At the sight of the steward’s corpse Falstaff uttered a piercing cry, and fled.
“Follow him!” cried Bardolph, eagerly (he had caught and appreciated a flying wink from his broken-hearted patron), “or he will do himself a mischief.”
The ruined landowner, after some search, was discovered in the orchard with his girdle slung to the arm of a pear tree. Into a noose, at the nether extremity of this, he was about to slip his neck, when his privacy was invaded. The rescuing party uttered a cry of thanksgiving for their timely arrival. They needed not to have hurried themselves. Our hero’s inherent good breeding would have induced him to wait for them under any circumstances.
The merchants tried verbal consolation.
Futile in the extreme! The intending suicide assured them that they had but frustrated his purpose for a time. He could have borne the loss of home and fortune—his friends might judge, from the sole remaining tower, of what a dwelling the rebels had deprived him (though, of course, they could have no conception of the extent of the family jewels, plate, &c.); but what he could not bear was the sight of his faithful steward, hung by the heels like an unclean beast, doubtless as a punishment for his fidelity!
“Bardolph!” sobbed the ruined man. “How we loved him!”
“Don’t speak of it, sir!”
Bardolph himself was so overcome that he did not venture to show his face, which he concealed within his palms. The latter, it should be stated, were more than capacious enough for the purpose.
“He loved you, Bardolph!”
“Like a mother, sir. But don’t!”