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——”