Page 2526 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

companions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth,
to search his house for his wife’s love. [70]

FORD
What, while you were there?

FALSTAFF
While I was there.

FORD
And did he search for you, and could not find you?

FALSTAFF
You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress Page; gives

intelligence of Ford’s [75] approach; and, in her invention and Ford’s wife’s
distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket −

FORD
A buck-basket?

FALSTAFF
Yes, a buck-basket! − rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul
stockings, greasy napkins, [80] that, Master Brook, there was the rankest

compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.

FORD
And how long lay you there?

FALSTAFF
Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have suffered to bring this woman
to evil, for your good. Being [85] thus crammed in the basket, a couple of
Ford’s knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress to carry me in the

name of foul clothes to Datchet Lane; they took me on their shoulders; met
the jealous knave their master in the door, who asked them once or twice
what they had in [90] their basket. I quaked for fear lest the lunatic knave
would have searched it; but fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, held his

hand. Well, on went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But