Thames water; for my belly 's as cold, as if I had swallowed snow-balls for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.

Bar. Come in, woman.

Enter MRS. QUICKLY.

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

Fal. Take away these chalices.

pottle of sack finely.

Bar. With eggs, sir?

Go, brew me a

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

Mrs. Quick. 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.

Mrs. 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.

Mrs. 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.

Mrs. Quick. I will tell her.

Fal. Do so. Between nine and ten, say'st thou ?
Mrs. Quick. Eight and nine, sir.

Fal. Well, be gone: I will not miss her.
Mrs. 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. O, 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 rankest compound of villanous smell, that ever offended nostril.

Ford. And how long lay you there?

Fal. Nay, you shall hear, master Brook, what I have suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus crammed 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 clothes to Datchet-lane: they took me on their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the door, who asked 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 clothes. But mark the sequel, master Brook: I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous

rotten bell-wether: next, to be compassed, like a good bilbo,1 in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head: and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes 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 cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that,— hissing hot,-think of that, master Brook.

2

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

my

Fal. Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into 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 3 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.

1 A blade manufactured at Bilboa, in Spain, the excellence of which consisted in its flexibleness and elasticity.

2 Seriously.

3 Make myself ready.

You shall have her, master Brook; master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford.

[Exit.

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 lecher; he is at my house: he cannot 'scape me; 'tis impossible he should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny 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. [Exit.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

The street.

Enter MRS. PAGE, MRS. QUICKLY, and WILLIAM.

Mrs. Page. Is he at master Ford's already, think'st thou ?

Mrs. Quick. Sure, he is by this, or will be presently but, truly, he is very courageous 1 mad about

1 Outrageously.