Enter Ford.
How now, Master Brook! Master Brook, the matter will be known tonight or never. Be you in the park about midnight, at Herne’s oak, and you shall see wonders.
FORD.
Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you had appointed?
FALSTAFF.
I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a poor old man, but I came from her, Master Brook, like a poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brook, that ever governed frenzy. I will tell you he beat me grievously, in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of man, Master Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver’s beam, because I know also life is a shuttle. I am in haste. Go along with me; I’ll tell you all, Master Brook. Since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, I knew not what ’twas to be beaten till lately. Follow me, I’ll tell you strange things of this knave Ford, on whom tonight I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange things in hand, Master Brook! Follow.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. Windsor Park
Enter Page, Shallow and Slender.
PAGE.
Come, come. We’ll couch i’ the castle ditch till we see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender, my daughter—
SLENDER.
Ay, forsooth. I have spoke with her, and we have a nay-word how to know one another. I come to her in white and cry “mum”; she cries “budget”; and by that we know one another.
SHALLOW.
That’s good too. But what needs either your “mum” or her “budget”? The white will decipher her well enough. It hath struck ten o’clock.