“I perceive, Madam, your noble husband takes this matter greatly to heart. Either you lack his sensibility, or he your fortitude” (there was some irony in the speaker’s tone as he said this). “Yet, fear nothing. I give you my knightly word to bring back your son safe and whole. We are strong enough to beat all the keepers in the county and bear the consequences. We owe you this trifling service in return for our entertainment. Farewell. Stay! There is yet a duty to perform.” Master Lambert, the Reve, lacking the stimulus of kicks, had relapsed into his arm-chair and a state of somnolency. Sir Thomas dragged the capitalist by his hood into the court-yard, dipped his head in a horse-trough, as a sanitary precaution, and shut him up in a log-house, placing a heavy invalid plough against the door for security. And then Sir Thomas Mowbray with his friend Jean rode off at the head of their troop to rescue little Jack Falstaff. Sir Gilbert had not spoken a word, nor moved an inch in his chair. When they were alone, his wife approached him slowly, and said, in measured tones-- “Sir Gilbert Falstaff, from this day forth we are man and wife no longer.” “How! how!” said the knight, quivering with rage and shame. “That’s well! that’s well! All the world will desert me in my wretchedness--and you the first, I might be sure. It is in your blood. Would I were dead! To be seen in this plight by gentlemen of the court--insulted by my own groom--all in one day--and my son a felon----” “For that he may thank his father,” said the lady, coldly. “It’s a lie, woman!” the knight screamed. “I have done all I can to instil gentleman-like notions into him becoming his rank.” “You set him on to steal Sir Simon Ballard’s deer--the man whose coat you are wearing. You have sacrificed my son and yours--body and soul, perhaps--to your liking for a certain dish of meat! You pitiful wretch! without the heart to rob a henroost for yourself!” “‘Tis a lie--a black, wicked, shocking lie!” the knight could only gasp; but it was plain to see with whom the lie was. “It is the low training you have given him, made him mistake my words--and the taste for bad company he had with your blood. I may have said, in the olden time it was thought good sport for young gentlemen of spirit to carry away a buck; as, indeed, it was, in the good old days when gentlemen were not meddled with in their sports by base hinds--for this Ballard is no better, for all he wears three-pile velvet, while his betters----But ‘tis no matter! All the world is against me. I am the most miserable wretch on earth!” “I believe you are, indeed! My poor boy! My brave boy! whom I have tried to make good and honest, as God intended him to be!” Lady Alice Falstaff sobbed as if her heart would break. “Good! Good! Look to one’s wife for comfort! Not a thought for my sufferings! But, if the young fool gets safely through this, I’ll beat him within an inch of his life. And to try it in the day-time, too!”