Ay.... ’Tis a quiet orderly place, where I bestow my patronage; the woman of the house had a husband once in my company. God rest his soul! he bore a good pike. He retired in his old age and ’stablished this tavern where he passed his declining years, till death called him gently away from this naughty world. God rest his soul, say I. (aside) God wot, I cannot tell her that the rogue was knocked over the head with a joint-stool while rifling the pockets of a drunken roisterer!
LADY SYLVIA
And you for old memories’ sake yet aid his widow? That is like you, John. (There is a long silence in which the crackling of the fire can be plainly heard.) And are you sorry that I come again, in a worse body, John, strange and time ruined?
FALSTAFF
Sorry?... No, faith! but there are some ghosts that will not easily bear raising and you have raised one.
LADY SYLVIA
We have summoned up no very fearful spectre, I think. At most no worse than a pallid gentle spirit that speaks—to me at least—of a boy and a girl who loved each other and were very happy a great while ago.
FALSTAFF
And you come hither to seek that boy? The boy that went mad and rhymed of you in those far off dusty years? He is quite dead, my lady, he was drowned, mayhap in a cup of wine; or he was slain, perchance, by some few light women. I know not how he died. But he is quite dead, my lady, and I had not been haunted by his ghost until to-day. (He breaks into a fit of unromantic coughing)
LADY SYLVIA