MISTRESS FORD.
What’s the matter, good Mistress Page?
MISTRESS PAGE.
O well-a-day, Mistress Ford, having an honest man to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!
MISTRESS FORD.
What cause of suspicion?
MISTRESS PAGE.
What cause of suspicion? Out upon you! How am I mistook in you!
MISTRESS FORD.
Why, alas, what’s the matter?
MISTRESS PAGE.
Your husband’s coming hither, woman, with all the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that he says is here now in the house, by your consent, to take an ill advantage of his absence. You are undone.
MISTRESS FORD.
’Tis not so, I hope.
MISTRESS PAGE.
Pray heaven it be not so, that you have such a man here! But ’tis most certain your husband’s coming, with half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a one. I come before to tell you. If you know yourself clear, why, I am glad of it; but if you have a friend here, convey, convey him out. Be not amazed, call all your senses to you; defend your reputation, or bid farewell to your good life for ever.
MISTRESS FORD.
What shall I do? There is a gentleman, my dear friend; and I fear not mine own shame as much as his peril. I had rather than a thousand pound he were out of the house.
MISTRESS PAGE.
For shame! Never stand “you had rather” and “you had rather”. Your husband’s here at hand. Bethink you of some conveyance. In the house you cannot hide him. O, how have you deceived me! Look, here is a basket. If he be of any reasonable stature, he may creep in here; and throw foul linen upon him, as if it were going to bucking. Or—it is whiting-time—send him by your two men to Datchet Mead.