Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!
What cannot be eschew'd must be embraced.

Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?

My heart misgives me: here comes Master Fenton.
Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE
How now, Master Fenton!

Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how
you should know my daughter by her garments?

Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.

Of what, son?

Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched?

Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset
to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to
laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: tell her
Master Slender hath married her daughter.

And as poor as Job?

Old, cold, withered and of intolerable entrails?

Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now
Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?

The night is dark; light and spirits will become it
well. Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil
but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns.
Let's away; follow me.

Come, come; we'll couch i' the castle-ditch till we
see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender,
my daughter.

That silk will I go buy.
Aside
And in that time
Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away
And marry her at Eton. Go send to Falstaff straight.

Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come:
And in this shape when you have brought him thither,
What shall be done with him? what is your plot?

Why, yet there want not many that do fear
In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak:
But what of this?

So think I too.

How? to send him word they'll meet him in the park
at midnight? Fie, fie! he'll never come.

'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.

And did he send you both these letters at an instant?

Let's obey his humour a little further: come,
gentlemen.

No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.

Here's no man.

This passes!

Why, this passes, Master Ford; you are not to go
loose any longer; you must be pinioned.

No, good Master Fenton.
Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in.
Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.

She is no match for you.

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 disposed of.

Let's go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we'll mock
him. I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house
to breakfast: after, we'll a-birding together; I
have a fine hawk for the bush. Shall it be so?

Fie, fie, Master Ford! are you not ashamed? What
spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I
would not ha' your distemper in this kind for the
wealth of Windsor Castle.

Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his search.

Good Master Ford, be contented: you wrong yourself too much.

Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is
of no having: he kept company with the wild prince
and Poins; he is of too high a region; he knows too
much. No, he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes
with the finger of my substance: if ...

You have, Master Slender; I stand wholly for you:
but my wife, master doctor, is for you altogether.

Nay, good master parson, keep in your weapon.

I warrant you, he's the man should fight with him.

Why?

I think you know him; Master Doctor Caius, the
renowned French physician.

Yonder is a most reverend gentleman, who, belike
having received wrong by some person, is at most
odds with his own gravity and patience that ever you
saw.

We are come to you to do a good office, master parson.

And youthful still! in your doublet and hose this
raw rheumatic day!

'Save you, good Sir Hugh!

Adieu, good master doctor.

Sir Hugh is there, is he?

'Tis true, Master Shallow.

Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great
fighter, though now a man of peace.

Now, good master doctor!

Have with you. I would rather hear them scold than fight.

I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in
his rapier.

Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes:
there is either liquor in his pate or money in his
purse when he looks so merrily.
Enter Host
How now, mine host!