Part 7 (1/2)

Sir John advanced toward her with as much elegance as he might muster; for gout when coupled with such excessive bulk does not beget an overpowering amount of grace.

”_See, from the glowing East, Aurora comes_,” he chirped. ”Madam, permit me to welcome you to my poor apartments; they are not worthy--”

”I would see Sir John Falstaff, sir,” declared the lady, courteously, but with some reserve of manner, and looking him full in the face as she said this.

”Indeed, madam,” suggested Sir John, ”if those bright eyes--whose glances have already cut my poor heart into as many pieces as the man in the front of the almanac--will but desist for a moment from such butcher's work and do their proper duty, you will have little trouble in finding the bluff soldier you seek.”

”Are you Sir John?” asked the lady, as though suspecting a jest. ”The son of old Sir Edward Falstaff, of Norfolk?”

”His wife hath frequently a.s.sured me so,” Sir John protested, very gravely; ”and to confirm her evidence I have about me a certain villainous thirst that did plague Sir Edward sorely in his lifetime, and came to me with his other chattels. The property I have expended long since; but no Jew will advance me a maravedi on the Falstaff thirst. It is a priceless commodity, not to be bought or sold; you might as soon quench it.”

”I would not have known you,” said the lady, wonderingly; ”but,” she added, ”I have not seen you these forty years.”

”Faith, madam,” grinned the knight, ”the great pilferer Time hath since then taken away a little from my hair, and added somewhat (saving your presence) to my belly; and my face hath not been improved by being the grindstone for some hundred swords. But I do not know you.”

”I am Sylvia Vernon,” said the lady. ”And once, a long while ago, I was Sylvia Darke.”

”I remember,” said the knight. His voice was altered. Bardolph would hardly have known it; nor, perhaps, would he have recognized his master's manner as he handed Dame Sylvia to the best chair.

”A long while ago,” she repeated, sadly, after a pause during which the crackling of the fire was very audible. ”Time hath dealt harshly with us both, John;--the name hath a sweet savor. I am an old woman now. And you--”

”I would not have known you,” said Sir John; then asked, almost resentfully, ”What do you here?”

”My son goes to the wars,” she answered, ”and I am come to bid him farewell; yet I should not tarry in London, for my lord is feeble and hath constant need of me. But I, an old woman, am yet vain enough to steal these few moments from him who needs me, to see for the last time, mayhap, him who was once my very dear friend.”

”I was never your friend, Sylvia,” said Sir John.

”Ah, the old wrangle!” said the lady, and smiled a little wistfully. ”My dear and very honored lover, then; and I am come to see him here.”

”Ay!” interrupted Sir John, rather hastily; and he proceeded, glowing with benevolence: ”A quiet, orderly place, where I bestow my patronage; the woman of the house had once a husband in my company. G.o.d rest his soul! he bore a good pike. He retired in his old age and 'stablished this tavern, where he pa.s.sed his declining years, till death called him gently away from this naughty world. G.o.d rest his soul, say I!”

This was a somewhat euphemistic version of the taking-off of Goodman Quickly, who had been knocked over the head with a joint-stool while rifling the pockets of a drunken guest; but perhaps Sir John wished to speak well of the dead, even at the price of conferring upon the present home of Sir John an idyllic atmosphere denied it by the London constabulary.

”And you for old memories' sake yet aid his widow?” the lady murmured.

”That is like you, John.”

There was another silence, and the fire crackled more loudly than ever.

”And are you sorry that I come again, in a worse body, John, strange and time-ruined?”

”Sorry?” echoed Sir John; and, ungallant as it was, he hesitated a moment before replying: ”No, faith! But there are some ghosts that will not easily bear raising, and you have raised one.”

”We have summoned up no very fearful spectre, I think,” replied the lady; ”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.”

”Are you come hither to seek that boy?” asked the knight, and chuckled, though not merrily. ”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 a 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 stared at the floor as he ended; then choked, and broke into a fit of coughing which unromantic chance brought on just now, of all times.

”He was a dear boy,” she said, presently; ”a boy who loved a young maid very truly; a boy that found the maid's father too strong and shrewd for desperate young lovers--Eh, how long ago it seems, and what a flood of tears the poor maid shed at being parted from that dear boy!”