SLENDER
No, she shall not dismay me. I care not for that, but that I am afeard.
QUICKLY
Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word with you.
ANNE
I come to him.
[Aside] This is my father’s choice.
O, what a world of vile ill-favour’d faults
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!
QUICKLY
And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a word with you.
SHALLOW
She’s coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father!
SLENDER
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.
SHALLOW
Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.
SLENDER
Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire.
SHALLOW
He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.
SLENDER
Ay, that I will come cut and long-tail, under the degree of a squire.
SHALLOW
He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.
ANNE
Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.
SHALLOW
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.
SLENDER
Now, good Mistress Anne. —
ANNE
What is your will?
SLENDER
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 you with me?
SLENDER
Truly, for mine own part I would little or nothing with you. Your father and my uncle hath 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 dispos’d of.
FENTON
Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.
MRS. PAGE
Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.
PAGE
She is no match for you.
FENTON
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.]
QUICKLY
Speak to Mistress Page.
FENTON
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 colours 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.
QUICKLY
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 in;
Her father will be angry.
FENTON
Farewell, gentle mistress. Farewell, Nan.
[Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ANNE.]
QUICKLY
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.
FENTON
I thank thee; and I pray thee, once tonight
Give my sweet Nan this ring. There’s for thy pains.
QUICKLY
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.]
SCENE V. A room in the Garter Inn
[Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH.]
FALSTAFF
Bardolph, I say, —
BARDOLPH
Here, sir.
FALSTAFF
Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in ‘t.
[Exit BARDOLPH.]
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 had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy.
[Re-enter BARDOLPH, with the sack.]
BARDOLPH
Here’s Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.
FALSTAFF
Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly’s as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for pills to cool the reins.