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 Poins, against whom the culverin of Sir John’s wrath, primed and loaded to the muzzle, was especially directed, had withdrawn himself prudently from the range of that fearful ordnance, and returned no answer.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