In such a righteous fashion as I do, Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners, I must advance the colours of my love, 531 And not retire: Let me have your good will. Quic. That's my master, master doctor. Anne. Alas, I had rather be set quick i' the earth, And bowl'd to death with turnips." Mrs. Page. Come, trouble not yourself: Good master Fenton, I will not be your friend nor enemy: My daughter will I question how she loves you, 540 And as I find her, so am I affected; 'Till then, farewel, sir :-She must needs go in. Her father will be angry. [Ex. Mrs. PAGE and ANNE. Fent. Farewel, gentle mistress; farewel, Nan. Quic. This is my doing now;-Nay, said I, will you cast away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on master Fenton :-this is my doing. Fent. I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night give my sweet Nan this ring: There's for thy pains. [Exit. Quic. Now heaven send thee good fortune! 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: her: I will do what I can for them all three! for so I have promis'd, and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously for master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff for my two mistresses; What a beast am I to slack it? SCENE V. [Exit. The Garter Inn. Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH. Fal. Bardolph, I say. Bard. Here, sir. 560 Fal. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't. [Exit BARD.] Have I liv'd to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher's offal; and to be thrown into the Thames? Well; if I be serv'd such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out, and butter'd, 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 drown'd a bitch's blind 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 drown'd, 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 swell'd! I should have been a mountain of mummy. Re-enter BARDOLPH, with the Wine, Now, is the sack brew'd? 57.7 Bard. Ay, sir: there's a woman below would speak with you. Fal. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly's as cold, as if I had swallow'd snow-balls for pills to cool the reins. Call her in. Bard. Come in, woman. Enter Mrs. QUICKLY. 584 :-Give Quic. By your leave; I cry you mercy : 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. How now ? 591 Quic. 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. Quic. Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection. Fal. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise. 601 Quic. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yern 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. : Fal. Fal. Well, I will visit her: Tell her so; and bid her think, what a man is; let her consider his frailty, and then judge of my merit.. Quic. I will tell her. 610 Fal. Do so. Between nine and ten, say'st thou ? Quic. Eight and nine, sir, Fal. Well, be gone: I will not miss her.. Quic. Peace be with you, sir! [Exit. Fal. I marvel, I hear not of master Brook; he sent me word to stay within :. I like his money well, Oh, here he comes, Enter FORD. Ford. Bless you, sir! Fal. Now, master Brook? you come to know what hath pass'd between me and Ford's wife? Ford. That, indeed, sir John, is my business, 620 Fal. Master Brook, I will not lie to you; I was at her house the hour she appointed me. Ford. And you sped, sir? Fal. Very ill-favour'dly, master Brook. Ford. How, sir? Did she change her determination? Fal. No, master Brook; but the peaking cornuto her husband, master Brook, dwelling in a continual 'larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embrac'd, kiss'd, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provok'd and instigated by his distemper, and forsooth, to search his house for his wife's love. Giij 634 Ford. Ford. What, while you were there ? Fal. While I was there. Ford. And did he search for you, and could not find you? Fal. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's approach; and, by her invention, and Ford's wife's distraction, they convey'd me into a buck-basket. Ford: A buck-basket! 643 Fal. Yea, a buck-basket: ramm'd me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, and greasy napkins; that, master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villanous smell, that ever offended nostril. Ford. And how long lay you there? 649 Fal. Nay, you shall hear, master Brook, what I have suffer'd to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus cramm'd in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were call'd forth by their mistress, to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchetlane: they took me on their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the door; who ask'd them once or twice, what they had in their basket: I quak'd for fear, lest the lunatic knave would have search'd 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 suffer'd the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-weather: next, to be compass'd, like a good |