Mrs. Ford. I warrant. What, Robin, I say! 4 Enter Servants with a Basket. Mrs. Page. Come, come, come. Mrs. Page. Give your men the charge; we must be brief. 8 Mrs. Ford. Marry, as I told you before, John, and Robert, be ready here hard by in the brewhouse; and when I suddenly call you, come forth, and without any pause or staggering, take this basket on your shoulders: that done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters in Datchet-mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch, close by the Thames side. 16 Mrs. Page. You will do it? Mrs. Ford. I have told them over and over; they lack no direction. Be gone, and come when you are called. [Exeunt Servants. Mrs. Page. Here comes little Robin. Enter ROBIN. 21 Mrs. Ford. How now, my eyas-musket! what news with you? Rob. My master, Sir John, is come in at your back-door, Mistress Ford, and requests your company. Mrs. Page You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us? 28 Rob. Ay, I'll be sworn. My master knows not of your being here, and hath threatened to put me into everlasting liberty if I tell you of it; for he swears he'll turn me away. 32 Mrs. Page. Thou'rt a good boy; this secrecy of thine shall be a tailor to thee and shall make thee a new doublet and hose. I'll go hide me. Mrs. Ford. Do so. Go tell thy master I am alone. [Exit ROBIN.] Mistress Page, remember you your cuе. 38 Mrs. Page. I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me. [Exit. Mrs. Ford. Go to, then: we'll use this unwholesome humidity, this gross watery pumpion; we'll teach him to know turtles from jays. 44 Mrs. Page. O Mistress Ford! what have you done? You're shamed, you are overthrown, You're undone for ever! Mrs. Ford. What's the matter, good Mistress Page? 105 Mrs. Page. O well-a-day, Mistress Ford! having an honest man to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion! 108 Out Mrs. Ford. What cause of suspicion? Mrs. Page. What cause of suspicion! upon you! how am I mistook in you! Mrs. Ford. Why, alas, what's the matter? 112 Mrs. Page. Your husband's coming hither, woman, with all the officers of Windsor, to search for a gentleman that he says is here now in the house by your consent, to take an ill advantage of his absence: you are undone. 117 Mrs. Ford. [Aside.] Speak louder.-'Tis not 80, I hope. Mrs. Page. Pray heaven it be not so, that you have such a man here! but 'tis most certain your husband's coming with half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a one. I come before to tell you. If you know yourself clear, why, I am glad of it; but if you have a friend here, convey, convey him out. Be not amazed; call all your senses to you: defend your reputation, or bid farewell to your good life for ever. 128 Mrs. Ford. What shall I do?-There is a genfleman, my dear friend; and I fear not mine own shame so much as his peril: I had rather than a thousand pound he were out of the house. 132 Mrs. Page. For shame! never stand you had rather and you had rather:' your husband's here at hand; bethink you of some conveyance: in the house you cannot hide him. 0, how have you deceived me! Look, here is a basket: if he be of any reasonable stature, he may creep in here; and throw foul linen upon him, as if it were going to bucking: or-it is hiting-time-send him by your two men to Datchet-mead. hall I do? Mrs. Ford. He's too big to go in there. What 144 Fal. [Coming forward.] Let me see't, let me 't, 0, let me see't! I'll in, I'll in. Follow your friend's counsel. I'll in. Mrs. Page. What, Sir John Falstaff! ee your letters, knight? Are Ford. Pray you, come near: if I suspect without cause, why then make sport at me; then let me be your jest; I deserve it. How now! what goes here? whither bear you this? Serv. To the laundress, forsooth. 163 Mrs. Ford. Why, what have you to do whither they bear it? You were best meddle with buckwashing. Ford. Buck! I would I could wash myself of the buck! Buck, buck, buck! Ay, buck; I war. rant you, buck; and of the season too, it shall appear. [Exeunt Servants with the basket.] Gentlemen, I have dreamed to-night; I'll tell you my dream. Here, here, here be my keys: ascend my chambers; search, seek, find out: I'l warrant we'll unkennel the fox. Let me stop this way first. [Locking the door.] So, now uncape. Page. Good Master Ford, be contented: you wrong yourself too much. 177 Ford. True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen; you shall see sport anon: follow me, gentlemen. [Exit. Eva. This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies. 181 Caius. By gar, 'tis no de fashion of France; it is not jealous in France. Page. Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his search. 185 [Exeunt PAGE, CAIUS, and EVANS. Mrs. Page. Is there not a double excellency in this? Mrs. Ford. I know not which pleases me better; that my husband is deceived, or Sir John. Mrs. Page. What a taking was he in when your husband asked who was in the basket! 191 Mrs. Ford. I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so throwing him into the water will do him a benefit. Mrs. Page. Hang him, dishonest rascal! I 149 would all of the same strain were in the same Fal. I love thee, and none but thee; help me way: let me creep in here. I'll never[He gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen. Mrs. Page. Help to cover your master, boy. I distress. 197 Mrs. Ford. I think my husband hath some special suspicion of Falstaff's being here; for I never saw him so gross in his jealousy till now. Mrs. Page. I will lay a plot to try that; and Mrs. Page. You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford. 221 Ford. Ay, ay; I must hear it. Eva. If there pe any pody in the house, and in the chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive my sins at the day of judgment! 226 Caius. By gar, nor I too, dere is no bodies. Page. Fie, fie, Master Ford! are you not ashamed? What spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I would not ha' your distemper in this kind for the wealth of Windsor Castle. Ford. 'Tis my fault, Master Page: I suffer for it. Eva. You suffer for a pad conscience: your wife is as honest a 'omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five hundred too. 235 Caius. By gar, I see 'tis an honest woman. Ford. Well; I promised you a dinner. Come, come, walk in the Park: I pray you, pardon me; I will hereafter make known to you why I have done this. Come, wife; come, Mistress Page. I pray you, pardon me; pray heartily, pardon me. Page. Let's go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we'll mock him. I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house to breakfast; after, we'll a-birding together: I have a fine hawk for the bush. Shall it be so? 246 Slen. No, she shall not dismay me: I car not for that, but that I am afeard. Quick. Hark ye; Master Slender would speal a word with you. Anne. I come to him. [Aside.] This is m father's choice. 3 O, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year Ford. Any thing. Quick. And how does good Master Fenton Eva. If there is one, I shall make two in the Pray you, a word with you. company. Shal. She's coming; to her, coz. O boy Caius. If dere be one or two, I shall make-a thou hadst a father! le turd. 252 Ford. Pray you go, Master Page. Eva. I pray you now, remembrance tomorrow on the lousy knave, mine host. Caius. Dat is good; by gar, vit all my heart. Slen. I had a father, Mistress Anne; m uncle can tell you good jests of him. Pray you uncle, tell Mistress Anne the jest, how my fath stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle. Shal. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you. Fent. I thank thee: and I pray thee, once to-night Give my sweet Nan this ring. There's for thy pains. 104 Quick. Now heaven send thee good fortune! [Exit FENTON.] A kind heart he hath: a woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet I would my master had Mistress Anne; or I would Master Slender had her; or, in sooth, I would Master Fenton had her. I will do what I can for them all three, for so I have promised, and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously for Master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff from my two mistresses: what a beast am I to slack it! [Exit. Fal. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't. [Exit BARD.] Have I lived to be carried in a basket, and to be thrown in the Thames like a barrow of butcher's offal? Well, if I be served such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out, and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new year's gift. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a blind bitch's puppies, fifteen i' the litter; and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking: if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had been drowned but that the shore was shelvy and shallow; a death that I abhor, for the water swells a man, and what a thing should I have been when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy. 19 Re-enter BARDOLPH, with the sack. Bard. Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you. 21 Fal. No, Master Brook; but the peaking cornuto her husband, Master Brook, dwelling in Fal. Come, let me pour in some sack to the a continual 'larum of jealousy, comes me in the Thames water, for my belly's as cold as if I had instant of our encounter, after we had embraced, swallowed snowballs for pills to cool the reins. kissed, protested, and, as it were, spoke the Call her in. 25 prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife's love. Ford. What! while you were there? Fal. While I was there. Bard. Come in, woman. Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY. Quick. By your leave. I cry you mercy: give your worship good morrow. 28 Fal. Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle of sack finely. Bard. With eggs, sir? Fal. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage. [Exit BARDOLPH.]-How now! 33 Quick. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford. Fal. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford. 38 Quick. Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection. 41 Fal. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise. Quick. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning a-birding: she desires you once more to come to her between eight and nine. I must carry her word quickly: she'll make you amends, I warrant you. 49 81 Fal. By the Lord, a buck-basket! rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins; that, Master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villanous smell that ever offended nostril. 96 Ford. And how long lay you there? Fal. Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet-lane: they took me on their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the door, who asked them once or twice what they had in their basket. I quaked for fear lest the lunatic knave would have searched it; but Fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, held his hand. Well; on went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master Brook: I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether; next, to be compassed, like a good bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease: think of that, a man of my kidney, think of that, that am as subject tc heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw: it was a miracle to 'scape suffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that, hissing hot, think of that, Master Brook! 127 |