Ford. Old woman? What old woman’s that?
Mrs. Ford. Why, it is my maid’s aunt of Brainford.
Ford. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men, we do not know what’s brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by th’ figure, and such daub’ry as this is, beyond our element; we know nothing. Come down, you witch, you hag you, come down, I say!
Mrs. Ford. Nay, good, sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let him [not] strike the old woman.
[Enter Falstaff disguised like an old woman, and Mistress Page with him.]
Mrs. Page. Come, Mother Prat, come give me your hand.
Ford. I’ll prat her. Out of my door, you witch, you rag, you baggage, you poulcat, you runnion! out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you!
[Ford beats him, and he runs away.]
Mrs. Page. Are you not asham’d? I think you have kill’d the poor woman.
Mrs. Ford. Nay, he will do it.—’Tis a goodly credit for you.
Ford. Hang her, witch!
Evans. By yea and no, I think the oman is a witch indeed. I like not when a oman has a great peard. I spy a great peard under his muffler.
Ford. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you follow; see but the issue of my jealousy. If I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again.
Page. Let’s obey his humor a little further. Come, gentlemen.
[Exeunt Ford, Page, Shallow, Caius, and Evans.]
Mrs. Page. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.
Mrs. Ford. Nay, by th’ mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully, methought.
Mrs. Page. I’ll have the cudgel hallow’d and hung o’er the altar; it hath done meritorious service.
Mrs. Ford. What think you? May we, with the warrant of womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge?
Mrs. Page. The spirit of wantonness is sure scar’d out of him. If the devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again.
Mrs. Ford. Shall we tell our husbands how we have serv’d him?
Mrs. Page. Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband’s brains. If they can find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.
Mrs. Ford. I’ll warrant they’ll have him publicly sham’d, and methinks there would be no period to the jest, should he not be publicly sham’d.
Mrs. Page. Come, to the forge with it, then shape it. I would not have things cool.
Exeunt.
¶
Scene III
Enter Host and Bardolph.
Bard. Sir, the [Germans desire] to have three of your horses. The Duke himself will be to-morrow at court, and they are going to meet him.
Host. What duke should that be comes so secretly? I hear not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen; they speak English?
Bard. Ay, sir; I’ll call [them] to you.
Host. They shall have my horses, but I’ll make them pay; I’ll sauce them. They have had my [house] a week at command. I have turn’d away my other guests; they must come off. I’ll sauce them, come.
Exeunt.
¶
Scene IV
Enter Page, Ford, Mistress Page, Mistress Ford, and Evans.
Evans. ’Tis one of the best discretions of a oman as ever I did look upon.
Page. And did he send you both these letters at an instant?
Mrs. Page. Within a quarter of an hour.
Ford.
Pardon me, wife, henceforth do what thou wilt.
I rather will suspect the sun with [cold]
Than thee with wantonness. Now doth thy honor stand,
In him that was of late an heretic,
As firm as faith.
Page.
’Tis well, ’tis well, no more.
Be not as extreme in submission as in offense;
But let our plot go forward. Let our wives
Yet once again (to make us public sport)
Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,
Where we may take him, and disgrace him for it.
Ford.
There is no better way than that they spoke of.
Page. How? to send him word they’ll meet him in the park at midnight? Fie, fie, he’ll never come.
Evans. You say he has been thrown in the rivers, and has been grievously peaten as an old oman. Methinks there should be terrors in him that he should not come; methinks his flesh is punish’d, he shall have no desires.
Page. So think I too.
Mrs. Ford.
Devise but how you’ll use him when he comes,
And let us two devise to bring him thither.
Mrs. Page.
There is an old tale goes, that Herne the Hunter
(Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest)
Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg’d horns,
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,
And [makes] milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner.
You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know
The superstitious idle-headed eld
Receiv’d and did deliver to our age
This tale of Herne the Hunter for a truth.
Page.
Why, yet there want not many that do fear
In deep of night to walk by this Herne’s oak.
But what of this?
Mrs. Ford.
Marry, this is our device:
That