The two plucky ones were in admirable condition. At first it might have
been feared that the Westminster Boy, who had bolted from his training
a short time previously, would not be able to come to the scratch; while
it was presumed that the Northern Customer, having been for some weeks
out of collar, and at grass, might have accumulated a troublesome
superabundance of pork; whereas it proved----
But no! The penholder of Jones is too much for the grasp of my
attenuated fingers. I cannot manage it. I may not attempt to
particularise the various fibbings, sloggings, grassings, and chancery
suits to which the conflicting champions subjected one another. I will
confine myself to a statement in plain language,--that the gallant
Percy, having more than once drawn claret from the heroic Plantagenet,
and the latter mountain of courage having given birth to a ridiculous
mouse under the left ogle of his opponent, both champions having
repeatedly kissed the old woman *, and risen from that filial process in
a piping condition, the future winner of the Agincourt belt had it all
his own way, until the terror of the Scottish borders was eventually
gone into and finished.
* Mother Earth. Vide “Tintinabulus.” London edition, 1857.
After all, there is nothing like plain, straightforward, intelligible,
unadorned English!
Then, says Shakspeare, the Prince of Wales, having wiped his ensanguined
sword, and, let us assume, briefly congratulated himself on being well
out of a serious difficulty, delivered a funereal oration over the body
of his late adversary, which proved his Royal Highness to be gifted with
the most eminent qualifications for a popular lecturer. This burst of
eloquence being terminated to his own satisfaction, he looked round with
the pardonable vanity of a public speaker, to see if anybody had been
listening to him. He was disappointed to discover no one but Sir John
Falstaff, apparently dead, on the ground.
However, being in the oratorical vein, his Royal Highness was not to be
deterred from speaking, by so contemptible a reason as the absence of a
living auditory. He accordingly let off the following speech, addressed
to what he considered a dead gentleman. A foolish proceeding, if you
will, but princes are privileged:--
“What! old acquaintance! could not all this flesh
Keep in a little life?
Poor Jack, farewell!
I could have better spar’d a better man.
O! I should have a heavy miss of thee,
If I were much in love with vanity.
Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day,
Though many dearer, in this bloody fray.
Embowell’d will I see thee by and by;
Till then, in blood by noble Percy lie.”
Having delivered himself of this laboured composition, the Prince of
Wales went away to tell his father what a clever thing he had done.
And then Sir John Falstaff--got up! He had had ample breathing time,
and felt, upon the whole, much better. He had sufficiently recovered
his faculties to overhear and understand the concluding phrases of the
Prince’s soliloquy.
“Embowelled!” said Jack, rising slowly (the expression is Shakspeare’s);
“If thou embowel me to-day, I’ll give you leave to powder me, and eat me
“to-morrow. ‘Sblood, ‘twas time to counterfeit, or that hot, termagant Scot
“had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit! I lie; I am no counterfeit.
“To die is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath
“not the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth,
“is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The
“better part of valour is--discretion; in the which better part I have saved
“my life.”
The unapproachable wisdom of these words, which have claimed the
discussion of the subtlest modern commentators, it is too late in the
day to dwell upon.
And then Sir John Falstaff looked round and saw the dead body of poor
Harry Percy. He was frightened, and confessed himself so. But let it be
borne in mind _he only confessed it to himself_. The bravest are subject
to fear. The faculty of apprehension implies comprehension. Lord Nelson
had a dread of the sea to his dying day, because he knew it would be
sure to make him sick for the first few days of a voyage. “You were
frightened,” said a bantering subaltern, after the Battle of Inkermann,
to a veteran whose cheeks had turned as white as his hair on entering
the action. “Quite true,” said the brave old man, who had been nearly
cut to pieces; “if you had been half so frightened as I was, you would
have run away.”
[Illustration: 144]