(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!"