William Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor

ACT IV. SCENE 2. A room in FORD'S house. (continued)

MRS. FORD.
How near is he, Mistress Page?

MRS. PAGE.
Hard by, at street end; he will be here anon.

MRS. FORD.
I am undone! the knight is here.

MRS. PAGE.
Why, then, you are utterly shamed, and he's but
a dead man. What a woman are you! Away with him,
away with him! better shame than murder.

MRS. FORD.
Which way should he go? How should I bestow
him? Shall I put him into the basket again?

[Re-enter FALSTAFF.}

FALSTAFF.
No, I'll come no more i' the basket. May I not go
out ere he come?

MRS. PAGE.
Alas! three of Master Ford's brothers watch the
door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you
might slip away ere he came. But what make you here?

FALSTAFF.
What shall I do? I'll creep up into the chimney.

MRS. FORD.
There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces.

MRS. PAGE.
Creep into the kiln-hole.

FALSTAFF.
Where is it?

MRS. FORD.
He will seek there, on my word. Neither press,
coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for
the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his
note: there is no hiding you in the house.

FALSTAFF.
I'll go out then.

MRS. PAGE.
If you go out in your own semblance, you die,
Sir John. Unless you go out disguised,--

MRS. FORD.
How might we disguise him?

MRS. PAGE.
Alas the day! I know not! There is no woman's
gown big enough for him; otherwise he might put on a
hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape.