Chapter III: Book THE FIRST: , 1352--1365 (2)

“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.

“My own boy! My brave, wicked boy!” the lady murmured, holding him tightly to her bosom. “God bless thee. God forgive thee! But what is this? Blood? Sir Thomas Mowbray, you promised me my son safe and whole. Jack! Jack! What is it? Have they killed thee?”

“No hurt, mother,” said Jack. (I have called him little Jack; but he was a strapping urchin of fourteen, and, as Mowbray had said, the very image of his comely mother.) “Only scored across the costard. But he had it again. Eh, Sir Thomas? By the Lord! mother, this is a brave gentleman!”

“And thou art a brave rascal,” said Mowbray, admiringly. “But get thee indoors. Lady Alice, there is no time to be lost. This Ballard is not a man to be trifled with. We found the doves trying to break their cage already, and had but to help them. There was a strong watch of keepers and constables set. Master Jack fought for his liberty like a hero of Troy, and has his wounds to show for it. But he is not safe here.” Sir Thomas said this with a significance the lady too well understood. “He must to London with me. We have settled all. He is to be my page, and has promised to mend his manners.”

“God bless you, sir,” was all the mother could say through her sobs.

“Think of that, mother,” said Jack, in the highest glee. “Page to a gentleman like Sir Thomas Mowbray! And going to London! Was ever such luck?”

“Luck, thou graceless varlet! when thou shouldest be on thy bare knees praying for forgiveness.”

“Yes, that’s all fair and good, mother,” Jack answered, drily. “But, you see, the sheriff of Kent and his following might happen to come and interrupt my devotions. So I think horseback is safest.”

“Away! Thou art incorrigible!”

“I hope not,” said Mowbray. “But moments are diamonds. Find a horse for my page--I will see to the rest of his equipment. Why, how now, Jean! what the devil hast thou got there?”

“I don’t know,” said Maître Jean, in French, riding leisurely up after the rest. “I found the thing in the cage when we let the rest of the boys loose. It looked very small to be in prison. And its little pig’s eyes twinkled so pitifully after its leader there, when you took him up behind you, that I was fain to carry the mite with me under my cloak. There, jump down, monkey.”

And Maître Jean dropped among the straw of the courtyard a very small boy, clad in leather.

He was a remarkable boy--apparently about eight years of age, though from his countenance he might have been eighty. His eyes were very far apart, and surmounted by gravely frowning brows. He had a good deal of nose for his age, and mouth enough for any age. He walked with a sort of defiant straddle, and was altogether a stolid, grim, unrelenting sort of boy. But he was absurdly little.

“Let’s have a look at it,” said Mowbray, touching the stolid pigmy with his whip. “He’s very funny to be sure. What’s thy name?--Colbrand the Giant?”

The queer little boy returned no answer; but stood, with his legs further apart than ever, gravely confronting his interrogator, and waiting to be whipped again.

Young Jack Falstaff bustled up, leading out Brown Crecy,--the only good horse on the estate,--hastily saddled for the journey.

“Don’t hurt little Peter, Sir Thomas,” he said. “He would come with us this morning: when we talked of leaving him behind, on account of his size, he cried,--a thing he had never been known to do before, though he gets more thrashings than any boy in these parts. Indeed, it was he found the buck for us. It’s no use trying to make him talk--he won’t. Poor little man! he is very fond of me, and will be sorry to lose me.”

A snort was heard from Peter, who was discovered, to the astonishment of all familiar bystanders, to be in tears, for the second time in his life.

“The son of a--ahem!--keeper of mine, Sir Thomas,” put in Sir Gilbert Falstaff, who had sneaked out on the assurance of safety, and began to think, with the unexpected turn things had taken, that a little deer-stealing was no bad family investment. “I am ashamed that gentlemen of your rank should have been troubled by a single thought for such vermin. Out of the way, thou beggar’s scum!”

Sir Gilbert aimed a fierce blow at Peter’s head, which that philosopher avoided skilfully, and disappeared among the horses’ legs.

“Have you aught to say to me, Sir Gilbert Falstaff, before I carry your son away with me? Time is short; and all the keepers and constables of the county may be upon us at any moment.”

“Nothing, Sir Thomas--but--ahem!--a trifling matter. The horse that carries my son--being a steed of great value--albeit I shall never cease to feel bounden by your inconceivable kindness--yet, as the said horse--I am a poor knight, Sir Thomas, as you know--as it will be used henceforth in your service--seeing that Jack is to have the honour of being one of your household--I would merely say that----”

Mowbray cut him short by throwing two pieces of gold in the mud at his feet with a contemptuous oath.

“There’s for your horse. Keep from the heels of mine. There is a certain kind of man he has a taste for kicking. Now, Jack! art ready? The sooner thou art out of this the better for thee. The air here is not good for thee, lad.”

“All ready, Sir. Good bye, again, mother. God bless thee.”

“God mend thee, my boy.”

“Good bye, father!”

Sir Gilbert did not hear the parting salute of his son. He was busy picking up something in the mud--which he carefully pocketed, dirt and all.

Mowbray waved a gay farewell to Lady Alice. The poor lady had been playing listlessly with a withered rose-bud which she had stuck in her girdle, and forgotten in the day’s troubles. She let it fall. Maître Jean leaped from his horse and picked up the treasure, pressed it to his lips, stuck it into a “love knot on the greter end of hys hoode,” and vaulted again into his saddle with an air of triumph.

This was very kind of Maître Jean, for it made Lady Alice smile. And the poor mother stood in need of some such diversion, however passing.

“Now, lads,” said Mowbray. “Whip and spur with a vengeance. No rest this side of Canterbury. And for London, ho!”

“For London, ho!” shouted Jack Falstaff, with a beaming face, looking more like a jovial young prince riding to tournament, than a rescued purloiner of animal food flying the constable.

And away they galloped.

“Jean,” said Mowbray, as they rode up the chase, “do you intend to chronicle to-day’s exploits among your _nobles aventures et faits d’armes pour encourager les preux en bien faisant?_”

“_Parbleu!_ Why not? I have put a good face on many a worse, before now.”

That night, Lady Alice Falstaff begged a shelter with her good gossip Dame Adlyn, and never entered Falstaff Castle again.

That night, also, there was sore tribulation in the hovel of a ploughman on the Falstaff estate. Little Peter was missing.

IV. OF JACK FALSTAFF’S COSTING TO LONDON.

HOW HE SAW LIFE THERE, AND HOW HE BROKE SKOGAN’S HEAD AT THE COURT GATE.

Now you know how it was that the future Sir John Falstaff got his first start in life as page to that renowned knight Thomas Mowbray, more famous by his later title of Duke of Norfolk, who, though only a chivalrous well-bred young gentleman as we have seen him, afterwards became Mareschal of England, and what not, and learnt, in virtue of his high position, to betray sovereigns, and murder their uncles, and get himself banished, and altogether to play a great part in history. But with all that we have nothing to do. Edifying in the extreme is the moral of young John’s advancement to this nobleman’s favour, showing by what kind of achievement it behoves youths of spirit to draw upon them the early attention of those in power. Had young John merely stopped at home, minding his hook and heeding his mother, ten to one but he would have grown up with no higher ambition than to improve his father’s estate and do justice to his tenantry, and might have lived till ninety and never been heard of beyond the sound of his parish bell, instead of----But it is not the business of the chronicler to anticipate events.

Fain would I tell of the many novel and wonderful things which delighted Jack’s eyes and ears on his memorable ride to London, pleasantly diverting his mind from dwelling upon disquieting themes, such as forest laws, broken-hearted mothers, and the like. That rough blacksmith fellow, for instance,--who, when they were about three miles on their way, came running out of his smithy, thrusting a mug of ale upon Sir Thomas, and thanking the knight and his troop for releasing his son Hob, one of Jack’s cage-fellows,--begging them to drink to the confusion of all forest-lords, keepers, taxmen, and the like; how, when Sir Thomas declined the toast, and bade him teach his son better manners, he fell to cursing Sir Thomas roundly, saying he had thought him a true man, but found he was but a gentleman after all; and then fell to cursing Jack Falstaff for deserting the brave lads of Kent and leaguing with gentlemen and oppressors, till Jack was fain to draw Sir Thomas away, saying that Wat Smith was a good fellow and a rare cudgeller, only rather fierce when he got upon such topics as gentlefolks, keepers, and taxmen.

Much would it delight me, too, to tell you of the meeting at Canterbury--where the party rested for the night--between Maître Jean and an English gentleman, his friend, with a peaked beard and falling hood--also a clerk and scholar; how Sir Thomas Mowbray invited him to share their travellers’ supper; of the compliments that passed between the two writers as to each other’s wondrous gifts; how each would give place to the other at table, Maître Jean saying that the chronicler was less worthy than the poet, and the gentleman in the peaked beard prettily declaring that the mere stringer of idle fancies must yield to the grave compiler of history, and so forth,--until, after supper, Maître Jean having requested the gentleman in the beard to delight them with some of his new Canterbury verses, which the gentleman in the beard agreeing to with much alacrity, but not leaving off in time to give Maître Jean a chance of reading a trifle he had recently composed on the death of Estienne Marcel, with which he was anxious to favour the company, they fell to calling each other names; how the gentleman in the beard called Maître Jean “Scrivener’s Clerk,” to which Maître Jean retorted with “Town Bellman,” and the like, until Sir Thomas Mowbray threatening to score them both across the costard and ordering in more sack, they became like brothers again, citing and lauding each other’s works, and embracing at intervals, until they were taken up to bed.

Again, there was the odd adventure that befel them hard by Blackheath--of a strange, gaunt, ill-clad youth, with a small knapsack, who came limping up to them and seizing John Falstaff’s bridle, declaring that our hero owed him a ride, seeing that he had once rescued Jack from drowning from a fishing-boat off Sandwich, by swimming to shore with Jack on his shoulders; which Jack recognising (though he had forgotten his preserver), Sir Thomas would have rewarded the lad with a gold piece; whereupon the latter said, No, he would take nothing that he had not earned; but having lamed his foot, and being unable to walk, he would claim a ride from John Falstaff as his due, and then cry quits: and, indeed, Jack was fain to ride into London with this strange fellow behind him, dropping him at the Southwark end of the bridge.

All these things, and many more such written in full, might fill many diverting pages; but, alack! if such time were given to each adventure in my hero’s life where would this chronicle end? We have only yet got to the fourteenth year of one who led a long life, and, as some assert, a merry one. As to that we may be better able to judge by-and-by.

Well, here we have Jack Falstaff in London, in his fifteenth year, page to Thomas Mowbray, afterward Duke of Norfolk. * Let us see the sort of life he leads there. He lives in a fine house and is gorgeously dressed; the Mowbray badge on his arm he considers an honour and an ornament. He is very jealous of this, and will maintain its superiority over the badges worn by other pages, by blows if necessary, and if there happen to be bystanders. A private taunt in a back street he treats with contempt, unless repeated in public.

* “There was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to
Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.”--Justice Shallow, Henry
IV. Pt. II. act iii. sc. 2. The Justice naturally speaks of
Mowbray by his later title, as we say, “Arthur Wellesley,
Duke of Wellington.”

He has nothing particular to do--his principal duties being to attend his master to the Court or tilt-yard; to kick his heels in anterooms at the former (where he rapidly graduates as a master of the arts of repartee and badinage, and acquires much edifying knowledge), and to pick up his master when knocked out of the saddle at the latter. Certain menial duties, such as brushing cloaks and polishing daggers, are his by virtue of office; but he early shows his powers of command by divining how these may be done by deputy. When there is a letter or message to be delivered he performs this conscientiously in person, such like commissions giving him an opportunity of studying the town and forming his opinions on men and manners. He is by no means a winged-footed Mercury; but can usually coin a good excuse for delay, or, if detected, a jest to ward off punishment. He has plenty of money; for his master is liberal, and Jack is a great pet with the visitors to the mansion--saying pretty things to the ladies and smart ones to the gentlemen, in return for which he is loaded with presents. Thus, much of his income, even at this early period, is obtained by the exercise of his wits. He mixes in the very best society. The princes of the blood are his master’s familiars; they encourage him in his wit and impudence to crack jokes upon their rivals or inferiors--occasionally getting one for themselves, when Master Jack thinks fit to regulate the balance of society and teach even princes their level. His observations of these great people, their habits and capacities, imbue his young mind with the tenets of that philosophic school of which the valets of heroes are said to be the head masters. He has taken their measure in fact; and, placing himself, mentally, back to back with them, is--not disappointed to find them shortcoming, but complacently satisfied with his own comparative dimensions. He thinks that perhaps on a readjustment of the social scheme--but no matter! He keeps his own counsel and profits by his present opportunities. His acquaintance is much sought after by numerous aspiring youths of the town--naturally, for he is the companion of princes. Before these young men he is careful to keep up a very high standard of the princely character, for those whom he acknowledges his superiors must be proved great creatures indeed. He quotes a “merry jest of John of Gaunt,” or a “shrewd thing he heard Langley say upon such a matter,”--frequently the choicest and most elaborated sallies of his own imagination. But he will allow no liberties with his royal patrons from others. If any of his companions, inadvertently or presumptuously catching his familiar tone, make inquiries as to the proceedings of “Clarence,” or “Young Thomas,” he will rebuke them with “their Highnesses, the Duke of Clarence and the Earl of Buckingham, if you please,” and shroud himself in dignified reserve for the rest of the evening, as one who has condescended too far.

It is natural that the society of a young man with such advantages should be greatly courted: for, you see, every one of such a person’s intimates is enabled to retail his experiences to a still lower circle as having happened to himself; and so on, widening and weakening to the very borders of the social pool.

One of Master Jack’s familiars is a young gentleman from Gloucestershire, Robert Shallow by name. As there must be language before there can be grammar, and poetry before rules of composition, just so, long before our hero had codified his laws of philosophy, he had learnt instinctively to obey a maxim which he subsequently acted upon systematically, namely--always to choose your associates from among your inferiors in wit who are your superiors in pocket. Master Shallow was descended from one of the oldest families in England, whose representatives were (and are still) to be found in every county. He had plenty of money--at least, his father had for him--and no wit. He was desirous of the honour and support of Jack Falstaff’s acquaintance. Jack, striking a nice balance between humanity and justice, decided that Master Shallow should enjoy that privilege and pay for it: Master Shallow did both--enormously.

Master Shallow was a law student, and some five years our hero’s senior; but, as usual, mind triumphed over matter (that is, to speak figuratively--materially there was not much more of Master Shallow than mentally). Jack patronised Shallow; Shallow aped, toadied, and swore by Jack. He was never tired of quoting our hero’s sayings and boasting of his prowess. Nay, he even, in a measure, unwittingly contrived to make Jack pay his own expenses, for in such glowing terms did he describe his courtly patron in his letters home, that his worthy parents encouraged him in the outlay of money spent in the cultivation of so distinguished an acquaintance, and met his claims upon their purse liberally. It is possible that even the parents got some return for their expenditure, in the pleasure of humiliating their country neighbours with stories of their son’s high favour with a young gentleman of the court. How little England has changed within five centuries to be sure!

In fact, Master Jack, with a handsome person, fine clothes, abundance of leisure and money, and, above all, a devoted toady, was in a most enviable position. And he lorded it finely over the youth of his own age, at taverns, ordinaries, and inns of court accordingly.

But, alas! what is greatness but a mark for envy? Many were the fingers itching to pick a hole in Jack’s fine coat. At length an open seam presented itself. His courage was called in question. He was accused, in full cenacle, of having, in the most cowardly manner, deserted certain comrades--pages, students, and others--in a street row with ‘prentices.

The accusation was perfectly just. Jack, on the occasion alluded to, wore a new doublet, and had no fancy to show himself at court in the morning with a broken head earned in a fool’s quarrel. So he had walked quietly on, pretending to have heard nothing of the matter; urging, when accused, that having stayed out beyond his time, he had slipped away purposely when he saw his friends halting, as he supposed, to speak with some acquaintances.

The explanation was coldly received. Jack felt himself, figuratively, far on the road to that Coventry where years afterwards he distinguished himself in a material sense. He felt he must recover his position by a decisive _coup_. Mere single combat with one of his own age would be inadequate to the emergency. He walked homeward meditating.

He was attracted by a disturbance in a tavern. Except withheld by extreme prudential motives, he could never resist the temptation of a broil. He entered the tavern.

A burly black-bearded fellow of some five-and-twenty, far gone in his cups, was challenging a roomfull of people to make verses, quote Latin, fight, wrestle, or drink against him, declaring that he was the great poet cudgeller, or wrestling scholar, Henry Skogan. He brandished a scrap of greasy parchment, on which, he said, were written verses which Master Chaucer or Dan Virgil himself need not be ashamed of, as would be owned when he read them at the court gate in the morning to the Earl of Cambridge, in honour of whose twenty-seventh birthday they were composed. He volunteered to read them to the company, and dared any one to find them bad.

A stolid Thames waterman, with no soul for poetry, bade him hold his noise unless he wanted a cleft skull. They had had his trash a dozen times already.

“Aha! what’s this?” said the gladiator poet. “One tired of life? A worm ‘neath Ajax’s foot. Writhe hence or be crushed.”

To make the scene brief, a cudgelling match ensued. The waterman was vanquished, and the poet resumed his swaggering antics with renewed extravagance.

Jack Falstaff walked home, musing as follows:--

“At the Court Gate to-morrow. The Court will all come out in procession to the tilt-yard. All the lads will be there. That fellow for all his swagger and bulk knows no more about cudgel-play than a pig. Three chances that poor waterman gave him, which, if he had been trained by Wat Smith, as I have, would have shortened the battle eight minutes. Pray Heaven he be not too drunk to keep his word in the morning!”

In the morning Jack presented himself at the Court Gate to wait for the coming out of his master, but earlier than his time of service required. There, as he expected, were a good sprinkling of his companions of the previous day assembled in the crowd to see the procession to the sports in honour of Prince Edmund’s birthday. There too, to his delight, was the poet Skogan, parchment in hand, gesticulating and bullying as he had appeared on the previous evening--merely a little cleaner and apparently sober.

After listening to his rhapsodies for a few minutes, Jack approached his companions. They received him distantly. Even his staunch adherent and believer Shallow--who being an arrant coward dared not stand aloof from the majority--was constrained in his manner.

“I forgive you, gentlemen,” said Jack; “you have had some reason to doubt my courage. I think I have an opportunity of proving it. This noisy fellow offends me; you shall see me thrash him.”

“What--Skogan--the cudgeller--Jack?” gasped Shallow, in delighted astonishment.

“Pray you, some of you ask him to read his verses. I will find fault with them.”

“Said I not--said I not?” said Shallow, in ecstasies.

One Master Thomas Doit, a law student, of Staffordshire, stepped forward, and in respectful tones begged the poet to favour him with a hearing of his verses.

The poet required no second bidding. Tucking his cudgel under his arm, he cleared his voice and began--

“Oh, royal Edmund, son of Edward Third,----”

“You lie.” said Jack, “he’s the fourth son.”

“Who spoke?”

“I did.”

“Wilt be whipp’d, boy?”

“Ay--when thou goest a week without.”

“He can do it! He can do it!” cried Shallow.

“Go on with the verses, Master Skogan,” said the bystanders. “He is but young.”

“True. Boy, another time----”

“‘Though fourth in line--”

“I told him so,” said Jack. “He steals my very words.”

“How now? cock-sparrow!”

“How now? hen-gull!”

“Send thy father here for a cudgelling.”

“He sent me here to look for one,” said Jack, “and I am not to go away without seeing one given.”

“Take care, lad,” said Skogan, raising his stick. Jack, seizing a cudgel from a bystander, knocked it out of his hand; and, following the movement up with a smart tingling blow across the bully’s face, threw off his doublet nimbly and claimed a ring.

Skogan declined the combat on the score of his adversary’s youth.

“Here’s a fellow!” said Jack. “I heard him, drunk, last night challenge a score men--knowing well not one of them knew the use of a cudgel: now, sober, he fears to meet a boy who does.”

“You must needs give him a lesson, Skogan,” suggested a bystander, who was rather tired of waiting for the princes and wanted some amusement; “or farewell to your repute.”

“Then just one bout to silence him,” said Skogan, stripping.

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.