.
9: _house_] (Q1 Q2) Rowe. _houses_ Ff Q3.
11: _come off_] _compt off_ Theobald (Warburton). _not come off_
Capell.

SCENE IV. _A room in FORD'S house._

_Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD,
and SIR HUGH EVANS._

_Evans._ 'Tis one of the best discretions of a 'oman as
ever I did look upon.

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

_Mrs Page._ Within a quarter of an hour. 5

_Ford._ Pardon me, wife. Henceforth do what thou wilt;
I rather will suspect the sun with cold
Than thee with wantonness: now doth thy honour stand,
In him that was of late an heretic,
As firm as faith.

_Page._ 'Tis well, 'tis well; no more: 10
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, 15
Where we may take him, and disgrace him for it.

_Ford._ There is no better way than that they spoke of.

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

_Evans._ You say he has been thrown in the rivers, and 20
has been grievously peaten, as an old 'oman: methinks
there should be terrors in him that he should not come;
methinks his flesh is punished, he shall have no desires.

_Page._ So think I too.

_Mrs Ford._ Devise but how you'll use him when he comes, 25
And let us two devise to bring him thither.

_Mrs Page._ There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,
Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns; 30
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,
And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner:
You have heard of such a spirit; and well you know
The superstitious idle-headed eld 35
Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age,
This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.

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

_Mrs Ford._ Marry, this is our device; 40
That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us.

_Page._ Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come:
And in this shape when you have brought him thither,
What sha