Sir John Falstaff.--As I am a gentleman; come, no more words of it.
Mistress Helen Quickly.--By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be
fain to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining chambers.
The Knight---Glasses, glasses is the only drinking; and for thy
walls,--a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or the
German hunting in water-work is worth a thousand of those bed-hangings
and those fly-bitten tapestries. _Let it be ten pound if thou canst_.
Come, an it were not fur thy humours, there is not a better wench in
England. Go, wash thy face, and draw thy action. Come, thou must not be
in this humour with me; dost not know me? Come, come, I know thou wast
set on to this.
The Lady.--Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles; i’ faith I
am loath to pawn my plate in good earnest, la!
The Brave.--Let it alone; I’ll make other shift; you’ll be a fool still.
The Fair.--Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope you’ll
come to supper. You’ll pay me altogether?
The Invincible.--Will I live?
[Illustration: 167]
And what was the upshot of this colloquy? Simply that Mrs. Quickly
returned placidly to her home, under the friendly convoy of Bardolph and
Robin, the former commissioned by his master to look well after the poor
lady, and to see that no designing persons should a second time wean her
from obeying the dictates of her better nature. It is worthy of remark
that Mrs. Quickly did not say so much as “good morning” to the Lord
Chief Justice. I suppose there was some motive for this, as for every
other impulse of human action. For my part, I will maintain that course
of dispassionate reserve I have so scrupulously adhered to throughout
this trying inquiry, and offer no opinion whatever on the subject.
Mind, there is one thing I cannot, and will not, and do not intend to,
allow anybody else to believe. I will not have it supposed, for a moment
even, that Sir William Gascoigne could have been interested in the issue
of this action on any grounds so contemptible as pecuniary commission
in the event of recovery. Emphatically--No! If personal feeling _had_
anything to do with his interference, it must have been a feeling far
nobler than that of mere avarice--to wit, revenge! He had been baffled,
discomfited, eclipsed by Falstaff, and he was human. That he may have
wished to blight the prospects of Falstaff, is, alas! for our fallen
nature, but too possible! But I cannot believe that he would even have
accepted so much as a clerk’s fee from Mrs. Quickly,--in spite of the
notorious corruptibility of judges in the Middle Ages, and the absence
of any proof of such greatness of character in the subject of these
remarks as should have placed him above the besetting weaknesses of his
race and order.
And now I trust I have performed the difficult task I proposed to myself
of doing the fullest justice to Sir William Gascoigne’s character. More;
I flatter myself that when mere barren justice has failed to reestablish
the memory of that great man in a sufficiently favourable light, I have
at times even soared into chivalry. As his champion defender I have
fearlessly grappled with all the accusations that could be brought
against him in connection with this critical portion of his career. If I
have failed in refuting them, the fault is mine.
It may be asked why I have taken all these pains in clearing up the
character of a man who forms but a passing accessory to my main subject?
In the first place, reader, let justice be done though the heavens fall.
In the second place, if I had not satisfactorily proved--(for I have
proved it, have I not?)--Sir William Gascoigne’s innocence of those
charges, of which he might otherwise have been believed guilty, there
are certain matters connected with the close of my hero’s public career
which it would have been impossible for me to explain away, except on
grounds which I will here say nothing about, and which I hope it will
not be my painful duty to allude to on a future occasion.