _Wa
hay_, when they go out of the way; meaning that they shall want hay if
they will not do as they should do.

SUM. How thrive thy oats, thy barley, and thy wheat?

HAR. My oats grow like a cup of beer that makes the brewer rich; my rye
like a cavalier, that wears a huge feather in his cap, but hath no
courage in his heart; hath[77] a long stalk, a goodly husk, but nothing
so great a kernel as it was wont. My barley, even as many a novice, is
cross-bitten,[78] as soon as ever he peeps out of the shell, so was it
frost-bitten in the blad, yet pick'd up his crumbs again afterward, and
bad "Fill pot, hostess," in spite of a dear year. As for my peas and my
vetches, they are famous, and not to be spoken of.

AUT. Ay, ay, such coun