Shal. Be not dismayed.

Slen. No, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that, but that I am afeard.

Quick. Hark ye; master Slender would speak a word with you.

Anne. I come to him.-This is my father's choice. O, what a world of vile ill-favored faults

Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!

[Aside. Quick. And how does good master Fenton? Pray you, a word with you.

Shal. She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou

hadst a father!

Slen. I had a father, mistress Anne;-my uncle can tell you good jests of him :-Pray you, uncle, tell mistress Anne the jest, how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle.

Shal. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.

Slen. Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire.

Shal. He will maintain you like a gentlewoman. Slen. Ay, that I will, come cut and long tail,' under the degree of a 'squire.

Shal. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.

Anne. Good master Shallow, let him woo for himself.

Shal. Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good comfort. She calls you, coz: I'll leave you. Anne. Now, master Slender.

Slen. Now, good mistress Anne.

Anne. What is your will?

Slen. My will? od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest, indeed! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I am not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise. Anne. I mean, master Slender, what would with me?

you

1 The sense is obviously, "Come who will to contend with me, under the degree of a 'squire." Cut and longtail means all kinds of curtail curs, and sporting dogs, and all others.

Slen. Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing with you: Your father and my uncle have made motions; if it be my luck, so: if not, happy man be his dole! They can tell you how things go, better than I can: You may ask your father; here he comes.

Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE.

Page. Now, master Slender :-Love him, daughter
Anne.-

Why, how now! what does master Fenton here?
You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house:
I told you, sir, my daughter is disposed of.

Fent. Nay, master Page, be not impatient.

Mrs. Page. Good master Fenton, come not to my child.

Page. She is no match for you.

Fent. Sir, will you hear me?

Page.

No, good master Fenton. Come, master Shallow; come, son Slender; in :— Knowing my mind, you wrong me, master Fenton. [Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER.

Quick. Speak to mistress Page.

Fent. Good mistress Page, for that I love your daughter

In such a righteous fashion as I do,

Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners,
I must advance the colors of my love,

And not retire: Let me have your good will.

Anne. Good mother, do not marry me to yond'

fool.

Mrs. Page. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.

Quick. 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,
And as I find her, so am I affected;

Till then, farewell, sir :-she must needs go
Her father will be angry.

in ;

[Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ANNE. Fent. Farewell, gentle mistress; farewell, Nan. Quick. 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.

Quick. 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: 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 3 it?

[Exit.

Fal. Bardolph, I say,

Bard. Here, sir.

Fal. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't. [Exit BARD.] Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher's offal; and to be thrown into the Thames? 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 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 3 Neglect.

1 i. e. some time to-night.

2 Specially.

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.

Re-enter BARDOLPH, with the wine.

Bard. Here's mistress Quickly, sir, to 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 swallowed snow-balls for pills to cool the reins. Call her in. Bard. Come in, woman.

Enter MRS. QUICKLY.

Quick. By your leave; I cry you mercy: Give your worship good-morrow.

Fal. Take away these chalices: Go brew me a pottle of sack finely.

Bar. With eggs, sir?

Fal. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage. [Exit BARDOLPH.] How now?

Quick. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from mistress Ford.

Fal. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough: 1 was thrown into the ford: I have my belly full of ford.

Quick. 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.

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.

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.

Quick. I will tell her.

Fal. Do so.

Between nine and ten, say'st thou ?

Quick. Eight and nine, sir.

Fal. Well, be gone: I will not miss her.
Quick. 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. 0, here he comes.

Enter FORD.

Ford. Bless you, sir!

Fal. Now, master Brook! you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford's wife?

Ford. That, indeed, Sir John, is my business. Fal. Master Brook, I will not lie to you; I was at her house the hour she appointed me.

Ford. And how sped you, sir?

Fal. Very ill-favoredly, master Brook.

Ford. How so, 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 embraced, kissed, protested, and, as it were, spoke the 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.

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 conveyed me into a buckbasket.

Ford. A buck-basket?

Fal. By the Lord, a buck-basket: rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, and greasy napkins; that, master Brook, there was the