Part 3
A broad, uneven horse-track led from the front gate by a rough wooden bridge over the trout stream, and then wound its way to the right up what had once been Falstaff Chase, keeping in sight for full half a mile till it disappeared behind a hill.
Now, mark what happened at Falstaff Castle on the bright May morning I have spoken of.
There came, cantering and jingling over the hill and down the chase towards the castle, a gay troop of cavaliers, with pennon streaming and steel caps flashing in the sun.
Now, it was a time of peace. Had it not been, Falstaff Keep was in no condition to stand a siege. And yet, from the effect caused by the sight of these horsemen, an observer would have thought to hear drums beating and horns blowing--with drawbridge up and portcullis down in a crack of time. For no sooner had the sound of hoofs roused a neatherd from a comfortable nap by the banks of the trout stream (from crossing which it was his business to prevent the cattle in his charge--the pasturage on the other side being mortgaged to a neighbour), than he leaped to his feet, and, leaving his cows to enjoy themselves in the field opposite, scampered towards the house like one possessed, as fast as his hob-nailed cowskins would let him, and roaring at the top of his voice--
“_Volk a horseback!_”
There was only one point of strict discipline really enforced at Falstaff. This was, that on the approach of strangers, the lord of the castle, if at home, should be immediately apprised thereof. Many awkward accidents had occurred from the breach of this rule.
The neatherd rushed unceremoniously into the presence of Sir Gilbert Falstaff, and the lady Alice, his wife, cowskins, hob-nails and all. Fortunately, there were no carpets in those days.
The knight was pricking arms on vellum, at a little side table, with a flagon by his side. The lady Alice, helped by two neat little maids, was mending hose at a window.
“Volk a horseback coming down park,” said the breathless messenger.
Sir Gilbert started up in alarm.
“How many? What kind? How far off?”
“Ten or fifteen, mayhap. Steel-caps, speards, and a penance.”
The knight wrung his hands, and rushed to the window to reconnoitre. It was pitiful to see his distress as he whimpered,--
“Alack! alack! ‘Tis a knight and his following. Pestilence seize them! What seek they here? Certes some Lord of the Court,--and to see me in this plight--with darned hose! Bar the shutters! Say the knight and lady are at court--at their castle in the north--in-Flanders. Plague on them! Would I were dead!”
The hind moved to depart, scratching his head, with a confused notion as to his general orders.
“Stay, good fellow,” the lady Alice said, rising from her seat. She was a comely English matron, well grown, with blue eyes and golden hair,--yet fair to look on; though with a face harder in expression than it doubtless had once been, for she had been sorely tried in her married lifetime.
“Shame on you, Sir Gilbert Falstaff, to teach your hinds such base artifices! How can you hope they will serve you truly? Bid them welcome, Jankin, to such poor cheer as we can give them. Why, man! there is not an inn within eight leagues.”
“Jankin, go not. Art thou mad, woman? Art thou mad? Thou with nothing but a cloth kirtle, and I in this miserable----But thou go to! Thou art a true trader’s daughter.”
“Even so. One of those whose office it is to keep poor knights from starving.” (It was a fault of this good dame’s, that she would be bitter in her speech at times.) “I will not send these away an hungered. Come, maidens, away with the hose-baskets, and busily with me to the kitchen.” Lady Alice, followed by her two little maidens, left the room. The sound of the horses’ feet approached rapidly. There was no time to be lost. Sir Gilbert clutched Jankin nervously by the arm, and said to him in hurried tones,--
“Take thou brown Crecy; thou wilt find her in the orchard (if she be not loose in the wheat); saddle and gallop like wind to Sir Simon Ballard’s. Bid him lend me his new green velvet surcoat,--that with the gold stars. Dost heed? Say a nobleman of the court is with me, who desires one like it. Then to Dame Adlyn, the yeoman’s wife. Say I have a wager with a certain earl, who lies here, that the weight of her gold chain is greater than his. Bid her lend it me for an hour. Spare not whip or spur, and I will owe thee a guerdon. Stay!--if these riders question thee, say the knight is gone out with his hawks. Speed!”
Jankin departed with a beaming face. He had no great faith in the promised guerdon, but he was fond of horse exercise.
The cavalcade was at the gate.
“A murrain on them!” Sir Gilbert muttered. “Would they were in the Red Sea! And yet I lack court news sorely. Pray Heaven that miser Ballard, and that farmer’s jade, Adlyn, stand me in good stead.”
Sir Gilbert having impressed upon the household the fiction he was desirous of keeping up, retired to bite his nails in a garret, till such time as Jankin should return with the borrowed plumes.
The visitors were met at the gate by one of Lady Alice’s little maids. Falstaff was rather bare in the commodity of men-servants, and those it possessed were none of the most presentable. Master Lambert, the Reve or Steward, who was believed to be much richer than his master, had been called to Sandwich on business of his own, leaving his master’s to take care of itself.
The leader of the cavalcade was a handsome young man of some one or two and twenty. He was
----“a doughty swaine; White was his face as pandemaine, His lippes red as rose. His rudde is like scarlet in grain, And I you tell in good certain, He had a seemly nose.
“His here his berde was like safroun, That to his girdle raught adoun; His shoon of cordewane; Of Brugges were his hosen broun, His robe was of ciclatoun, That coste many a Jane.”
Read further the description of Sir Thopas, and you will have a good idea of the sort of mediaeval exquisite who announced himself to the little maiden as Sir Thomas Mowbray, who having, with certain other poor gentlemen of his company, mistaken his way, was desirous of paying his respects to the fair lady of the castle.
The little maid, with much blushing, but going through her task right cleverly, invited them to enter, and pointed out to them where their steeds might be bestowed. She then led the way to the hall, where spiced sack, and, what was then termed, a “shoeing-horn,” but what, in this unpoetical age, we call broiled rashers of bacon, awaited them, spread temptingly on a Snowy napkin.
Then the little maid told them, in a pretty set speech, that her mistress would be with them presently, if they would be so good as to entertain themselves the while; adding (and here the little maid blushed, as with positive shame,) that Sir Gilbert Falstaff was gone out with his falcons, but would doubtless be home in time to welcome his guests to their poor family dinner.
The visitors fell busily to work on the sack, and used the shoeing-horn unmercifully. It would seem that they required no other entertainment, having brought in some excellent jest with them, at which they had been laughing immoderately, when the little maid first met them at the gate, and which kept them laughing, at intervals, for a good half-hour after their being seated at table; at the end of which time Jankin was seen to gallop into the courtyard on Brown Crécy--now white Crécy with foam--with a bundle before him on the saddle. Jankin appeared in high spirits, and had indeed enjoyed his ride immensely.
The travellers only checked their laughter, when, a few minutes later, the hangings were raised, and Sir Gilbert Falstaff entered the hall, leading the lady Alice by the hand. The knight wore a green velvet surcoat, embroidered with golden stars, and twirled a massive gold chain, as became a gentleman of his rank and ancestry. His dame was clad in a plain cloth gown, without ornament, befitting her origin as a wool-merchant’s daughter.
The visitors were welcomed by Sir Gilbert Falstaff with much ceremony.
“You take us by surprise, fair Sirs,” he said, after the exchange of many formal salutations, “and must fain content you with our daily fare. Poor country folk, Sir Thomas! (How does your honoured father, Sir?) Had we known of your coming, then,--a welcome more befitting----But I am glad to see you merry, gentlemen.”
This was to Sir Thomas Mowbray’s two esquires, who, not joining in the conversation, had bethought them of their late jest, and were convulsed once more.
Sir Gilbert liked not laughter in his presence. He always imagined himself to be its object.
“Nay, Sir Gilbert,” said the young knight, “forgive their lack of manners. We have all had good cause for laughter, on our way hither, as you shall own when you have heard the jest.”
Sir Gilbert felt relieved. They were not laughing at him. He twiddled Mistress Adlyn’s gold chain with courtly ease, and simpered,--
“Doubtless some court pleasantry. Let me know it, I pray you. I am sadly behind date in such matters, gentlemen. But a fallen house, you know--”
“Nay!” Mowbray made answer; “the court would be a livelier place to live in, did it abound in such jests. But you shall hear. I should tell you first, we have come from Deal this morning, and were seeking a short cut to the Canterbury road, but missed our scent, like dull-nosed dogs as we are. When about six miles from here, we met a party of boys----”
“Boys!”
Sir Gilbert Falstaff and the lady Alice exchanged glances.
“Aye, real English, true Kentish boys,--a score of them perhaps,--of all sorts and sizes. Ragged boys, warm-clad boys, shock-headed boys, and shorn boys,--after no good, I warrant me, for they were armed with bows and arrows, poles, cords, and knives.”
Again Lady Alice glanced at her husband. This time Sir Gilbert looked in another direction.
“However, their business was none of ours. We asked them our way; and one of them, who seemed to be their ringleader, a burly, flaxen-headed, blue-eyed urchin, of some fourteen,--who--the saints forgive me if I have spoken offence!--but now I look, he was the very image of your ladyship. _N’est-ce pas, Jean?_” Sir Thomas turned to a lazy-looking, handsome gentleman, of about thirty, who had dropped into a seat at his elbow.
“_Eh bien! Quoi?_”
“Excuse my friend. He speaks very little English. He is a French priest, though he does’nt look it.”
The alleged priest was dressed in the wildest extravagance of the current fashion; he had deep hanging sleeves, “purfled” with fur, and the toes of his Cordovan boots were a foot and a half long.
“_N’est-ce pas que ce garçon là ressemblait beaucoup à Madame?_”
Monsieur Jean shook off his apathy, like a true Frenchman, at the mention of a lady’s looks. He bowed graciously, and showed a splendid set of teeth, as he replied,
“_Mais, parbleu! est-ce que je n’aie pas déjà dit, qu’il était fort joli garçon?_”
“I believe you are speaking of my own son, gentlemen,” was the quiet reply of Lady Alice, who understood a little French. “He left home at daybreak; on what errand, or in what company, I know not.”
She looked a third time at her husband, who shuffled his long limbs under his chair uneasily.
“Then he is a son to be proud of!” said Mowbray heartily. “But to end my story. He advanced, cap in hand, to answer our inquiry; and, with mock politeness, which made us all laugh, told us, that if we would turn down a certain lane in the forest, some two miles off, we would find ourselves ‘in face of our ultimate destination.’ We were well amused at the lad’s pedantic speech, but, never doubting his good faith, we turned down the lane as directed. At the end of a few paces, we found ourselves in an open space in the wood, where there was--_a Gallows!_ This was ‘our ultimate destination.’ We laughed good twenty minutes at the urchin’s roguery--for which Maître Jean here gave him absolution on the spot--and have scarcely ceased laughing since. Our ultimate destination! _Eh, Jean? Nous allons tous finir par là?_”
“_Possible!_” said Jean, shrugging his shoulders.
Lady Alice, in spite of the thoughtfulness that seemed to have possessed her, laughed till her bonny fat sides shook again.
Sir Gilbert looked wrathfully at her.
“The young villain! Believe me, Sir Thomas, he shall be soundly whipped for this, if, indeed, it was our son, as I hope not. To pass so insolent a jest on a gentleman of your standing! It is like you, wife, to, treat so grave a matter lightly.”
“Nay, if the boy come to any harm through my betrayal,” said Mowbray, kindly, “I shall consider myself cut out of all good fellowship for evermore. Besides, had he not led us astray, we had never caught sight of your splendid tower, as we did from an opening in the woods, and so should have lost your kind entertainment. This must have been a rare fortress in its day, Sir Gilbert.”
“Held its own, Sir,--held its own,--and that indifferently. We are a fallen house. But be seated, Sirs, I pray you. Here comes our humble fare.”
“On what errand did that boy leave home this morning?” Lady Alice asked her husband, in a fierce whisper.
“Gentlemen, pray Heaven you are all too sharp-set to be dainty,” said the knight, evading his wife’s question. His face was deadly pale, and his hand trembled as he clutched the carving-knife, to do mischief on a smoking pig’s head.
The dinner was substantial and abundant; setting at glorious defiance that law of the period, for the restriction of luxury, which prescribed that “no one should be allowed, either for dinner or supper, above three dishes in each course, and not above two courses:” and which further decreed that “soused meat” should count as one of the aforesaid dishes. Nevertheless, conversation languished. The host, constantly making efforts to apologise to his guests for the humble fare set before them, seemed too ill at his ease to enjoy what was in reality a better dinner than he had sat down to for months. Lady Alice was attentive and hospitable; but her last laugh had been forced from her, at the mention of her son’s waggery, before dinner. Sir Thomas Mowbray was fain to talk in French with his friend, Maître Jean. His two esquires, and the men-at-arms below the salt, acted like sensible men: they eat and drank, and held their tongues.
Just after the hartshorn jellies, almond marchpanes, and cherry marmalades, had gone the way of their predecessors, the white broth capons, veal toasts, and chicken salads, and had been replaced by new cheese and old apples, Master Lambert, the Reve, was seen riding into the courtyard,--on a stout grey mare,--full of importance, and, as it shortly proved, of something else.
That faithful steward burst into the dining-hall, with the unmistakeable abruptness of an unpaid servant--saluting nobody.
“How now, Lambert?” Sir Gilbert asked, with a sorry attempt at dignity. “What is the matter?”
“Hanging matter, Sir Gilbert,” answered the steward, in a thick voice. “Flogging matter at least,--caging matter for certain. But riding’s dry work, and talking, drier. Save this fair company,--though I don’t know ‘em.” Master Lambert quietly drained Sir Gilbert’s drinking cup, flopped himself down in an arm-seat beside the fire, blinked his eyes insolently at the company, and deliberately proceeded to take off his muddy boots.
“How now, knave! art thou mad? Dost thou know in whose presence thou art?”
“Don’t call me knave, Sir Gilbert Falstaff, knight,” hiccupped the drunken steward; “or I’ll have the house over your head. You know I can do it. I ha’nt got coat armour, nor breeches armour; but I can pay my way, and keep my sons from the gallows,--more than you can do at this time of day either one or the other.”
Lady Alice turned deadly pale. Sir Gilbert’s lank bones fairly rattled, as he fell back, half dead, in his chair. The guests looked at one another.
Lady Alice, with forced calmness, rose from her seat, and, approaching the drunkard, addressed him--
“Speak thy meaning, fellow--for thou hadst a meaning when thou earnest into this room. What has given thee the right to insult thy master and myself, before our noble guests?”
“Insult _you_, my lady?” howled the steward, suddenly diverging into the maudlin state. “I couldn’t do it. You’re a sweet angel, you are, born and bred; and I love the very ground you tread on; always did. And when I see you thrown away on that snivelling gull----”
Whether the miserable sot meant gallantry or gratitude is uncertain. At any rate, utterly forgetting the questions asked him, as well as the presence he sat in, he made a staggering movement to take the Lady Alice’s hand. Failing in the first attempt--the lady, rigid with astonishment, still remaining at his side--he rose, smilingly, to repeat it.
Sir Thomas Mowbray gave two strides from his seat, and felled the drunkard to the ground with a well-directed blow on the temples.
Master Lambert rolled, apparently lifeless, into the fire-place among the wood-ashes.
“You have killed him!” said Lady Alice, not without a grateful glance at her champion.
“I am afraid not,” said Mowbray, cruelly enough, it must be admitted; “though, after all, we shall want him alive, to answer a question or two. How now! Sir Hogshead. Must we stave in that wooden head of thine to get anything out of thee?”
The young knight administered a ruthless kick to the prostrate steward, which sent that man of wealth rolling into the blazing embers.
The kick and the brisk fire roused Master Lambert Reve to something like consciousness and sobriety. He rose upon all fours (the threatening heel of Mowbray, armed with a terrible spur, and raised, from time to time, above his head, forbidding him to adopt a more dignified position), and whimpered out a lament that an honest serving-man should be thus treated after riding, at risk of neck and limb, to apprise his masters of a matter threatening their family honour.
“Come to the point,” said Mowbray, raising his heel.
“Master Jack, with Tom Simcox, and Will the Tanner’s son, and young Hob Smith, and others, stole a buck this morning. They have been taken by Sir Simon Ballard’s keepers. Sir Simon swears he will have law of all, gentle and simple. They are in the cage at Maldyke,” the steward rattled out, with marvellous clearness and volubility.
“So they were the lads we met. Fear nothing, Madam. My young wag shall come to no harm. Where is this Maldyke?”
“A league and a half from here, by the road you came.”
“Enough. You may get up. Lads, to horse! _Jean, en veux-tu?_”
“_De quoi?_”
“_Des coups_.”
“_Toujours_.”
And Maître Jean put away a set of tablets on which he had been making some notes; and pulled on a pair of embroidered gloves, over which he was at great pains to draw on several jewelled rings. These warlike preparations completed, he declared himself--in the French language, and with a charming smile--ready for action.
The men-at-arms were soon equipped and mounted.
Sir Thomas Mowbray took a hasty farewell of his hostess, saying, as he did so--
“I perceive, Madam, your noble husband takes this matter greatly to heart. Either you lack his sensibility, or he your fortitude” (there was some irony in the speaker’s tone as he said this). “Yet, fear nothing. I give you my knightly word to bring back your son safe and whole. We are strong enough to beat all the keepers in the county and bear the consequences. We owe you this trifling service in return for our entertainment. Farewell. Stay! There is yet a duty to perform.”
Master Lambert, the Reve, lacking the stimulus of kicks, had relapsed into his arm-chair and a state of somnolency. Sir Thomas dragged the capitalist by his hood into the court-yard, dipped his head in a horse-trough, as a sanitary precaution, and shut him up in a log-house, placing a heavy invalid plough against the door for security.
And then Sir Thomas Mowbray with his friend Jean rode off at the head of their troop to rescue little Jack Falstaff.
Sir Gilbert had not spoken a word, nor moved an inch in his chair.
When they were alone, his wife approached him slowly, and said, in measured tones--
“Sir Gilbert Falstaff, from this day forth we are man and wife no longer.”
“How! how!” said the knight, quivering with rage and shame. “That’s well! that’s well! All the world will desert me in my wretchedness--and you the first, I might be sure. It is in your blood. Would I were dead! To be seen in this plight by gentlemen of the court--insulted by my own groom--all in one day--and my son a felon----”
“For that he may thank his father,” said the lady, coldly.
“It’s a lie, woman!” the knight screamed. “I have done all I can to instil gentleman-like notions into him becoming his rank.”
“You set him on to steal Sir Simon Ballard’s deer--the man whose coat you are wearing. You have sacrificed my son and yours--body and soul, perhaps--to your liking for a certain dish of meat! You pitiful wretch! without the heart to rob a henroost for yourself!”
“‘Tis a lie--a black, wicked, shocking lie!” the knight could only gasp; but it was plain to see with whom the lie was. “It is the low training you have given him, made him mistake my words--and the taste for bad company he had with your blood. I may have said, in the olden time it was thought good sport for young gentlemen of spirit to carry away a buck; as, indeed, it was, in the good old days when gentlemen were not meddled with in their sports by base hinds--for this Ballard is no better, for all he wears three-pile velvet, while his betters----But ‘tis no matter! All the world is against me. I am the most miserable wretch on earth!”
“I believe you are, indeed! My poor boy! My brave boy! whom I have tried to make good and honest, as God intended him to be!”
Lady Alice Falstaff sobbed as if her heart would break.
“Good! Good! Look to one’s wife for comfort! Not a thought for my sufferings! But, if the young fool gets safely through this, I’ll beat him within an inch of his life. And to try it in the day-time, too!”
“Enough! I will humble you no farther. You have heard my decision. Whether the kind, brave men who left us, to break the laws to spare our shame,--whether they bring me back my son or no,--whether he is to die a felon, or live an honest man,--from this time forth we two are strangers.”
“You don’t mean it,” Sir Gilbert whined, in a half-imploring, half-threatening manner. “You would not have the base, black heart to leave me in my miseries--to be robbed and neglected by servants? You know I am ailing, and require little comforts. I can eat nobody’s Warden pies but yours----”
“I have spoken my last word to you,” said the lady, in an inexorable voice. And she left the room, to watch and pray for her son’s safe return.
The poor mother spent a wretched hour, standing far out in the road, with strained eyeballs and compressed lips, watching the horizon. Her tribulation was shared by the entire household, by all of whom (with the exception of Master Lambert, the Reve, the favourite butt of young Jack’s practical jokes) the young scapegrace in trouble was greatly beloved. Rough kitchen-maids and lumbering ploughmen were out on the road, watching as eagerly as their mistress--many of them with cheeks as wet as her own.
That hour seemed a lifetime to Lady Alice Falstaff.
Horses’ hoofs were at length heard pattering over the hill.
“Here they be,” roared Jankin, who had stationed himself as look-out in a high tree. “Hooray! they’m got’un.”
The cavalcade burst down the chase. The mother’s quick eye detected her son, in safety, at a glance.
In a few minutes the horses had thundered over the bridge, and little Jack Falstaff, leaping from Sir Thomas Mowbray’s crupper, was in his mother’s arms.