NOW did the chaste Diana despatch Mercury with a message to her brother Phoebus, requesting the latter to pull up his horses for an hour or two, so that Sir John Falstaff might not be incommoded by the light of his solar gig-lamps; promising the messenger that, if he would make haste back, she would show him a little sport in his own Une. It is not positively on record that, on the morning of the battle of Gadshill, the sun rose two hours later than his regular appointment with society. But, on the other hand, historic fairness compels me to state that there is no proof whatever to the contrary.

Then did Diana throw her hooped petticoat of clouds over her head, so as to conceal the silver light of her countenance—merely reserving a peep-hole large enough to enable her to wink at the doings of her chosen minions.

She could not resist the temptation of showing her full face just once, to bestow an Endymion kiss upon a solitary pedestrian who emerged from the wood of Gadshill into the chalk-white Rochester Road. The Moon embraced him coquettishly—and hid herself immediately. He was a fine looking man, and portly—albeit advanced in years. There was certainly every excuse for the Moon. However, as she has quite enough scandals to answer for, let us hope that nobody saw her.

The stout person was of martial aspect, and clad in the terrible panoply of war. I will not say he was armed cap-À-pie. A full suit of armour to his measure would have had a terrible effect, not merely upon the wearer, but on the iron market of the period. But he bore weapons, offensive and defensive, sufficient to indicate the most desperate intentions. To add to the terror his presence was calculated to inspire, the warrior was under the influence of a passion which, though ridiculous in its influence on ordinary mortals, becomes sublime and awful when in possession of an heroic nature. I allude to Anger. Sir John Falstaff was in a towering rage. It is no stretch of poetical license to say that the earth shook beneath his angry tread (there had been a little rain in the night, and the soil was tremulous). Streams of perspiration poured from his massive brow. His breathing was short and thick. Several times he essayed to speak, but rage impeded his utterance. At length he cried, in a voice of thunder—

“Poins!”

It must be understood that the thunder of Sir John’s voice was rather of a muffled and distant character. Thunder, to be heard distinctly, requires a favourable wind—an advantage not enjoyed by Sir John Falstaff at this period of his existence.

Mr. Poins, against whom the culverin of Sir John’s wrath, primed and loaded to the muzzle, was especially directed, had withdrawn himself prudently from the range of that fearful ordnance, and returned no answer.

It was about four o’clock in the morning. The enemy, that is to say, the travellers, were momentarily expected to make their appearance. At this critical juncture, Mr. Poins had removed the knight’s horse, and tied the animal its owner knew not where. What is the knight at any time without his charger—especially when he labours under physical disadvantages which make “eight yards of uneven ground” a journey as terrible as “threescore and ten miles afoot?” This was the case with Sir John Falstaff. Here he was, burning with martial ardour; Victory, as it were, about to rush down hill into his arms; and the treachery of an inferior had placed him utterly hors de combat! There is only one point of view from which the conduct of Poins appears at all excusable: it was an act of real humanity to the horse.

“Poins! and be hanged; Poins!” the knight repeated.

“Peace, you fat-kidneyed rascal!” said the Prince of Wales, from a neighbouring hedge. “What a brawling dost thou keep!”

“Where’s Poins, Hal?”

“He is walked up to the top of the hill: I’ll go seek him.”

And the Prince walked up the hill in an airy and unconcerned manner, pretending to seek Poins. Herein is exemplified the habitual duplicity and dissimulation of this young prince’s character. He knew as well that Poins was close behind him, grinning in a hollow tree, as that in their own hearts (much hollower than the tree, by the way, only not nearly so big) they were gloating over a scheme of malice and treachery, of which their unsuspecting senior was to be the victim. “A plague on’t,” as that moralist himself observed, a few seconds afterwards, “when thieves cannot be true to one another!”

Sir John himself was the soul of honour among——men of his own order.

Sir John felt sick of rogues. In his wrath he even meditated the terrible vengeance of turning honest, and thus depriving his false-hearted comrades of the advantages of his counsels and alliance. But it had needed a more implacable nature than our hero’s to carry animosity to such a deadly pitch. Moreover, Sir John, for one, would not set the base example in the camp of sacrificing duty to private feeling. Besides, there was another weighty consideration—he was in want of money.

These and other reflections calmed our hero; so much so, that by the time Gadshill, their scout (evidently from his surname a native of Kent, son, perhaps grandson, of one of Jack’s deerstalking comrades in the days of yore; who knows?), arrived with tidings that there was money of the King’s coming down the hill and going to the King’s Exchequer, Sir John was himself again; forgetting fatigue, danger, and resentment, everything but that there was money of the King’s going to the King’s Exchequer.

“You lie, you rogue!” he said, “‘tis going to the King’s Tavern.”

“There’s enough to make us all,” said Gadshill.

“Be hanged,” put in Jack, in the highest spirits imaginable.

“Sirs,” said the Prince, “you four shall front them in a narrow lane. Ned Poins and I will walk lower. If they ‘scape from your encounter, then they light on us.”

And will any one make me believe that this man won the battle of Agincourt?—unless, indeed, by some parallel stratagem. There, as at Gadshill, I doubt not but he had his Falstaffs, Bardolphs *, and Petos to bear the first brunt of the battle, while he and his congenial fellows walked lower—reserving themselves to enjoy the fruits of victory. Never tell me what historians have said! I am an historian myself; and I know that there are some people of that profession who will write anything—provided they are properly paid for it.

“How many be there of them?” General Falstaff inquired, previous to arranging his plan of battle.

“Some eight or ten.”

A prospective difficulty, such as could not have been foreseen by any but a comprehensive mind capable of embracing all emergencies, presented itself to our hero, who exclaimed—

“Zounds! will they not rob us?”

“What, a coward, Sir John Paunch!” asked the Prince, mockingly.

“Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather” (a favourite play on words with our hero); “but yet no coward, Hal.”

“Well, we leave that to the proof.”

“Sirrah Jack!” said Poins, as he sneaked away to ‘walk lower’ with the Prince of Wales; “thy horse stands behind the hedge: when thou need’st him there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast.”

“Now cannot I strike him if I should be hanged!” exclaimed the magnanimous John.

Footsteps sounded, lanterns glimmered on the summit of the hill.

“Now my masters,” said Jack, grasping his broadsword. “Happy man be his dole, say I; every man to his business.”

They withdrew into “the narrow lane.” This was a short cut, down which the travellers would probably walk, leaving their horses to be led round by the high road. Such proved to be the case. The travellers, four in number, were plebeians of the vulgarest description; shopmen, farmers, carriers, and the like,—people with large hands and coarse minds, such as in all cases have been reserved by destiny as the legitimate prey of the superior classes: the only observable variation of their treatment being in the manner of levying taxation.

Four terrible figures rushed out of the darkness, and four terrible voices cried:—

“Stand!”

The unfortunate travellers would have been most happy to do so, only they were too frightened. They fell on their knees instead, and roared.

As you may suppose, this was not the way to get rid of the assailants. The four terrible figures attacked the four terrified ones. The leader of the former, a man of colossal stature and intrepid behaviour, let fall in his fury some remarkable words—

“Strike! down with them, cut the villains’ throats! * * * Bacon-faced knaves! they hate us youth.”

Sir John Falstaff was the speaker. Who shall presume to count a great man’s life by years? Sir John, in the heat of action, was a mere boy again. Nay, in proof that his weight of flesh even sat no heavier on him than his weight of years, he exclaimed almost in the same breath:

“Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, ye fat chuffs! I would your store were here. On, bacons, on! What, ye knaves; young men must live”

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Why prolong the scene? Surely the mere statement that a man like Sir John Falstaff fell upon four travellers, is fully equivalent to saying that the latter were completely crushed.

The enemy retreated, leaving their stores in possession of the victors. The glorious field of Gadshill was unstained by a drop of blood. Nor was there a single prisoner taken. In fact the victory was undisputed, which appears to me the most desirable kind of victory. A man who will not let you get the better of him without a great deal of trouble, is obviously almost as good a man as yourself. And pray what is the object of a battle, except the establishment of decisive superiority?

Flushed with victory, and laden with spoils, Falstaff and his companions sat down on the grass to divide the latter. No signs were visible of the Prince or of Poins. Public opinion went strongly against those defaulters, who were treated as mere amateurs, with no real soul or aptitude for business. Of course, it was decided unanimously that neither of them should derive any benefit from the proceeds of an action wherein they had taken no part.

“There is no more valour in that Poins than in a wild duck,” said our hero with trenchant scorn.

Had the selection of good Master Cruikshank’s subjects rested with me, I would have pointed out, as the theme for one picture, Jack Falstaff, sitting on the ground, with a bag of silver between his thighs, stirring it round unctuously with his hand from right to left, sniffing its odour, as it were, and smacking his lips over it as over the ingredients of a choice pudding, whereof he knew the flavour and nutritive qualities by anticipation. To this, though, honest Master George might well object that Falstaff remained not long enough in that attitude to sit for a picture. Time rarely favours the world with a sublime moment, scarcely ever with many of them in succession.

“Your money!” cried a strange voice.

“Villains!” cried another.

And two men in buckram suits, with masked faces, rushed out of the wood and attacked the freebooters.

I will state the issue of this second and most unforeseen engagement, briefly, and then comment upon it. Falstaff and the rest, after a blow or two, ran away, leaving their booty behind them.

Now perhaps you have fallen into the vulgar error of imagining Sir John Falstaff a coward? Allow me to help you out of it.

The reflections and decisions of genius are instantaneous and almost simultaneous. The instinctive conclusions of Sir John Falstaff, on being thus unexpectedly attacked, may be summed up and classified as follows:—

1. That men, who can afford buckram suits (defensive armour of the period, of considerable costliness), are not common men.

2. That men out of the common seldom venture upon a dangerous undertaking without plenty of satellites in reserve.

3. That no sensible man will attack superior numbers unless supported by the reasonable certainty of some advantages.

4. That a man who watches a thief rob an honest man, and then takes upon himself to rob the thief, is decidedly a sensible man.

5. That a purse of silver is more easily replaced than a forfeited existence.

6. That the men in buckram hit rather hard; and that the sensation of being thrashed was decidedly unpleasant.

7. That he, (Sir John), had better be off.

Acting upon these rapid convictions, Sir John Falstaff performed one of the most renowned manouvres in his warlike career—the retreat from Gadshill.

Ordinary prose is inadequate to the emergency of describing this great event. A moment’s grace, reader, while the historian calls on the poetic Muse—just to see if she be at home. Yes. It is all right.