“Indeed, sir,” said Mistress Quickly, in perfect earnest, “your worship is as welcome to my pantry as the mice—a pox on ’em!—think themselves; you are heartily welcome. Ah, well, old Puss is dead; I had her of Goodman Quickly these ten years since;—but I had thought you looked for the lady who was here but now;—she was a roaring lion among the mice.”
“What lady?” cried Sir John, with great animation. “Was it Flint the mercer’s wife, think you? Ah, she hath a liberal disposition, and will, without the aid of Prince Houssain’s carpet or the horse of Cambuscan, transfer the golden shining pieces from her husband’s coffers to mine.”
“No mercer’s wife, I think,” Mistress Quickly answered, after consideration. “She came with two patched footmen, and smacked of gentility;—Master Dumbleton’s father was a mercer; but he had red hair;—she is old;—and I could never abide red hair.”
“No matter!” cried the knight. “I can love this lady, be she a very Witch of Endor. Observe, what a thing it is to be a proper man, Bardolph! She hath marked me;—in public, perhaps; on the street, it may be;—and then, I warrant you, made such eyes! and sighed such sighs! and lain awake o’ nights, thinking of a pleasing portly gentleman, whom, were I not modesty’s self, I might name;—and I, all this while, not knowing! Fetch me my Book of Riddles and my Sonnets, that I may speak smoothly. Why was my beard not combed this morning? No matter, it will serve. Have I no better cloak than this?” Sir John was in a tremendous bustle, all a-beam with pleasurable anticipation.
But Mistress Quickly, who had been looking out of the window, said, “Come, but your worship must begin with unwashed hands, for old Madam Wish-for’t and her two country louts are even now at the door.”
“Avaunt, minions!” cried the knight. “Avaunt! Conduct the lady hither, hostess; Bardolph, another cup of sack. We will ruffle it, lad, and go to France all gold, like Midas! Are mine eyes too red? I must look sad, you know, and sigh very pitifully. Ah, we will ruffle it! Another cup of sack, Bardolph;—I am a rogue if I have drunk today. And avaunt! vanish! for the lady comes.”
He threw himself into a gallant attitude, suggestive of one suddenly palsied, and with the mien of a turkey-cock strutted toward the door to greet his unknown visitor.
II
“Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a Boy”
The woman who entered was not the jolly City dame one looked for: and, at first sight, you estimated her age as a trifle upon the staider side of sixty. But to this woman the years had shown unwonted kindliness, as though time touched her less with intent to mar than to caress; her form was still unbent, and her countenance, bloodless and deep-furrowed, bore the traces of great beauty; and, whatever the nature of her errand, the woman who stood in the doorway was unquestionably a person of breeding.
Sir John advanced toward her with as much elegance as he might muster; for gout when coupled with such excessive bulk does not beget an overpowering amount of grace.
“See, from the glowing East, Aurora comes,” he chirped. “Madam, permit me to welcome you to my poor apartments; they are not worthy—”
“I would see Sir John Falstaff, sir,” declared the lady, courteously, but with some reserve of manner, and looking him full in the face as she said this.
“Indeed, madam,” suggested Sir John, “if those bright eyes—whose glances have already cut my poor heart into as many pieces as the man in the front of the almanac—will but desist for a moment from such butcher’s work and do their proper duty, you will have little trouble in finding the bluff soldier you seek.”
“Are you Sir John?” asked the lady, as though suspecting a jest. “The son of old Sir Edward Falstaff, of Norfolk?”
“His wife hath frequently assured me so,” Sir John protested, very gravely; “and to confirm her evidence I have about me a certain villainous thirst that did plague Sir Edward sorely in his lifetime, and came to me with his other chattels. The property I have expended long since; but no Jew will advance me a maravedi on the Falstaff thirst. It is a priceless commodity, not to be bought or sold; you might as soon quench it.”
“I would not have known you,” said the lady, wonderingly; “but,” she added, “I have not seen you these forty years.”
“Faith, madam,” grinned the knight, “the great pilferer Time hath since then taken away a little from my hair, and added somewhat (saving your presence) to my belly; and my face hath not been improved by being the grindstone for some hundred swords. But I do not know you.”
“I am Sylvia Vernon,” said the lady. “And once, a long while ago, I was Sylvia Darke.”
“I remember,” said the knight. His voice was altered. Bardolph would hardly have known it; nor, perhaps, would he have recognized his master’s manner as he handed Dame Sylvia to the best chair.
“A long while ago,” she repeated, sadly, after a pause during which the crackling of the fire was very audible. “Time hath dealt harshly with us both, John;—the name hath a sweet savor. I am an old woman now. And you—”
“I would not have known you,” said Sir John; then asked, almost resentfully, “What do you here?”
“My son goes to the wars,” she answered, “and I am come to bid him farewell; yet I should not tarry in London, for my lord
