Mrs. Ford. 
I’ll warrant they’ll have him publicly shamed; and methinks there
would be no period to the jest, should he not be publicly shamed.

Mrs. Page. 
Come, to the forge with it then; shape it.  I would not have things
cool.

[Exeunt.]

Scene 3.  A room in the Garter Inn.

[Enter host and Bardolph.]

Bardolph. 
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?

Bardolph. 
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 turned away my other guests.  They must come off; I’ll sauce them.  Come.

[Exeunt.]

Scene 4.  A room in Ford’s house.

[Enter page, ford, mistress page, mistress ford, and sir Hugh 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 honour 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 offence;
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 punished; 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
Received, and did deliver to our age,
This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.