“If thou embowel me to-day, I’ll give you leave to powder me, and eat me “to-morrow. ‘Sblood, ‘twas time to counterfeit, or that hot, termagant Scot “had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit! I lie; I am no counterfeit. “To die is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath “not the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, “is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The “better part of valour is--discretion; in the which better part I have saved “my life.” The unapproachable wisdom of these words, which have claimed the discussion of the subtlest modern commentators, it is too late in the day to dwell upon. And then Sir John Falstaff looked round and saw the dead body of poor Harry Percy. He was frightened, and confessed himself so. But let it be borne in mind _he only confessed it to himself_. The bravest are subject to fear. The faculty of apprehension implies comprehension. Lord Nelson had a dread of the sea to his dying day, because he knew it would be sure to make him sick for the first few days of a voyage. “You were frightened,” said a bantering subaltern, after the Battle of Inkermann, to a veteran whose cheeks had turned as white as his hair on entering the action. “Quite true,” said the brave old man, who had been nearly cut to pieces; “if you had been half so frightened as I was, you would have run away.” [Illustration: 144] Let Sir John Falstaff speak for himself on the occasion:-- “Zounds! I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How if he should counterfeit too, and rise?” Quite possible! Sir John knew very little of the defunct Percy’s character. How was he to divine that Hotspur had but been distinguished by the worser part of valour--brute courage? For aught he knew, the young Northumbrian might have been as sensible a man as himself. But let us not interrupt the knight’s soliloquy. “I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I’ll make him sure; _yea, and swear I killed him_. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me.” (This episode of the civil war may be supposed to have taken place in a sheltered ravine of the plain of Shrewsbury, then intersected by the numerous branches of a stream, the source of which--on the hill of Haughmond--is now dried up.) “Therefore, sirrah, with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me.” Saying these words, Sir John Falstaff inflicted a gash upon the still warm body of Percy, which he proceeded to hoist on his shoulders. Not an easy task, considering our knight’s bulk; but he was born to face and conquer difficulties!