Chapter X: Book THE FOURTH: , 1410--1413 (3)

The family of the Shallows had been in the commission of the peace from time immemorial. I have not such authorities at my elbow as can inform me under what honorary title the earlier Shallows--at the time when Keingelt Felstaf was getting into squabbles with Ceorles and Welshmen, and pecuniary difficulties with his Sodalitium--exercised their judicial functions. It is of little consequence whether a judicial assembly be called a Wittenagemote or a Petty Sessions--so that the spirit of its justice be the same. Suffice it that the hereditary vocation of the family, in all ages, has been to supply the ranks of that inestimable and truly British body--the unpaid magistracy. Of the advantages to the community of such a class of public officials it would be idle to speak; so obvious is it that a judge whose services are gratuitously rendered, and are therefore protected by the common rules of politeness from impertinent investigation as to their quality and value, must be enabled to administer justice in a far more independent and manly fashion than the hireling who is amenable to public criticism, and bound to interpret the law according to the opinions of others; whereas, the unfettered volunteer need only consult his own conscience and enforce such a construction of the statutes as he may determine to be the right one. One great result of this system is the preservation, in a state of vital activity, of many fine old laws, which the apathy or sycophancy to the public approval of less disinterested but more immediately responsible magistrates might suffer to fall into disuse. The Shallows, from the remotest period, have distinguished themselves as conservators of the law in this respect. In the time of the Anglo-Saxons, members of the race had been remarkable for their diligence in the conviction of malefactors by the process of red-hot ploughshares, the ordeals of hot and cold water, and similar unerring and time-honoured tests of criminality. Long after these cherished features in the national jurisprudence had been formally abolished, through the vexations meddling of effeminate Norman legislators, and nominally superseded by moveable Courts of Assize, the Shallows of Gloucestershire had the hardihood and patriotism to adhere to their practice in the teeth of all Royal Commissions of Inquiry and threats of suspension whatsoever. It was one Simon Shallow who, early in the reign of Edward the First, had the honour of executing the last assassin ever convicted in an English Court of Justice, by the flowing of blood from the body after death on its being touched by human fingers. The event was long remembered in the county, and its records are still preserved with excusable pride by the descendants of the Shallow family. It was, indeed, a masterly expression of the great English spirit of resistance. A murder had been committed--at least a dead body had been found at the foot of a precipice with the skull shattered. The reigning Shallow proceeded to try the case according to the immemorial custom of his ancestors. He at once caused all suspicious characters in the neighbourhood to be arrested. This he effected by ordering his own keepers to seize upon all persons suspected of poaching and other practices dangerous to the stability of the community, and by soliciting all adjacent landowners in the commission to come to the rescue of law and order, by causing to be arrested all similarly disaffected persons within their jurisdiction. Master Shallow’s keepers did their duty, and the neighbouring justices responded to the appeal. A goodly array of prisoners were brought into the presence of the body, which was laid on a table, tilted at a proper angle. The county justices assembled in strong force, in order to witness the vindication of the majesty of Old English law, threatened with undermining by divers royal messages. Two or three of the suspected criminals (against whom there was nothing particular beyond a pheasant’s nest or so, and who had been considerately warned not to lay too violent a hand on the body, lest they should cause a movement of the head which might be fatal) had passed triumphantly through the ordeal. A hardened malefactor was about to be tried, upon whom the gravest suspicion rested. He was the most accomplished deer-stealer in the neighbourhood. There was not a justice present through whose preserves the cause of law and order had not suffered by his depredations. It was in vain that this fellow pleaded with tears in his eyes that he had loved the deceased as a brother, and called witnesses to prove that he had parted with him amicably at the door of an alehouse; that they had taken different directions, and that the prisoner had spoken to divers persons at a distance of five miles from the scene of the supposed murder at the very moment when, if at all, it must have been committed. He was smartly reprimanded, with a counsel to remember what presence he stood in, and bidden to “lay on firm, and not touch the clothes * instead of the flesh, as their worships wotted well of that device.” The man raised his hand fearlessly, and was about to lay it on the body when a breathless messenger rushed into the justice hall, announcing that a troop of King’s officers were riding fast from Oxford with a view of putting a stop to the proceedings, tidings of which had reached that city, where His Majesty then held his court; and threatening the terrors of the law to any magistrate who should be convicted of participation in the illegal course of procedure now in progress. The justices rose in mingled wrath and fear, and in so doing managed to shake the table. Simultaneously with their movement the hand of the accused fell mechanically upon the body, the head of which rolled from its supports, causing an effusion of blood. “Lo, he is guilty!” cried the justices, triumphant in the moment of their apparent defeat. “Men of England!” said one of them (whose park had suffered dreadfully within the past month), “will ye see the laws of your fathers trampled on by a set of evil advisers--chiefly Frenchmen--who have falsely obtained the ear of His Majesty, whom heaven preserve! Will ye have your sons and brothers murdered in cold blood? Ten minutes more and the murderer will be rescued from justice by a set of French lawyers, who will set him free by quirks and quibbles. Now or never is your time to assert your rights. To the nearest oak with him, ere yet the blood is dry, according to the custom of your fathers!” The mob murmured approval: a superstition a thousand years old was dear to them. The keepers and constables clamoured--not one of them but had known the taste of the prisoner’s cudgel. The prisoner himself protested, appealed to the King’s justice, finally lost his temper and called the justices a pack of murderous noodles. The prisoner had his friends; but they were a disreputable minority of poachers and sheep-stealers. The bulk of the auditory were tenants or retainers of the justices. The approach of horsemen galloping at top speed was announced from a neighbouring hill. If ever a blow could be struck in defence of the old English laws, now was the time. Then, as now, it was a recognised principle that Britons never, never would be slaves, and where is the personal freedom in a country where you cannot hang a man in your own most approved fashion? Briefly, the prisoner was hanged on the nearest oak; and the Royal Commission appointed to investigate the matter, arrived just in time to cut him down and bury him with his lamented friend. Master Shallow was a timorous but by no means an inhuman or an unjust man. He had proposed sparing the culprit--whose guilt could scarcely be considered established, seeing that the body had been shaken by the rising of the court, and the flow of blood might have been accidental--provided he (the culprit) would make an ample confession of his crime and express his obligation to the magistrates who had tried him, before the King’s Commissioners. But this suggestion was overruled by the majority, who declared that there was no time for the consideration of trifling personal interests when they had a great principle to establish. So the convicted murderer was hanged with Master Shallow’s full warrant and approval.

* A common expedient resorted to by the consciously guilty
in the Trial of Ordeal by Touch; similar to that practised
by the ignorant of the present day, who think that by
“kissing the thumb” instead of the book in a court of
justice they evade the legal and sacred responsibilities of
an oath.

It turned out--on the evidence of two cowboys, who had witnessed the event, but apparently not thought worth alluding to it until questioned--that the supposed murdered man, being under the obvious influence of malt liquor, had himself staggered over the precipice at the foot of which he had found his death. Master Shallow as chief of the sitting justices (what, we should call Chairman of Sessions) was tried by the Royal Commission, and found guilty of murder for putting a man to death by a process long since declared illegal by royal edict. Master Shallow was himself sentenced to suffer the extreme penalty of the law, but King Edward happening to be in one of his periodical money difficulties, the sentence was commuted to a heavy fine--which, to the honour of magisterial loyalty and good-fellowship, be it stated, the Gloucestershire justices nobly subscribed to meet. Master Shallow retained his judicial appointment, with a caution to abstain from the trial of criminals by exploded Saxon ordeals for the future, which he carefully observed. Nevertheless he earned lasting renown in the county, as the man who at the imminent risk of his own life had stood up for the maintenance of a great national institution. The Shallows, on the establishment of coat armour by Edward the Third, assumed in honour of this event the device of a man pendant on an oak branch, salient, in a field of green, proper. But some misconception arising in the public mind as to this being meant to represent an episode in the personal history of one of the family, the design was abandoned, and the traditional “dozen white luces,” (the origin of which is enveloped in mystery,) by which the house is still identified at the Heralds’ College, adopted in its place. It may not be irrelevant to state that the two over-officious cowboys were speedily selected, on the press-warrant of Master Shallow, to supply a deficiency in King Edward’s army--and perished nobly, fighting their country’s battles, in one of that monarch’s numerous expeditions against the disaffected Scots.

The Shallows continued to merit renown by their resistance on all possible occasions to anything like innovation in the administration of justice. Our own Robert Shallow, at an advanced period of life, was only induced by serious remonstrances from King Henry the Fifth (for whom he was wont to express the strongest regard, having been very intimate with his grandfather) to desist from the ancient practice of trying aged women for the crime of witchcraft by launching them in deep water upon sieves,--when, if they went to the bottom and proved their earthly nature by remaining there for five or ten minutes, they were pronounced innocent and permitted to come to the surface and return to their homes at their earliest convenience: on the other hand, if they did not immediately sink, they were considered to be in league with the powers of darkness and taken out to be burnt. Throughout subsequent reigns the Shallows were remarkable for their indefatigable enforcement of the Game Laws, and of the measures enacted for the punishment of “masterless men,” that is, of persons wandering in search of employment--an offence which even in the present day is treated by their descendants with greater rigour than any other.

Representatives of the house of Shallow--with the name variously modified--abound in our own time. They are to a man somehow connected with the amateur administration of justice. They are to be found in the country digging up obsolete enactments for the committal to imprisonment and hard labour of agricultural journeymen who may be disposed to treat themselves to a day’s holiday. They are the terror of itinerant showmen, unemployed mechanics and poachers, by whom they are hated. On the other hand they have the enthusiastic support of the genuine criminal population, to whose professional exertions they are by no means obstructive. They are learned in the rights of rabbits--and know a greater variety of legal torture for avenging the unlicensed death of one of that favoured species than a French cook could invent receipts for disguising its carcase. You will find them trying strange experiments with pet convicts in model prisons, and actively throwing impediments in the way of government inquiries into the conduct of brutal governors of those institutions--too often the hot ploughshares and ordeals by touch of modern criminal jurisprudence. Little opportunities of serving a friend like this are of course due to the country Shallows as an offset to their gratuitous services. As one of the earliest of the family counsellors has expressed it, “Heaven save but a knave should have some countenance at his friend’s request; an honest man, Sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave cannot.” Their worships are further privileged to carry out this principle by limiting, within their jurisdiction, the knavery of keeping open houses for the sale of injurious tipples at exorbitant prices, to such knaves, only, as they may consider “entitled to some countenance at their friends’ request.” In London--where some of the fraternity are permitted to exercise their functions within certain limits--their most conspicuous public achievements are an annual out-door masquerade of obsolete meaning, strongly reminding us of their ancestor Robert’s appearance as “Sir Dagonet in Arthur’s Show”--and certain frantic but hitherto unsuccessful attempts to put down pitch-and-toss, polkas, and suicide--practices which still continue prevalent in the British metropolis.

Of the personal character of Master Robert Shallow, the worthy representative of this race and order in Sir John Falstaff’s time, some glimpse has possibly been obtained from an early chapter of this work. Sir John at the advanced period of life to which I have now brought him, remembered the justice “at Clement’s Inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese paring; when he was naked he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife: he was so forlorn” (I am quoting Sir John’s own words) “that his dimensions to any thick sight were invisible; he was the very genius of famine; he came ever in the rearward of the fashion, and sung those tunes to the over-scutched huswives that he had heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were his fancies or his good-nights. And now is this Vice’s dagger become a squire; and talks as familiarly of John of Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him; and I’ll be sworn he never saw him but once in the Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head for crowding amongst the marshal’s men. I saw it, and told John of Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have trussed him and all his apparel into an eel skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a court, and now he hath land and beeves!”

Considering that, when Sir John Falstaff made these reflections upon the past and present of Master Robert Shallow, nearly fifty years had elapsed since the events alluded to, it will be admitted that our knight’s recollection of the passage in the Tilt-yard (with which my readers are familiar) and the substance of the witticism it evoked from him at the time, prove his memory to have been at least unimpaired. It is strange that Sir John should marvel at Master Shallow’s possession of land and beeves. It will be found through all ages that the Shallows have had an eye to the main-chance, which it is very rarely indeed you find a fool neglecting. A mole may have very small eyes, but he is not quite blind. He is dazzled by pure daylight, it is true, and may never see a flower. But he is an excellent judge of dirt, which is to him the great necessary of life, and he will never lose sight of the importance of keeping a sufficient heap of it about him.

V. VISIT TO JUSTICE SHALLOW’S.

My supposition that Sir John Falstaff was indebted for his knowledge of Mr. Shallow’s existence, whereabouts, and prosperous condition, to some such accidental renewal of his acquaintance with Mr. Doit, of Staffordshire, as I have imagined, is strengthened in probability by the certainty that our knight really did meet with the latter-named gentleman, and at Coventry, within a few days anterior to the date which my historical calculations have decided me in assigning to the battle of Gualtree Forest. This is proved by a letter from Mr. Doit, discovered among the Falstaff papers on the knight’s decease, apparently one of a numerous series, in which the writer somewhat sharply requests payment of a certain “obligacion” which he has held for some time in acknowledgment of monies advanced by him to Sir John on the occasion of their happy “reknitting of their old fellowship” at Coventry, “which honour,” Master Doit sarcastically observes, “albeit of great price, is one I had not been so prodigal as to purchase with fore-knowledge that it would cost me the sum it is like to,” to wit, fifteen pounds eight shillings, the amount of the said “obligacion,” which is mentioned as bearing the date of the 7th of June, 1410.

Be the origin of the event as it may, Sir John’s visit to the domain of Justice Shallow is matter of public history. The Falstaff troops marched from Coventry to Stratford-on-Avon, between which town and Evesham the justiciary seat of the Shallows was situate,--and there halted.

It may be thought that an event so suggestive as a visit from Sir John Falstaff to Stratford-on-Avon--the future birthplace of his greatest historian, but for whose genius it is possible that the name and achievements of our knight would have lapsed into an oblivion from which not even these affectionate pages (which, of course, would have been written under any circumstances) could have rescued them--might be made the text for much instructive and entertaining reflection. But _cui bono?_ It is to be hoped that the character and objects of this work are now sufficiently understood to acquit the writer of any suspicion of a tendency to digress from the iron road of facts into the flowery groves of fanciful speculation. The fact, that Sir John Falstaff passed through Stratford-on-Avon, more than a hundred years before the birth of William Shakspeare, can scarcely have had any influence upon the dramatist’s after labours in connection with the warrior’s history. It is true, that Sir John Falstaff was in the habit of leaving his mark wherever he went; and in any town where he may have sojourned, if only for the space of a day or two, there would be no likelihood of his being speedily forgotten. But a century is a long time. And I am disposed to think that any interest or value attached to such Inn Memoriams of Sir John’s progress through Stratford as that city might be expected to possess at the date of his departure, would cease with the announcement of the knight’s death without heirs or estate. On the whole, I have decided to dismiss the question and resume my narrative.

It was no part of our hero’s plan to take Mr. Shallow by surprise. His designs upon that rural potentate were not of a nature to be carried by a _coup de main_. He prepared for his appearance in Gloucestershire by sending on an _avant courier_, with the following dispatch. *

* The preservation of this important document is probably
due to the hereditary vanity of the race of Shallows--who
from the time of John of Gaunt down to the last presentation
of the Freedom of the City of London to a foreign prince,--
have never been known to lose an opportunity of claiming
acquaintance with persons of rank and celebrity. The letter
was preserved for many years in the family. The original
Gloucestershire branch becoming extinct, it passed into the
hands of some collateral descendants (through the Slenders
and Aguecheeks, both nearly allied by blood and marriage to
the Shallows), domiciled in the vicinity of Chepstow, in
whose possession it remained _perdu_ until the early part of
the present century, when the head of the family having
providentially taken to drinking, and his goods being sold
by auction, the treasure was discovered by his county
neighbour, Mr. Roderick Bolton, F. S. A., and by him
purchased for incorporation with the Strongate Collection.

“_Unto the right worshipful my good friend Master Robert Shallow, be this delivered in haste._

“Right trusty and well-beloved. Master Shallow, I commend me to you by our ancient friendship; and please you to wete that being armed with the King’s press for the raising of soldiers in the counties, I shall require at your hands the pick of half-a-dozen good and sufficient men. Thus much for business. Being sore pressed for time, and our General, the Prince of Lancaster, crying out for me, I would fain depute the choosing of the men to one of my lieutenants or ancients,--had it not reached me that the justice with whom I have to deal is no other than mine old friend Master Shallow. Knowing this, I cannot but play traitor to my duty and forfeit a day of the King’s service, to ride over in my own person, that I may once more say I have taken Master Shallow by the hand.

“I pray you detain me not, and betray me not--that I give up to friendship that time which is the King’s. But I have no fear, as we have stood by each other ere now. Disturb not your household to make us welcome, as we may not unsaddle, and I bring none with me but a simple following befitting my rank as the King’s poor officer. The main force of my army I leave here, in camp, hard by Stratford, and I must back in haste lest the knaves run riot, and embroil me with the townsfolk.

“Pick me good men, I pray, for the rebels wax insolent. Have them of the better class of yeomen if it may be--men whose lives are worth fighting for the care of. Your starveling hinds and villains are rank naught for march or battle-field.

“Written at Stratford-on-the-Avon, the 8th day of June, in the year of Grace 1410.

“John Falstaff (Knight).” *

* The biographer--or, as he perhaps ought to be styled in
connection with this department of his labours, the editor,
is again called on to defend the course he has adopted with
reference to such ancient manuscripts as he has found
necessary to transfer to his pages. Objections have been
made--which the periodical form of publication adopted in
this work affords an opportunity of meeting--to the plan of
modernising the orthography, and in some cases the
phraseology, of these compositions, whereby it is asserted
their interest is materially weakened. There can be no
defence so adequate to the emergency as the plea of an
illustrious example. Sir John Fenn, the learned and
ingenious editor of the _Paston letters_, vindicates a
similar line of conduct with regard to his treatment of that
inestimable collection, in the following language;--

“The thought of transcribing (or rather translating) each
letter according to the rules of modern orthography and
punctuation arose from a hint which the editor received from
an antiquary, respectable for his knowledge and
publications; whose opinion was, that many would be induced
to read these letters for the sake of the various matters
they contain, for their style, and for their curiosity, who
not having paid attention to ancient modes of writing and
abbreviations, would be deterred from attempting such a task
by their uncouth appearance in their original garb.”

The present editor has not, like Sir John Fenn, enjoyed the
advantage of a special hint from any antiquary, respectable
for his knowledge and publications or otherwise. But he
trusts that the learned baronet’s own valuable precedent
will be sufficient excuse for his conduct under similar
circumstances. If not, he can only say that if the letters
relating to the history of Sir John Falstaff, quoted in the
course of this biography, had not appeared in their present
form, _it would have been a matter of downright
impossibility for the British public to have read them at
all._

The receipt of this letter threw Master Shallow into an ecstasy of excitement.

Here was the renowned courtier, Sir John Falstaff, the “friend of the mad prince and Poins,” the conqueror of Shrewsbury, the great wit, traveller, and leader of the fashion, writing to him, plain Robert Shallow, Esquire, in terms of familiarity, and promising a speedy visit. There was only one drawback to the justice’s delight. There was no time to make adequate preparations for so important an event, or to ensure such an attendance of influential neighbours as Master Shallow would have wished to overwhelm with the sight of his distinguished guest. The worthy Justice would have liked triumpha arches, rustic festivities, and bands of music. He would have gladly kept open house to all the gentry of the county for the occasion. Not that he was in the least degree a liberal man, or that he cared two pins for Sir John Falstaff personally. He was rather niggardly than otherwise; and fifty intervening years had not one whit blunted his recollection of one or two sound drubbings and many slights and sarcasms inflicted on him in youth by our knight. But, to compare lesser things with great, it is not to be supposed that noblemen and gentlemen who impoverish their exchequers and turn their country seats topsy-turvy for the reception of royal and princely visitors, on their triumphal progresses through a land, are actuated by a mere spirit of loyalty. A year’s rent-roll of the Carabas estates is not consumed in decorating the state chamber that His gracious Majesty or Her Serene Highness may enjoy a comfortable night’s rest; but that the satin hangings, the golden cornices, the encrusted bed-posts and the jewelled coal-scuttles, may be enumerated in the fashionable journals, and engraved in the Illustrated News; and remain in their integrity, to prove, to the envy of contemporaries and the admiration of posterity, that king or prince once honoured Carabas Castle by going to bed in it. The great Baron Reginald de Bouf does not marshal his eight hundred retainers in new scarlet surcoats with enormous badges displaying the ancestral device of the calf’s head richly embroidered in gold on the left arm, merely that King Richard Cour de Lion (who happens to be passing Torquilstone Castle on his way to York to negotiate a national loan with the great commercial house of Isaacs Brothers) shall be flattered by a delicate attention from a faithful subject. This consideration may have entered into the baron’s calculations; his lordship having daughters growing up whom he would like to place in posts of distinction about the person of Queen Berengaria, and a son in the church who can hardly aspire to a mitred abbacy without his majesty’s countenance. But the real and paramount motive is that Cedric the wealthy thane of Rotherwood, the haughty Templar Sir Brian de Bois Guilbert, (that conceited eastern traveller who is stopping at the Castle, and turns up his nose at all its primitive arrangements), Sir Philip de Malvoisin, the very reverend Prior Aymer, and indeed all the baron’s acquaintances and neighbours, down to the very woodland ragamuffins of Barnsdale and Sherwood, shall be impressed with the fact that the Torquilstone estates can muster an array of eight hundred men, and afford to clothe them in new scarlet and gold lace. If a man were to propose to present me with a piece of plate in consideration of my distinguished services to literature, I should accept the plate of course, and immediately turn it to some useful purpose. But my gratitude,--which I would be careful to express in the most glowing terms at my command,--would never blind me to the fact that my friend had been actuated less by a sense of my great merits as poet, historian and moral philosopher, than by a wish to see his name at the head of a subscription list, and to take the chair at a public dinner, ostensibly in my honour. Much as I hate digression, I will illustrate my meaning by a personal anecdote. I once found myself--Heaven knows how I got there!--in a little out-of-the-way Flemish village, which had been thrown into a state of commotion by the prospective opening of a partially completed line of railway, the first train of which was expected to stop at a little toy station in the vicinity. A peer of the realm, one of the directors of the company, and representative of a noble line of great antiquity, dating, in fact, from the very foundation of the Belgian monarchy, had signified his intention of assisting at the inaugural ceremony. The inhabitants of Tiddliwinckx resolved to greet him with an appropriate address. This was prepared by the Vicaire (with the kind permission of the Curé, who was himself, nevertheless, opposed to railways in the abstract as somewhat smacking of Protestantism), and carefully studied for delivery by the Bourgmestre. The station was tastefully decorated with flags, and the inhabitants mustered in large numbers in the stiffest of dark blue blouses and the snowiest of caps. The thrilling moment approached. The Bourgmestre paper in hand, was all trepidation, where indeed he was not trousers and shirt collar. The train signal was awaited with breathless anxiety. It was not given. A quarter of an hour--a second--another elapsed, and no train made its appearance. At length a pedestrian messenger arrived at an easy pace up the line, with the unwelcome tidings that an accident to the rails, some six miles distant, had brought the engine to a standstill, and the distinguished visitors had been compelled to retrace their way to Brussels. The Bourgmestre and his colleagues were in despair. The suspension of railway traffic was a matter of utter indifference to them: but they had missed the pleasure of talking to a count, and an eloquent address had been composed, and the difficulties of its orthography mastered, for nothing. The friends of the heartbroken Bourgmestre attempted to lead him away from the scene of his disappointment. But he refused to be moved or comforted. He had come there to read the address, and read it to somebody he would. I think rather than have gone home without delivering it he would have read it to the gend’arme on duty, or to the one Flemish railway porter who did not understand a word of the French language, in which the oration was supposed to be written. In a fortunate moment his eye fell upon me. A ray of hope illumined the previously sad bourgmestral countenance. After a brief conference with his colleagues, he approached me politely and inquired if “Monsieur was connected with the Railway Interest?” I replied that I had not that advantage. He expressed his regret that I should have been implicated in the common disappointment, and suggested, as some compensation, that I would perhaps like to hear the address which it had been his intention to deliver, had not unforeseen circumstances prevented. I declared that nothing would give me greater pleasure. The address was accordingly _read to me._ I replied in a neat speech, setting forth the advantages of railway communication, and the high position which, through its means, the enlightened community of Tiddliwinckx was destined to occupy in the civilised world; concluding by a compliment to the magistrate on his eloquence, and expressing my high sense of the honour he had done me in selecting me for its recipient. The bourgmestre was perfectly satisfied, and invited me to dinner.

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.