Fal.

Bardolph!

Bard.

Here, sir.

Fal.

Go fetch me a quart of sack, put a toast in't. [Ex. Bard.] Have I liv'd to be carry'd 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 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' th' 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 the shore was shelvy and shallow; a death that I abhor; for the water swells a man: and what a thing would I have been when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy* ^note.

Bard.

Here's Mrs. 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 swallow'd snowballs, for pills. Call her in.

Bard.

Come in, woman.

Quic.
By your leave: I cry you mercy.
Give your worship good-morrow,

Fal.
Bardolph!
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?

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.

Ful.

So did I mine, to build on a foolish woman's promise.

Quic.

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.

* ^noteFal.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Fal.
Master Brook, I will not lye 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 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 direction, they convey'd me into a buck-basket.

Ford.

A buck-basket?

Fal.

Yea, a buck-basket; rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, and greasy napkins, that, Master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.

Ford.

And how long lay you there?

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 called forth by their mistress, to carry me, in the name of foul cloaths, to Datchet-lane. They took me on their shoulders, met the jealous knave their master, at the door, who ask'd 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 cloaths; but mark the sequel, Master Brook, I suffer'd the pangs of three egregious deaths: First, an intolerable fright, to be detected by a jealous rotten bell-weather; next, to be compassed like a good* ^note bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then to be stopt, like a strong distillation, with stinking cloaths, that fretted in their own grease: think of that, a man of my kidney; think of that, that am as subject to 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 cool'd, glowing hot,

in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that; hissing hot; think of that, Master Brook* ^note.

Ford.

In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you have suffer'd all this. My suit is then desperate; you'll undertake her no more?

Fal.

Master Brook, I will be thrown into Ætna, as I have been into the Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morning gone a birding; I have received from her another embassy of meeting? 'Twixt eight and nine is the hour, Master Brook.

Ford.

'Tis past eight, already, sir.

Fal.

Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall know how I speed; and the conclusion shall be crowned with your enjoying her; adieu, you shall have her, Master Brook; Master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford.

Ford.

Hum! ha! Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep? Master Ford, awake; awake, Master Ford; there's a hole made in your best coat, Master Ford; this 'tis to be married! this 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will proclaim myself what I am; I will now take the letcher; he is at my house; he cannot 'scape me, 'tis impossible he should; he cannot creep into a half-penny purse, nor into a pepper-box. But, lest the Devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not, shall not make me tame; if I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go with me, I'll be horn mad.

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