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?

MISTRESS FORD

Marry, this is our device;
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 shall be done with him? what is your plot?

MISTRESS PAGE

That likewise have we thought upon, and thus:
Nan Page my daughter and my little son
And three or four more of their growth we'll dress
Like urchins, ouphes and fairies, green and white,
With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
And rattles in their hands: upon a sudden,
As Falstaff, she and I, are newly met,
Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once
With some diffused song: upon their sight,
We two in great amazedness will fly:
Then let them all encircle him about
And, fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean knight,
And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,
In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
In shape profane.

MISTRESS FORD

And till he tell the truth,
Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound
And burn him with their tapers.

MISTRESS PAGE

The truth being known,
We'll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit,
And mock him home to Windsor.

FORD

The children must
Be practised well to this, or they'll ne'er do't.

SIR HUGH EVANS

I will teach the children their behaviors; and I
will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the
knight with my taber.

FORD

That will be excellent. I'll go and buy them vizards.

MISTRESS PAGE

My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies,
Finely attired in a robe of white.

PAGE

That silk will I go buy.

Aside

And in that time
Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away
And marry her at Eton. Go send to Falstaff straight.