Ford.
I beseech you, heartily, some of you go home with
me to dinner:
besides your cheer, you shall have sport; I will show
you a monster.
Master Doctor, you shall go; so shall you, Master
Page; and you,
Sir Hugh.
Shallow.
Well, fare you well; we shall have the freer wooing
at Master Page’s.
[Exeunt shallow and slender.]
Caius.
Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.
[Exit Rugby.]
Host.
Farewell, my hearts; I will to my honest knight Falstaff,
and drink
canary with him.
[Exit host.]
Ford. [Aside] I think I shall drink in pipe-wine first with him. I’ll make him dance. Will you go, gentles?
All.
Have with you to see this monster.
[Exeunt.]
Scene 3. A room in Ford’s house.
[Enter mistress ford and mistress page.]
Mrs. Ford.
What, John! what, Robert!
Mrs. Page.
Quickly, quickly:—Is the buck-basket—
Mrs. Ford.
I warrant. What, Robin, I say!
[Enter servants with a basket.]
Mrs. Page.
Come, come, come.
Mrs. Ford.
Here, set it down.
Mrs. Page.
Give your men the charge; we must be brief.
Mrs. Ford. Marry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be ready here hard by in the brew-house; 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.
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.]
Mrs. Ford.
How now, my eyas-musket! what news with you?
Robin.
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?
Robin. 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.
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.]