The Line of Love. Dizain des Mariages

particularly shaky this morning after a night of particularly hard drinking.

But he came into the apartment singing, and, whatever the scuffling had meant, found Bardolph in one corner employed in sorting garments from a clothes-chest, while at the extreme end of the room Mistress Quickly demurely stirred the fire; which winked at the old knight rather knowingly.

'Then came the bold Sir Caradoc,' carolled Sir John. 'Ah, mistress, what news?— And eke Sir Pellinore.—Did I rage last night, Bardolph? Was I a Bedlamite?'

'As mine own bruises can testify,' Bardolph assented. 'Had each one of them a tongue, they would raise a clamor beside which Babel were as an heir weeping for his rich uncle's death; their testimony would qualify you for any mad-house in England. And if their evidence go against the doctor's stomach, the watchman at the corner hath three teeth—or, rather, hath them no longer, since you knocked them out last night—that will, right willingly, aid him to digest it.'

'Three, say you?' asked the knight, rather stiffly lowering his great body into his great chair set ready for him beside the fire. 'I would have my valor in all men's mouths, but not in this fashion, for it is too biting a jest. Three, say you? Well, I am glad it was no worse; I have a tender conscience, and that mad fellow of the north, Hotspur, sits heavily upon it, so that thus this Percy, being slain by my valor, is per se avenged, a plague on him! Three, say you? I would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is; I would I had 'bated my natural inclination somewhat, and had slain less tall fellows by some threescore. I doubt Agamemnon slept not well o' nights. Three, say you? Give the fellow a crown apiece for his mouldy teeth, if thou hast them; if thou hast them not, bid him eschew this vice of drunkenness, whereby his misfortune hath befallen him, and thus win him heavenly crowns.'

'Indeed, sir,' began Bardolph, 'I doubt—'

'Doubt not, sirrah!' cried Sir John, testily; and continued, in a virtuous manner: 'Was not the apostle reproved for that same sin? Thou art a Didymus, Bardolph;—an incredulous paynim, a most unspeculative rogue! Have I carracks trading in the Indies? Have I robbed the exchequer of late? Have I the Golden Fleece for a cloak? Nay, it is paltry gimlet, and that augurs badly. Why, does this knavish watchman take me for a raven to feed him in the wilderness? Tell him there are no such ravens hereabout; else had I ravenously limed the house-tops and set springes in the gutters. Inform him that my purse is no better lined than his own broken skull: it is void as a beggar's protestations, or a butcher's stall in Lent; light as a famished gnat, or the sighing of a new-made widower; more empty than a last year's bird-nest, than a madman's eye, or, in fine, than the friendship of a king.'

'But you have wealthy friends, Sir John,' suggested the hostess of the Boar's Head Tavern, whose impatience had but very hardly waited for this opportunity to join in the talk. 'Yes, I warrant you, Sir John. Sir John, you have a many wealthy friends; you cannot deny that, Sir John.'

'Friends, dame?' asked the knight, and cowered closer to the fire, as though he were a little cold. 'I have no friends since Hal is King. I had, I grant you, a few score of acquaintances whom I taught to play at dice; paltry young blades of the City, very unfledged juvenals! Setting my knighthood and my valor aside, if I did swear friendship with these, I did swear to a lie. But this is a censorious and muddy-minded world, so that, look you, even these sprouting aldermen, these foul bacon-fed rogues, have fled my friendship of late, and my reputation hath grown somewhat more murky than Erebus. No matter! I walk alone, as one that hath the pestilence. No matter! But I grow old; I am not in the vaward of my youth, mistress.'

He nodded his head with extreme gravity; then reached for a cup of sack that Bardolph held at the knight's elbow.

'Indeed, I know not what your worship will do,' said Mistress Quickly, rather sadly.

'Faith!' answered Sir John, finishing the sack and grinning in a somewhat ghastly fashion; 'unless the Providence that watches over the fall of a sparrow hath an eye to the career of Sir John Falstaff, Knight, and so comes to my aid shortly, I must needs convert my last doublet into a mask, and turn highwayman in my shirt. I can take purses yet, ye Uzzite comforters, as gaily as I did at Gadshill, where that scurvy Poins, and he that is now King, and some twoscore other knaves did afterward assault me in the dark; yet I peppered some of them, I warrant you!'

'You must be rid of me, then, master,' Bardolph interpolated. 'I for one have no need of a hempen collar.'

'Ah, well!' said the knight, stretching himself in his chair as the warmth of the liquor coursed through his inert blood; 'I, too, would be loth to break the gallows' back! For fear of halters, we must alter our way of living; we must live close, Bardolph, till the wars make us Croesuses or food for crows. And if Hal but hold to his bias, there will be wars: I will eat a piece of my sword, if he have not need of it shortly. Ah, go thy ways, tall Jack; there live not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat and grows old. We must live close, Bardolph; we must forswear drinking and wenching! But there is lime in this sack, you rogue; give me another cup.'

The old knight drained this second cup, and unctuously sucked at and licked his lips. Thereafter,

'I pray you, hostess,' he continued, 'remember that Doll Tearsheet sups with me to-night; have a capon of the best, and be not sparing of the wine. I will repay you, upon honor, when we young fellows return from France, all laden with rings and brooches and such trumperies like your Norfolkshire pedlars at Christmas-tide. We will sack a town for you, and bring you back the Lord Mayor's beard to stuff you a cushion; the Dauphin shall be your tapster yet; we will walk on lilies, I warrant you, to the tune of Hey, then up go we!'

'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 to-day. 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. 

2. '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.