第31章

SCENE I. London. A street. Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY, FANG and his Boy with her, and SNAREfollowing. MISTRESS QUICKLY Master Fang, have you entered the action? FANG It is entered. MISTRESS QUICKLY Where's your yeoman? Is't a lusty yeoman?

will a'

stand to 't? FANG Sirrah, where's Snare? MISTRESS QUICKLY O Lord, ay! good Master Snare. SNARE Here, here. FANG Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff. MISTRESS QUICKLY Yea, good Master Snare; I have entered him and all. SNARE It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab. MISTRESS QUICKLY Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in mine own house, and that most beastly: in good faith, he cares not what mischief he does. If his weapon be out: he will foin like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child. FANG If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust. MISTRESS QUICKLY No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow. FANG An I but fist him once; an a' come but within my vice,-- MISTRESS QUICKLY I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang, hold him sure: good Master Snare, let him not 'scape. A' comes continuantly to Pie-corner--saving your manhoods--to buy a saddle; and he is indited to dinner to the Lubber's-head in Lumbert street, to Master Smooth's the silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is entered and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. Ahundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to bear: and I have borne, and borne, and borne, and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong. Yonder he comes; and that errant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices: Master Fang and Master Snare, do me, do me, do me your offices.

Enter FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH FALSTAFF How now! whose mare's dead? what's the matter? FANG Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly. FALSTAFF Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph: cut me off the villain's head: throw the quean in the channel. MISTRESS QUICKLY Throw me in the channel! I'll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue! Murder, murder! Ah, thou honeysuckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers and the king's? Ah, thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed, a man-queller, and a woman-queller. FALSTAFF Keep them off, Bardolph. FANG A rescue! a rescue! MISTRESS QUICKLY Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wo't, wo't thou? Thou wo't, wo't ta? do, do, thou rogue!

do, thou hemp-seed! FALSTAFF Away, you scullion! you rampallion! You fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe.

Enter the Lord Chief-Justice, and his men Lord Chief-Justice What is the matter? keep the peace here, ho! MISTRESS QUICKLY Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you, stand to me.

Lord Chief-Justice How now, Sir John! what are you brawling here?

Doth this become your place, your time and business?

You should have been well on your way to York.

Stand from him, fellow: wherefore hang'st upon him? MISTRESS QUICKLY O most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.

Lord Chief-Justice For what sum? MISTRESS QUICKLY It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all, all I have. He hath eaten me out of house and home;he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his: but I will have some of it out again, or Iwill ride thee o' nights like the mare. FALSTAFF I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any vantage of ground to get up.

Lord Chief-Justice How comes this, Sir John? Fie!

what man of good temper would endure this tempest of exclamation?

Are you not ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own? FALSTAFF What is the gross sum that I owe thee? MISTRESS QUICKLY Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing-man of Windsor, thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us she had a good dish of prawns;whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby Itold thee they were ill for a green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people; saying that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath: deny it, if thou canst. FALSTAFF My lord, this is a poor mad soul; and she says up and down the town that the eldest son is like you:

she hath been in good case, and the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish officers, I beseech you I may have redress against them.

Lord Chief-Justice Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level consideration:

you have, as it appears to me, practised upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and in person. MISTRESS QUICKLY Yea, in truth, my lord.