Part 17
To return to Master Shallow. Immediately on the receipt of Sir John Falstaff’s letter, he sent messengers to his most influential neighbours, praying them on various pretexts to visit him in the morning. But he was singularly unfortunate. Justice Aguecheek (related to the Shallows through the Slender family) was gone to London on law business. Justice Greedye was invited to a great dinner on the following day, and was preparing for the event in the hands of his apothecary. Justice Trulliber was gone to attend the hog market at Taunton, and would be three days absent. Masters Woodcock and Westerne were on ill terms with each other, and with Master Shallow, on some business of litigation. It would be useless to invite either, especially the latter, who would be certain to receive any civil message with foul language and possible ill treatment of the bearer. It seemed likely that Sir John Falstaff’s visit would be wasted, like a rare dish prepared for an honoured guest who does not arrive, and which the family are fain to consume in dudgeon. Utter disappointment was prevented by the arrival of one Justice Silence--Master Shallow’s own cousin by marriage, who made his appearance punctually, at the hour appointed on the eventful morning. Master Silence was a dull man, and not given to converse or tale-bearing. But he would serve as a witness to his kinsman’s familiarity with the coming man. And while he would be able to confirm the heads of any narrative Master Shallow might choose to frame on the subject, his natural taciturnity would prevent him from contradicting any superadded details which his imaginative relation might choose to furnish for its embellishment.
Sir John Falstaff arrived attended by that “simple following” he had spoken of; which, it is needless to say, consisted of his entire army--properly bribed and instructed to declare that they were backed by countless legions in camp at Stratford. Master Shallow received our knight with the joy with which an ambitious spider of small dimensions may be supposed to regard the approach to his web of a gigantic blue-bottle. Master Shallow--simple man--imagined that he was going to turn Sir John Falstaff to his advantage. “Friend at court” was the justice’s maxim, “is better than penny in purse.” Sir John’s own feelings, on entering the cosy, well-stocked domain of the ancient race of Shallow, may be compared to those of a majestic fox entering an unprotected poultry yard.
As I have stated that this preliminary visit of the Falstaff forces to the stronghold of Shallow was only one of reconnoitre, to enable the general to plan his great assault for a future occasion, and as circumstances rendered it necessarily of short duration, I will pass over it briefly. Sir John’s treatment of his host was affable, but dignified. He suffered Master Shallow to refer to their past intimacy, and lie to his heart’s content on the score of his youthful achievements.
Sir John selected such men as he considered desirable for the King’s service from the levies provided for him; accepted a brief repast, and departed, having promised Master Shallow to renew their acquaintance on the termination of the wars, in a second visit to that gentleman’s hospitable mansion, extracting in return a half-promise from its owner to accompany him to court. It is strange that Justice Shallow, gifted, as we have seen him, with a remarkably retentive memory, should have forgotten how costly a luxury he had found the honour of Sir John Falstaff’s patronage in early youth. But it is the constant failing of very foolish old gentlemen to imagine they have grown wiser with age.
In the present day, when so much of the public attention is directed to the question of raising recruits for the British army, a glance at the way in which such matters were regulated in the fifteenth century may not prove uninstructive. It will be seen that the modes of actual levying differed materially from those at present in vogue. But it may silence cavillers to learn that our ancestors--whose wisdom may not be disputed--were fully in accord with the opinion of modern rulers as to the class of men to whom the fighting of their country’s battles might be with the greatest propriety entrusted.
I will show you how Sir John Falstaff, with the assistance of Justice Shallow, recruited the diminished armies of King Henry the Fourth.
Sir John on his arrival at the justice’s mansion, having exchanged a few hasty civilities and remarks on the weather with his host and the scarcely audible, visible, or tangible Master Silence, proceeded to business.
“Gentlemen,” he inquired, “have you provided me here half a dozen of sufficient men?”
Master Shallow replied in the affirmative, and requested his guest to be seated.
Sir John took a chair, and begged that the recruits might be brought before him.
Five miserable-looking individuals were marshalled into the courtyard, officered by the valiant Bardolph. Whether Master Shallow’s arithmetic had been at fault, and he had calculated erroneously as to the addition of two and three; whether there was a scarcity of men in the neighbourhood; or whether one of the original number had deserted, is doubtful. However, it is certain that of the half-dozen recruits asserted to be in readiness only five made their appearance.
Master Shallow proceeded to call over the muster roll--not appearing to notice the deficiency.
“Ralph Mouldy--let me see. Where is Ralph Mouldy?”
“Here, if it please you.”
Mr. Mouldy’s voice and expression of countenance declared plainly that it didn’t please _him_.
Mouldy was in all probability a dangerous poacher, so anxious was the worthy magistrate to recommend him for military service.
“What think you, Sir John? A good limbed fellow; young, strong, and of _good friends_.”
The last recommendation decided Sir John at once. Mouldy would do.
“Is thy name Mouldy?”
“Yea, if it please you.”
“‘Tis the more time thou wert used.”
Master Shallow was in ecstacies. The practical joke of sending a man to the wars against his will had already tickled the excellent justice’s sense of humour. But to make a verbal jest on his calamity to his very face, and on his own name, was irresistible.
“Ha! ha! ha! most excellent i’ faith! Things that are mouldy lack use. Very singular, good. Well said, Sir John. Very well said.”
“Prick him,” said Sir John.
And down went a mark against Mouldy’s name, making him as much the King’s property as though he had been honestly bought by a sergeant’s shilling.
Mouldy grumbled like a malcontent as he was. He thought that he might have been let alone.
“My old dame will be undone now for one to do her husbandry and her drudgery. You need not to have pricked me: there are other men fitter to go than I.”
As if that were a reason for your not going! For shame, Mouldy!
Simon Shadow was the next called.
“Aye, marry, let me have him to sit under,” said Sir John, “he’s like to be a cold soldier.”
Shadow was approved and pricked.
“Thomas Wart!”
“Where’s he?”
“Here, sir!”
“Is thy name Wart.” (Sir John Falstaff was the questioner.)
“Yes, Sir?”
“Thou art a very ragged Wart.”
“Shall I prick him down, Sir John?”
“It were superfluous; for his apparel is built upon his back, and the whole frame stands upon pins. Prick him no more.”
Renewed ecstacies of Mr. Justice Shallow. His worship had always considered a ragged man a most laughable object. But the matter had never been represented to him in such a truly ridiculous light as by his facetious guest.
“Ha! ha! ha! You can do it, Sir, you can do it. I commend you well. Francis Feeble.”
“Here, Sir.”
“What trade art thou, Feeble?” Sir John asked.
“A woman’s tailor, Sir.”
“Shall I prick him. Sir?”
“You may; but if he had been a man’s tailor, he would have pricked you.”
Feeble was approved and pricked. He was the only one who appeared to submit to the operation without wincing. Feeble proved the most valiant ninth part of a recruit on record. He appeared delighted with his prospects. The only drawback to his military ardour and satisfaction was a regret that Wart could not be permitted to accompany him. This makes it difficult to decide whether Wart was his bosom friend or his mortal enemy.
“I would Wart might have gone, Sir,” quoth Feeble.
“I would thou wert a man’s tailor,” replied the Captain, “that thou might’st mend him and make him fit to go. I cannot put him to a private soldier that is the leader of so many thousands. Let that suffice, most forcible Feeble.”
Feeble was satisfied. So, no doubt, was Wart.
“Peter Bullcalf of the Green,” was the next called.
“Trust me, a likely fellow,” said the Knight: “prick me Bullcalf till he roar again.”
“Oh good my lord Captain----” Bullcalf roared without waiting for the operation.
“What, dost thou roar before thou art pricked?”
“Oh! Sir, I am a diseased man.” Bullcalf bellowed, proving that his lungs were at all events not yet affected.
“What disease hast thou?”
“A villainous cold, Sir--a cough, Sir--which I caught with ringing in the King’s affairs on his coronation day, Sir.”
“Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown; we will have away thy cold; and I will take such order that thy friends shall ring for thee.”
It was fortunate that with this sally Sir John Falstaff desisted for the present, or he would in all probability have been the death of Master Robert Shallow. That gentleman repeated the words, “And I will take such order that thy friends shall ring for thee,” to himself, many times over, that he might be able to retail the jest to his admiring friends. He circulated it at first as one of the many brilliant things Sir John Falstaff had said on the occasion of his first visit to Shallow Hall. But in the course of time the worthy magistrate appropriated it to his own service, and never missed an opportunity of bringing it forward (with the point carefully omitted) as an original witticism from the inexhaustible _repertoire_ of himself, Master Robert Shallow.
Bullcalf was pricked. The justices and their military friend withdrew to luncheon.
“Good Master Corporate Bardolph,” said Bullcalf when the troops were left alone with that warlike personage, “stand my friend, and here is four Harry ten shillings in French crowns for you.”
Bullcalf urged his plea by further arguments. They were unnecessary. The first was more than sufficient.
“Go to: stand aside,” said Bardolph, pocketing the money.
Mouldy quitted the ranks and motioned his superior to grant him also a private conference.
“And good Master Corporal Captain, for my old dame’s sake, stand my friend: she has nobody to do anything about her, when I am gone: and she is old and cannot help herself. You shall have forty, Sir.”
Chink! Chink!
“Go to: stand aside.”
“Sir, a word with you,” said Bardolph when his Captain reappeared with the two justices. “I have _three_ pound to free Mouldy and Bullcalf.”
It should be observed that four ten shilling pieces added to forty shillings at that period, as now, made a total of _four_ pounds sterling. Bardolph’s education had been neglected--and let us hope that his miscalculation was merely the result of a total ignorance of the rules of compound addition.
A word to the wise is sufficient for them. Sir John Falstaff at once decided that Mouldy should stay at home until past service, and Bullcalf be left to grow till he should be fit for it. Sir John would have none of them.
“Sir John, Sir John,” urged Master Shallow. “Do not yourself wrong: they are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best.”
It is not improbable that Bullcalf was a poacher too.
Sir John Falstaff was indignant.
“Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature, bulk and big assemblance of a man? Give me the spirit, Master Shallow. Here’s Wart. You see what a ragged appearance it is. He shall charge you and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer’s hammer: come off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer’s bucket. And this same half-faced fellow Shadow, give me this man--he presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife. And for a retreat--how swiftly will this Feeble, the woman’s tailor, run off?”
Briefly, Feeble, Wart, and Shadow were enrolled among the king’s soldiers serving under Sir John Falstaff. Bullcalf and Mouldy were allowed to go about their business.
It will be seen from the above that the ancient manner of choosing soldiers differed not materially from the modern one. The better class of men were rejected, and the ranks supplied from the dregs of the population. Any charge of venality against Sir John Falstaff and his lieutenant for suffering Mouldy and Bullcalf to buy off their services, I hope I can meet, by calling attention to the fact that there are even now certain favoured persons--whole regiments in fact--ostensibly in her Majesty’s service, who are invariably privileged to stop at home in times of danger. Or I can dispose of the matter more simply by stating that Sir John Falstaff merely gave permission to the two warriors elect, Mouldy and Bullcalf--to return to their homes on urgent private affairs.
It may be objected that Sir John Falstaff observed an unjustifiable tone of levity in transacting a business of such gravity as the forcible abduction of poor men from their homes--to risk their lives in a quarrel, the issue of which could not personally interest them. But Sir John’s jests on the names, wardrobes, and personal appearance of his recruits, were at all events harmless. I have heard of much more practical jokes being passed on the British soldier by the authorities engaging him in my time; such as promising him certain sums of money for his services, and deducting nearly the whole amount for the expenses of his outfit; sending him to fight under a broiling sun, weighted with half a horse load of useless accoutrements; supplying him with firelocks that burst in his hands; shipping him on board crazy old vessels that go to pieces in still water; and a thousand others.
VI. ON THE MAGNANIMITY OF SIR JOHN FALSTAFF
IN ABSTAINING FROM PARTICIPATION IN A DISGRACEFUL ACTION.--EPISODE OF COLEVILE OF THE GRANGE.
In estimating the characters of great men, it is recognised as a principle that we should give them almost the same credit for the mischief they abstain from doing as for the positive good they effect. Abstention from evil, under circumstances of great temptation to its performance, is unquestionably a virtue of the highest order. In proof of the high esteem habitually awarded by mankind to this rare although negative excellence, I will refer merely to the celebrated letting-alone case of the Roman Scipio, and the well-known parallel to it afforded by the conduct of Sir John Falstaff himself, who (at a later period of his career than the one at present under notice), having occasion, for professional reasons, to break open a gentleman’s lodge, kill the gentleman’s deer, and maltreat the gentleman’s servants, was yet, in the very height and impetuosity of action, enabled to put a sufficient curb on his impulses to resist the temptation of kissing a keeper’s daughter!
The little incident of self-denial just alluded to, though in every way deserving of the highest eulogy, has, as it seems to me, been dwelt on by the commentators with undue stress, rather implying a suspicion that it might have been an exceptional case in the character and conduct of our knight, and remarkable only on that account. So far from this being the truth, I could establish precedents for the occurrence by a thousand proofs of glaring offences which Sir John Falstaff did not commit, while otherwise occupied in the way of his business. I will content myself, however, with a single example, couched in an incident, which here falls naturally into its place, by which it will be seen that the hero of these pages could, on occasion, abstain from taking part in even the greatest acts of rascality of his time; moreover, when the greatest facilities, and even inducements, existed for his participating in such means of glory.
The following passage from Hollinshed will facilitate comprehension of the incident.
“Raufe Nevill, Earl of Westmoreland, that was not far off, together with “the Lord John of Lancaster, the King’s son, being informed of this “rebellious attempt *, assembled together such powers as they might make, “and coming into a plain within the forest of Galtree, caused their standards “to be pight down in the like sort as the Archbishop had pight his, over “against them, being far stronger of people than the other; for (as some “write) there were of the rebels, at the least, eleven thousand men. When the “Earl of Westmoreland perceived the force of adversaries, and that they lay “still and attempted not to come forward upon him, he subtilely devised how “to quail their purpose, and forthwith despatched messengers unto the Arch- “bishop to understand the cause, as it were, of that great assemble, and for what “cause, contrary to the King’s peace, they came so in armour. The Archbishop “answered that he took nothing in hand against the King’s peace; but that “whatever he did, tended rather to advance the peace and quiet of the Com- “monwealth than otherwise; and when he and his company were in arms, it “was for fear of the King, to whom he could have no free access by reason “of such a multitude of flatterers as were about him; and therefore he main- “tained that his purpose was good and profitable, as well for the King himself “as for the realm, if men were willing to understand a truth; and herewith “he showed forth a scroll, in which the articles were written whereof before “ye have heard. The Messengers returning unto the Earl of Westmoreland, “showed him what they had heard and brought from the Archbishop. When “he had read the articles, he showed in word and countenance, outwardly, that “he liked of the Archbishop’s holy and virtuous intent and purpose; that he “and his would prosecute the same in assisting the Archbishop, who, “rejoicing at that, gave credit to the Earl, and persuaded the Earl Marshall “against his will, as it were, to go with him to a place appointed for them “to commune together. Then, when they were met with like number on either “part, the articles were read over; and, without any more ado, the Earl of “Westmoreland and those that were with him agreed to do their best to see “that a reformation might be had according to the same. The Earl of West- “moreland using more policy than the rest: ‘Well (said he), then our travail is “come to the wished end; and whereas our people have been long in armour, “let them depart home to their wonted trades and occupations: in the mean “time let us drink together in sign of agreement, that the people on both “sides may see it, and know that it is true that we be light at a point.
“They had no sooner shaked hands together, but a knight was sent straight- “ways from the Archbishop to bring word to the people that there was a “Peace concluded, commanding each man to lay aside arms, and resort home “to their homes. The people beholding such tokens of peace as shaking of “hands, and drinking together of the Lords in loving manner, brake up their “field and returned homewards: but in the mean time, while the people of “the Archbishop’s side drew away, the number of the contrary part increased, “according to order given by the Earl of Westmoreland. And yet the “Archbishop perceived not he was deceived till the Earl of Westmoreland “arrested him and the Earl Marshall, with divers other. Their troops being “pursued, many were taken, many slain, and many spoiled of that they had “about them, and so permitted to go their ways.”
* i.e. That of Northumberland, Hastings, Mowbray and Archbishop Scroop--with a view to the suppression of which Falstaff and others were now marching into Yorkshire.
Now, I am happy to say, that with all his faults, Sir John Falstaff was guiltless of participation in this infamous transaction. From the Shak-spearian account of the occurrence (which does not materially differ from that of the elder and more prosaic chronicles), it is clear that Falstaff and his troops were not among those who treacherously “increased,” according to orders from the Earl of Westmoreland, while the people of the Archbishop’s side “drew away.”
Sir John did not make his appearance on the shameful field till the heat of action was past and the disgraceful pursuit abandoned.
It is true that the fact is on record, that on our hero’s reaching the skirts of Gaultree Forest, he met with a runaway rebel, by name Colevile of the Dale, whom he immediately challenged, and who, as quickly surrendered himself prisoner, on the mere suspicion that his challenger was no other than the redoubted Sir John Falstaff. This circumstance, whilst adding another to the thousand existing proofs that our knight was a man of acknowledged bravery and martial renown--at the same time, seems a little to weaken my theory, that Sir John is entitled to credit for having withheld his countenance and assistance from the treacherous “subtiltie” of Westmoreland and Lancaster. It looks rather as though he had come a little late for the scramble, and was anxious to make up for lost time in the pursuit and plunder of stragglers. Colevile, however, seems to have fallen in his way most temptingly, and from the alacrity with which he gave himself into custody, he would seem to have been an individual ambitious for the distinction of being led captive at the wheels of Sir John Falstaff’s car of triumph.
The following conversation explains the circumstances of the capture *:--
* Henry IV. Part II., act iv. scene 2.
Sir John Falstaff. What is your name, sir? Of what condition are you; and of what place, I pray?
Colevile. I am a knight, sir, and my name is, Colevile of the Dale.
Falstaff. Well then, Colevile, is your name; a knight, is your degree; and your place, the dale. Colevile, shall still be your name; a traitor, your degree; and the dungeon, your place--a place deep enough. So shall you be still Colevile of the Dale.
Colevile. Are you not Sir John Falstaff?
Falstaff. As good a man as he, sir, whoe’er I am.
****
Colevile. I think you are Sir John Falstaff, and I yield me.