maid, then.
I'll be sworn,
As my mother was, the first hour I was born.
I do believe the swearer. What with me?
Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?
Two thousand, fair woman: and I'll vouchsafe thee
the hearing.
There is one Mistress Ford, sir:--I pray, come a
little nearer this ways:--I myself dwell with master
Doctor Caius,--
Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say,--
Your worship says very true: I pray your worship,
come a little nearer this ways.
I warrant thee, nobody hears; mine own people, mine
own people.
Are they so? God bless them and make them his servants!
Well, Mistress Ford; what of her?
Why, sir, she's a good creature. Lord Lord! your
worship's a wanton! Well, heaven forgive you and all
of us, I pray!
Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford,--
Marry, this is the short and the long of it; you
have brought her into such a canaries as 'tis
wonderful. The best courtier of them all, when the
court lay at Windsor, could never have brought her
to such a canary. Yet there has been knights, and
lords, and gentlemen, with their coaches, I warrant
you, coach after coach, letter after letter, gift
after gift; smelling so sweetly, all musk, and so
rushling, I warrant you, in silk and gold; and in
such alligant terms; and in such wine and sugar of
the best and the fairest, that would have won any
woman's heart; and, I warrant you, they could never
get an eye-wink of her: I had myself twenty angels
given me this morning; but I defy all angels, in
any such sort, as they say, but in the way of
honesty: and, I warrant you, they could never get
her so much as sip on a cup with the proudest of
them all: and yet there has been earls, nay, which
is more, pensioners; but, I warrant you, all is one with her.
But what says she to me? be brief, my good
she-Mercury.
Marry, she hath received your letter, for the which
she thanks you a thousand times; and she gives you
to notify that her husband will be absence from his
house between ten and eleven.
Ten and eleven?
Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see the
picture, she says, that you wot of: Master Ford,
her husband, will be from home. Alas! the sweet
woman leads an ill life with him: he's a very
jealousy man: she leads a very