roystering. Mr. Poins followed them all with scrupulous fidelity; but was quite ready to change them for sad-coloured doublets, square toes, early rising, temperance, and respectability, at a moment's notice. 66 The following debate ensued upon the order of the day : MR. POINS." But my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning by four o'clock, early at Gadshill! There are pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings, "and traders riding to London with fat purses." (Hear, from the chair). "I "have visors for you all, you have horses for yourselves: Gadshill lies to-night "in Rochester: I have bespoke supper to-morrow night in Eastcheap; we may "do it as secure as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns: if you will not, tarry at home, and be hanged." 66 SIR JOHN FALSTAFF.. "Hear me, Yedward; if I tarry at home, and go "not, I'll hang you for going." MR. POINS." You will, chaps?" SIR JOHN FALSTAFF.-"Hal, wilt thou make one?" Who, I rob? I a thief? not I, by my faith." SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. "There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fel"lowship in thee, nor thou camest not of the blood royal, if thou darest not "stand for ten shillings." THE PRINCE OF WALES. "Well, then, once in my days I'll be a "madcap." SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. "Why, that's well said." "Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home." SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. "I'll be a traitor then, when thou art king." THE PRINCE OF WALES. "I care not." MR. POINS. "Sir John, I pr'ythee, leave the prince and me alone; I will "lay him down such reasons for this adventure, that he shall go." SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. "Well, mayst thou have the spirit of persuasion, " and he the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest may move, and what he "hears may be believed, that the true prince may (for recreation sake) prove a "false thief; for the poor abuses of the time want countenance. Farewell; "you shall find me in Eastcheap." THE PRINCE OF WALES. — “Farewell, thou latter spring! Farewell All"hallown summer!" The meeting then, as far as concerns Sir John Falstaff, broke up. The Prince of Wales and his friend Poins, may be left to their own devices. Thus do we see how a great man works silently to his own ends by encouraging his inferiors to think for him. Here was the campaign of Gadshill ready planned and arranged down to the very moment of attack, and the equipment of the forces, without a personal effort on the part of our hero. G Forestalling the policy of a more modern general, Louis the Fourteenthwho never showed himself on a field of battle till he was assured that his subordinate officers had made victory certain, and who then, in the most considerate manner, always came up in time to take the credit of it out of their hands—the task of Falstaff was simply to gather the ripened fruit, which, but for the blackest and most unparalleled act of treachery that ever disgraced the annals of warfare But let us not anticipate. Had I the pen of Homer (who, by the way, supposing that fabulous person to have existed, could not possibly have known the use of such an article) I might write out a list of the warlike preparations made by Sir John Falstaff and his followers, in the course of the day, that might equal, in vivid dramatic interest, the famous catalogue of ships. Mine would it be to enumerate the scores of Kentish oysters, the hundreds of Gloucestershire lampreys, the skins of Canterbury brawn, the breasts of capons, the green-goose pies, the veal toasts, the powdered mutton, the marchpanes, the hartshorn jellies, the stewed prunes, the pippins and the cheese, stowed away in the vast resources of our hero's commissariat department, as provisions for the approaching campaign. Then would ye have, in succession, the vast and irresistible phalanx of sturdy oaths and light-winged cajoleries arrayed against the hostess of the tavern (a married woman, it must be admitted, but whose husband was already ailing) to induce her to yield further credit for the victualling and liquoring of the troops, resulting in the entire rout of her scruples, and the unconditional surrender of her cellar keys. Nor would be forgotten the hundreds, nay thousands, of matchless LIES, by which Patroclus Bardolph obtained a new saddle for his master from a dealer in Watling Street, and released the knight's steed from the spells of enchantment, which a cruel magician (in what we should now call the livery stable interest) had cast about the animal for some weeks. All these details, and many more-down to a list of the snores of the thunder-vying Falstaff as he took his after-dinner nap to fortify himself for the coming fatigues, and of the glasses of strong waters tossed off by the lightningshaming Bardolph while his master wasn't looking — would I enumerate had I the pen of Homer. But as it has been already satisfactorily proved that neither I nor any other writer, ancient or modern (especially Homer), could ever have enjoyed the possession of that article, I will not attempt anything so ambitious. THE GADSHILL CAMPAIGN. 59 III. THE BATTLE OF GADSHILL. Now did the chaste Diana despatch Mercury with a message to her brother Phœbus, requesting the latter to pull up his horses for an hour or two, so that Sir John Falstaff might not be incommoded by the light of his solar gig-lamps; promising the messenger that, if he would make haste back, she would show him a little sport in his own line. It is not positively on record that, on the morning of the battle of Gadshill, the sun rose two hours later than his regular appointment with society. But, on the other hand, historic fairness compels me to state that there is no proof whatever to the contrary. Then did Diana throw her hooped petticoat of clouds over her head, so as to conceal the silver light of her countenance merely reserving a peep-hole large enough to enable her to wink at the doings of her chosen minions. She could not resist the temptation of showing her full face just once, to bestow an Endymion kiss upon a solitary pedestrian who emerged from the wood of Gadshill into the chalk-white Rochester Road. The Moon embraced him coquettishly-and hid herself immediately. He was a fine looking man, and portly—albeit advanced in years. There was certainly every excuse for the Moon. However, as she has quite enough scandals to answer for, let us hope that nobody saw her. The stout person was of martial aspect, and clad in the terrible panoply of war. I will not say he was armed cap-à-pie. A full suit of armour to his measure would have had a terrible effect, not merely upon the wearer, but on the iron market of the period. But he bore weapons, offensive and defensive, sufficient to indicate the most desperate intentions. To add to the terror his presence was calculated to inspire, the warrior was under the influence of a passion which, though ridiculous in its influence on ordinary mortals, becomes sublime and awful when in possession of an heroic nature. I allude to ANGER. Sir John Falstaff was in a towering rage. It is no stretch of poetical license to say that the earth shook beneath his angry tread (there had been a little rain in the night, and the soil was tremulous). Streams of perspiration poured from his massive brow. His breathing was short and thick. Several times he essayed to speak, but rage impeded his utterance. At length he cried, in a voice of thunder "Poins!" It must be understood that the thunder of Sir John's voice was rather of a muffled and distant character. Thunder, to be heard distinctly, requires a favourable wind-an advantage not enjoyed by Sir John Falstaff at this period of his existence. Mr. Poins, against whom the culverin of Sir John's wrath, primed and loaded to the muzzle, was especially directed, had withdrawn himself prudently from the range of that fearful ordnance, and returned no answer. It was about four o'clock in the morning. The enemy, that is to say, the travellers, were momentarily expected to make their appearance. At this critical juncture, Mr. Poins had removed the knight's horse, and tied the animal its owner knew not where. What is the knight at any time without his charger-especially when he labours under physical disadvantages which make "eight yards of uneven ground” a journey as terrible as "threescore and ten miles afoot?" This was the case with Sir John Falstaff. Here he was, burning with martial ardour; Victory, as it were, about to rush down hill into his arms; and the treachery of an inferior had placed him utterly hors de combat! There is only one point of view from which the conduct of Poins appears at all excusable: it was an act of real humanity to the horse. "Poins! and be hanged; Poins!" the knight repeated. "Peace, you fat-kidneyed rascal!" said the Prince of Wales, from a neighbouring hedge. "What a brawling dost thou keep!" "Where's Poins, Hal?" "He is walked up to the top of the hill: I'll go seek him." And the Prince walked up the hill in an airy and unconcerned manner, pretending to seek Poins. Herein is exemplified the habitual duplicity and dissimulation of this young prince's character. He knew as well that Poins was close behind him, grinning in a hollow tree, as that in their own hearts (much hollower than the tree, by the way, only not nearly so big) they were gloating over a scheme of malice and treachery, of which their unsuspecting senior was to be the victim. "A plague on't," as that moralist himself observed, a few seconds afterwards, “when thieves cannot be true to one another!" men of his own order. Sir John himself was the soul of honour among "If I travel but four foot by the square further afoot," said the knight, sitting on a fallen tree and chafing like a caged lion-still more like a stranded whale, "I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a "fair death for all this, if I 'scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have "forsworn his company, hourly, any time these two-and-twenty years;* and Either this is an illustration of the hereditary Falstaff looseness as to dates and figures, or a proof of our hero's marvellous insight into human character. Accepting the latter MR. POINS HIS TREACHERY. 61 "yet I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged! it could not "be else. I have drunk medicines. Poins! Hal! a plague upon you both! 66 Bardolph! Peto! I'll starve ere I'll rob a foot further." Sir John felt sick of rogues. In his wrath he even meditated the terrible vengeance of turning honest, and thus depriving his false-hearted comrades of the advantages of his counsels and alliance. But it had needed a more implacable nature than our hero's to carry animosity to such a deadly pitch. Moreover, Sir John, for one, would not set the base example in the camp of sacrificing duty to private feeling. Besides, there was another weighty consideration—he was in want of money. These and other reflections calmed our hero; so much so, that by the time Gadshill, their scout (evidently from his surname a native of Kent, son, perhaps grandson, of one of Jack's deerstalking comrades in the days of yore; who knows?), arrived with tidings that there was money of the King's coming down the hill and going to the King's Exchequer, Sir John was himself again; forgetting fatigue, danger, and resentment, everything but that there was money of the King's going to the King's Exchequer. "You lie, you rogue!" he said, "is going to the King's Tavern.". "There's enough to make us all," said Gadshill. "Be hanged," put in Jack, in the highest spirits imaginable. "Sirs," said the Prince, "you four shall front them in a narrow lane. Ned Poins and I will walk lower. If they 'scape from your encounter, then they light on us." And will any one make me believe that this man won the battle of Agincourt? unless, indeed, by some parallel stratagem. There, as at Gadshill, I doubt not but he had his Falstaffs, Bardolphs *, and Petos to bear the first brunt of the battle, while he and his congenial fellows walked lower-reserving themselves to enjoy the fruits of victory. Never tell me what historians have said! I am an historian myself; and I know that there are some people of that profession who will write anything —provided they are properly paid for it. "How many be there of them?" General Falstaff inquired, previous to arranging his plan of battle. "Some eight or ten.” hypothesis, Sir John must have discovered Mr. Poins to have been a dangerous acquaintance in embryo, before that young gentleman had emerged from his cradle. * This unpremeditated association of the names of Bardolph and Agincourt causes the historian to drop a tear on his proof sheet, in anticipation of a painful event that inexorable duty will compel him to chronicle by and by. H |