The Merry Wives of Windsor eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 98 pages of information about The Merry Wives of Windsor.

The Merry Wives of Windsor eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 98 pages of information about The Merry Wives of Windsor.

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.]

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Merry Wives of Windsor from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.