Part 5
The lists were soon formed and orthodox weapons provided. The combatants took their places. Master Skogan convulsed the bystanders by pretending to be terribly frightened. He shook all over in the most humorous manner; rejected half-a-dozen cudgels as not stout enough for so terrible an occasion; affected to look for a soft place to tumble upon; and hoped that some kind gentleman would have compassion on his wife and family in case of fatal accidents. The cudgel play commenced, and the spectators still laughed; but the mortifying conviction was soon forced upon Skogan that they were no longer laughing with, but at him. The poet had assumed a nonchalant patronising air, as who should say, “We will get this ridiculous business swiftly and mercifully over,” which Jack imitated to the life, continuing, indeed, to burlesque every one of his adversary’s movements throughout the encounter. Our hero parried every blow, easily. Skogan’s jaunty smile deepened into rather an ill-favoured grin. He had made the serious mistake of underrating his opponent’s powers. Jack, on the other hand, had well calculated the weight of the peril he was incurring, and now brought all his nerve, muscle, and intellect to bear in meeting it. He depended on a chance for a peculiar stroke--one of Wat Smith’s teaching--of which he had seen Skogan to be ignorant. An opportunity for this offered itself. It was seized like lightning. A sharp ringing sound was heard. Skogan let fall his sword-arm, put his left hand up to his brow, and tried an unconcerned smile, as though the thing were a mere nothing, in the midst of which facial effort he fell senseless on his back with a fractured skull.
This was the manner in which Jack Falstaff broke Skogan’s head at the Court Gate.
A loud shout burst from the spectators. Shallow wept tears of rapture--mingled with envy.
“Oh, if I could but do it! If I could but have such a thing to talk of! If I could but once say I had broken a head like that!” he exclaimed frantically.
“A word with you, sir,” said a rough, shockheaded fellow, drawing him aside confidentially.
A flourish of trumpets announced the approach of the princes. Jack’s companions flocked round him, overwhelming him with congratulations and apologies. Jack affected to treat the whole matter lightly; the knowledge that he had more than recovered his lost ground enabled him to still the beatings of his heart. He had fought with wondrous coolness and apparent enjoyment, but had, in reality, suffered all the agonies which a keen intellect must always experience in an encounter with serious physical danger.
Skogan was carried away to be plastered. It is to be hoped his poem would keep till the next birthday.
By the time Sir Thomas Mowbray came out with the rest of the courtiers, he found his page fully equipped, and ready to accompany him to the tiltyard in Smithfield.
When they reached the ground, as Jack was struggling with a crowd of men at arms to get through the narrow gateway, he felt his sleeve pulled from behind, and an eager voice cried--
“Jack, Jack! don’t go in yet. Look here; I’ve fought too!”
He looked round and saw Master Robert Shallow in a high state of excitement, dragging a man by the collar, whose head was bound with a cloth streaming with blood.
“Look, Jack! mind, say you saw it. Sampson Stockfish his name is--he’s a fruiterer--I made him come here to show his broken head, or I threatened him with another.”
“Another head?”
“I pray you let me go, sir,” whined the wounded man; “you have hurt me sore enough for one day.”
“There! you hear him confess,” crowed the delighted Shallow.
“Out of the way, thou cobbler’s end,” said an authoritative voice. “What dost thou here among the Marshal’s men?”
And Prince John of Gaunt, striding through the gateway, laid his sheathed sword across Master Shallow’s head--reducing that warlike gentleman to the same condition as his blood-stained victim.
Master Shallow was led away howling, by the magnanimous Stockfish.
“Why what eelskin had’st thou got hold of there, Jack?” inquired the prince, looking after the discomfited champion.
“A Gloucestershire lamprey,” answered Jack. “Your highness would have done well to kill him, for truly he puts your title in danger.”
“How so?”
“Why your highness is no more Gaunt than he is. He fairly beats your name.”
When Master Sampson Stockfish and his conqueror were alone, the former very considerately took the bandage from his own forehead--previously wiping off the superfluous sheep’s blood--and bound it round his employer’s head, as having more need of it. He then requested to be paid, as he wanted to get home.
“True; a silver mark it was, I think,” said Shallow, who was not much hurt, handing the sum he named.
“A silver mark. Go hang! I’ll have forty.”
“Why it was thine own plan and bargain.”
“All’s one for that. I must have forty if I’m to keep counsel. If not, out comes the whole tale.”
Master Shallow compromised the matter for twenty marks on the present occasion,--and, by occasional subsequent fees, was enabled to bind Stockfish over to permanent silence. He boasted incessantly of his victory, which he eventually led himself to believe he had gained. Moreover, he would have considered any price cheap for an adventure which led to his making the acquaintance of that renowned prince, John of Gaunt, with whom he was wont to declare he had enjoyed a most interesting conversation upon the political and theological questions of the day.
BOOK THE SECOND, 1381.
I. HOW MR. JOHN FALSTAFF CAME INTO HIS PROPERTY, AND WAS KNIGHTED
BY KING RICHARD THE SECOND.
There is nothing in the latter and more publicly known portion of Sir John Falstaff’s career to make it surprising that he should have approached the middle period of life without having acquired greater nominal celebrity than that afforded by the registers of retail traders. Such greatness as he afterwards attained to, having for its foundation a profound knowledge of mankind, must needs absorb the study of a long life to develop its Aloetie splendours.
Therefore, having clearly established my hero’s antecedents, and seen him launched on the sea of life, I might fairly take leave of him for many years to come, as of an adventurous emigrant crossing the ocean, with the perils of whose long voyage we have nothing to do, and who will only claim more attention when he shall have cleared his forest and founded his colony on the other side of the world.
But it must not be forgotten that we are treating of a knight and a gentleman of the olden time. There are two events in the life of such a person which, injustice to chivalry and noble birth, the historian may not pass over: these are,
1. His accession to the inheritance of his ancestors.
2. The time and manner of his receiving the dignity of knighthood.
Sir Gilbert Falstaff, Knight, was gathered to his fathers early in the year 1381. The tidings of the melancholy event were conveyed to his son and successor, then residing in the English town of Calais, by a faithful attendant returning from England, whither he had been despatched on his young master’s business.
Master John Falstaff, at this period, occupied apartments in one of His Majesty’s fortresses in Calais, in favour of which he had vacated an official suite in the Government-house of the same town. Here, for some months, he had discharged the duties of an onerous but subordinate post, wholly unsuited to his peculiar genius. Even at that early period the Government of England was celebrated for a habit of injudicious selection in the matter of public appointments--putting usually the right man in the wrong place, and _vice versa_. Falstaff--burning to distinguish himself in the service of his native land (and having his own private reasons for wishing to do so at a convenient distance)--exerted his court interest to obtain a colonial appointment. At the head of an invading army, or in command of a beleaguered city, there is no reason to doubt that he would have acquitted himself with satisfaction to all parties; but, Government having nothing more suitable to offer him than a deputy-collectorship of the wool duties (for which, it is true, he was certainly qualified on the grounds accepted by British Governments in all ages--his mother’s father having been a wool-stapler), what could be expected but a directly contrary result? The exact deficit in the Falstaff accounts has not been preserved in the public records. But there is no reason to doubt that it was on a scale commensurate with the greatness of our hero’s soul, inasmuch as, after a few months’ probation, an intimation was forwarded to him that his resignation of office would be accepted. It is at least probable that the nation required his services in a wider and more honourable field. But of this we have no means of judging accurately, an adverse destiny placing it out of the ex-deputy-collector’s power to avail himself of any such pending advantages. Adverse destiny, in his case, took the shape of an Anglo-French jailer.
Falstaff, in fact, like all men born to sway large destinies, had a lavish disregard of trifling expenditure. Like Julius Cæsar, he contracted debts; that is to say, as much like Julius Cæsar as possible--our hero lacking that arch-insolvent’s facilities of obtaining credit. With two millions of somebody else’s money (about the amount, I believe, on the Julian schedule), what would not Falstaff have done? It is difficult to answer. It may be safely stated, however, that it was from no fault of John Falstaff’s that Julius Cæsar had the best of him in this respect.
At any rate, having started this historic parallel between these two great men, we may bring it to a triumphant close by stating that young Falstaff, like young Cæsar, was now a captive in the hands of pirates and waiting for his ransom.
It was in search of this talisman that the faithful attendant, alluded to in the opening of the present chapter, had been despatched, on a somewhat forlorn hope, to England. The faithful attendant returned without it, having no better substitute to offer than the tidings of Sir Gilbert’s death. The prodigal but philosophic son declared, with a sigh, that, under the circumstances, he must try and make that do.
He sent for the pirate chieftains,--in modern English, for his detaining creditors,--a Flemish clothier and a Lombard money-lender. He informed them of the death of his obdurate parent, with whom he had been at variance for years, but of whose princely estate he was now the undisputed possessor. Now was the time for him to show his gratitude to the real friends who had stood by him in the hour of need; who had been long-suffering in his extravagance; lenient even in their tardy severity. What could he do for them?
“Pay us our money,” suggested the matter-of-fact traders.
Falstaff treated the proposition with disdain. Of course he would pay them--a dozen times over if they liked. But he would be still in their debt. No; nothing would satisfy him but that his dear friends should accompany him to England, to assist him in taking possession of his inheritance. Falstaff Castle was close to the coast--they might see it almost on a fine day. He would want their assistance in refurnishing his ancestral halls. He must take them to court, and introduce them to his bosom friend the young king, with whom (now the unnaturally adverse court influence of his father was removed) he was all powerful. In a word, the heir of Falstaff would not be able to enjoy his fortune unless he secured that of two friends at the same time.
It is no discredit to the intellectual powers of these simple traders that they suffered themselves to be won over by the eloquence of their greathearted captive. They agreed to release him from durance--previously securing themselves by the most terribly binding documents (such as our hero, at all periods of his life, was ready to sign with the greatest alacrity)----and to accompany him to England.
In those days the traveller crossed from Calais to Dover in an open galley; that is to say, when he crossed at all: for, in a large proportion of cases, the galley went down about half way and gave the traveller a premature opportunity of studying the engineering difficulties of the proposed submarine railway.
In a still greater frequency of cases the traveller waited several days at Calais for a fair wind. When it came, the gallant rowers hoisted what they called a sail, stuck an image of the Virgin in the prow of the boat, prayed to it--and became sick like men.
Jack and his faithful attendant, being Britons, and endowed with that peculiar native salt in their veins for which the analytical chemists have as yet found no name, were good sailors. The Fleming and the Lombard were bad ones, and howled dismally at the bottom of the boat. The crew were Frenchmen. No further explanation of their condition is necessary.
When the galley had made about three parts of her course, our hero’s faithful attendant broke silence with--
“Don’t you think now would be about the time, sir?”
“What for?”
“What for! why, to pitch them overboard, of course.”
Falstaff wheeled suddenly round on his seat, and looked his faithful attendant full in the face. There was approval in the scrutiny, mingled with compassion.
“And do you suppose, young man,” the master inquired, with a transparent assumption of severity, “that I am going to be guilty of such an act of treachery?”
“Then what the plague else did you bring ‘em here for?” was the sulky reply. “They’ve got your bonds in their pockets. The sailors are all sick--none of ‘em would be a bit the wiser.”
“Away, tempter!” said Jack, with twinkling eyes. “How dare you lure an innocent youth to his destruction? _Avaunt_ thee, fiend! _Vade retro Sathanas!_”
“Come! I’m not going to stand being called out of names.”
“Then hearken to the voice of Wisdom. Suppose I were to commit the breach of confidence and gratitude you so insidiously propose, and, in your own words, pitch these worthy gentlemen overboard. What then?”
“Well, it would be a matter between ourselves and the lobsters.”
“And pray, sir, in that case--who is to pay our expenses to London?”
The faithful attendant opened his eyes as wide as they would go, which was not very far, and a grin of intelligence dawned upon his usually stolid countenance. Mutual esteem once more reigned between the master and servant.
A word as to this faithful attendant. Two years ago, having borrowed sufficient money for his continental outfit, and to liquidate such debts as might militate against his departure, our hero, with a serene mind and an easy conscience, had entered St. Paul’s Church in search of a serving man. A certain aisle in the cathedral was at that period the central exchange or rendezvous for unhired domestics. A servant out of place would not attempt such profanation in the present day. In fact, a beneficent and considerate Dean and Chapter have wisely placed it beyond the means of such a person to do so.
Our hero passed a great many candidates for employment, some of whom he rejected as being all fool, others as too exclusively rogue. Neither of which elements, unmixed, would suit him. At length he came upon a stern looking young man, with straight thick eyebrows, a gash for a mouth, and a nose vermilion beyond his years. The red pose argued chronic and perennial thirst. This, in its turn, was suggestive of easily-purchased fidelity.
“My friend,” said Jack to him of the proboscis; “I like your looks.”
“You ought to,” replied the salamandrine; “_I have been twelve years looking after you_.”
It was little Peter! subsequently nicknamed Bardolph, in honour of a fan cied resemblance to a nobleman of the Court. What wonderful vicissitudes Peter may have undergone since the memorable evening when he straddled away from home in that very small leathern suit we may not pause to inquire. He was promptly retained by his old leader, whom he never quitted alive. Peter took kindly to the name of Bardolph; and, in the course of time, believed himself allied to the noble family from which it had been derived.
Falstaff and his travelling companions touched English soil between Dover and Deal. Who knows--for history delights in such coincidences--but it may have been on the very spot where some fourteen hundred years previously, that very identical Julius Cæsar, between whom and our hero so many points of resemblance have been established, landed on a similar errand--only with a few more people to back him?
The Fleming and the Lombard were put on shore alive, to their considerable astonishment. Bardolph was despatched to the nearest inn, on the coast, of which he knew every inch, in search of horses.
Our hero reviewed his position.
“I don’t quite know what to do with them, now I have got them,” he meditated. “I am afraid they won’t find the Falstaff Estates quite up to my representations. I must make it out that I have been robbed by servants during my exile. At any rate, one thing is decided. They don’t go WITHOUT PAYING FOE IT.”
Bardolph returned running, with yellow cheeks, purple lips, and a blue nose,--altogether a remarkable facial chromatic phenomenon.
His tidings were startling.
The lads of Kent had risen in open rebellion, and were devastating the land with fire and sword. They had burnt and sacked every gentleman’s seat in the county, having hanged such of the proprietors as they could lay hands on, and were now marching on to London. Horses, shelter, or provisions were out of the question.
Falstaff was delighted. Had he been Destiny itself, he could scarcely have pre-ordained things more in accordance with his present wishes. He mastered his real emotion, and counterfeited another. He tore his hair, and threw himself writhing and moaning on the beach.
His visitors were naturally curious to know what had happened.
The matter was this, he told them--when he could collect his scattered thoughts:--he was a ruined man. The peasantry were in arms--had declared themselves against the landowners. His ancestral castle had doubtless, ere this, perished in the flames. Nothing remained for him but a nameless grave, which he would thank his companions to dig for him on the beach.
The commercial mind is sceptical in all ages. The Fleming and the Lombard--not by any means sure that they had acted wisely in the first instance in trusting themselves to the mercies of their plausible debtor--became doubly suspicious. They held a brief consultation apart, the result of which was a somewhat lugubrious proposal that they should proceed experimentally to Dover.
Towards Dover they walked; Falstaff mechanically yielding to his conductors, as one whom despair had robbed of volition.
Remarkable as the statement may read, it soon proved that Bardolph had spoken the truth. Smoking homesteads, trampled crops, with here and there a smouldering rick or coppice, too well corroborated his story. Scared and crouching figures, emerging from concealment, warned the travellers not to approach the town as they valued their lives. Numbers of the rebels, maddened with success, were still in possession of the neighbourhood, vowing destruction to every man with a delicate skin and a whole coat over it.
What was to be done?
Falstaff, magnanimously forgetting his own troubles in his anxiety for his guests, suggested that the latter should return to whence they came, leaving him to his fate. In another hour it might be too late. Their boat would be seized.
Not if the commercial gentlemen knew it. If every rebel in ten thousand rebels had been in ten parts, and every part a rebel, they would have faced the entire insurgent camp rather than those terrible waves a second time in the same day. Besides, the thing was out of the question. The gallant crew--including the body servants of the two merchants--learning that plunder was the order of the day, had hastened in divers directions across country to enrol themselves under the national banner like the truest imaginable Britons. The unlucky foreigners begged of our hero not to desert them, promising that, if he would see them safely through the present difficulty, he should have no cause to complain of their--ahem!--leniency.
John winked--aside; and repressed an inclination to execute, there, on the beach, what might have anticipated the invention of hornpipes by some centuries.
He wrung the hands of his two friends, and vowed that, at all hazards, he would stand by them. Still he was at a loss to decide for the present emergency.----
The merchants suggested that they should proceed to the Falstaff Estate. It was possible that the incendiary spark had not yet reached so far. The fact was, these two gentlemen were rather anxious for a glimpse of the princely domain, of which they had heard such glowing accounts, under any circumstances. Even its blazing ruins would be a consolation, as proving that they had not been utterly taken in.
Falstaff appeared to brighten at the proposal. Yes, he declared, there was hope in it. The people had been wronged and oppressed, and there was some excuse for their violence in certain quarters. But when he reflected what indulgent, beneficent masters--if, indeed, parents were not the fitter word--his ancestors had always been to their tenants:--no! for the sake of human nature, he could not believe in such black ingratitude as to suppose Falstaff had come to any harm. It would still be in his power to give his friends a cordial welcome. He led the way almost cheerfully, deploring only that the journey must be performed on foot.
At the first opportunity he whispered Bardolph, “Slip on before us, borrow a horse, steal an ass, or run like mad. The lads may have spared the old den for my sake. If you find it standing, set a light to every room. I’ll detain these gulls so as to give you time. Burn every stick and rag except Wykeham’s tower. Fire won’t touch that.” Exit Bardolph in advance at a brisk trot.
His master explained.
“I have sent him on to herald us, and to meet us with horses; if, as I still hope, honesty and good faith be not extinct upon earth.”
Our hero was taken ill frequently on the road; the result of his agitation and irrepressible misgivings. It was found necessary to solace him with repose by the wayside, and refreshments from the private stores of his companions.
“Oh, my friends!” said Jack, in a voice wherein gratitude struggled bravely against exhaustion; “How shall I ever repay you for this kindness? And if it should be too late--too late!”
“Come! come! Don’t give way. We cannot have far to go now. We shall soon know the worst.”
“True! let me strive to be a man, and remember that I am answerable for the safety of others.”
They reached Maldyke, six miles from Falstaff.
Here the sight of a goodly castellated mansion, gutted and smoking in the centre of a forest of charcoal, reduced our hero to a state of prostration. He threw himself on his face, imploring, as a last act of friendship, that his companions should despatch him with their knives.
The gateway of this mansion was situated on the public road. From the raised portcullis of this gateway swung a human body, dead, and half-naked.
Yesterday, this estate had belonged to Sir Simon Ballard. To-day, Sir Simon was its sole remaining occupant. But the rebels had hanged him by the neck, and he was dead.
Falstaff groaned piteously.
“Rouse, man, rouse!” said the Fleming. “Surely this is not your castle?”
“It’s--it’s--” sobbed Jack, spasmodically; “it’s one of them!!!”
Then, falling upon his knees before the corpse of his old enemy, he clasped his hands, and exclaimed, piteously,
“My poor uncle! my poor uncle George! And is this the reward for your devotion to my interests?”
The two merchants led him away compassionately.