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.