I fancied bright
faces of curious housemaids peeping from the half-opened doors;
while from the gallery the fair daughters of the knight leaned
gracefully forward, eyeing the youthful prisoner with that pity
"that dwells in womanhood."- Who would have thought that this poor
varlet, thus trembling before the brief authority of a country squire,
and the sport of rustic boors, was soon to become the delight of
princes, the theme of all tongues and ages, the dictator to the
human mind, and was to confer immortality on his oppressor by a
caricature and a lampoon!
I was now invited by the butler to walk into the garden, and I
felt inclined to visit the orchard and arbor where the justice treated
Sir John Falstaff and Cousin Silence "to a last year's pippin of his
own grafting, with a dish of caraways;" but I had already spent so
much of the day in my ramblings that I was obliged to give up any
further investigations. When about to take my leave I was gratified by
the civil entreaties of the housekeeper and butler, that I would
take some refreshment: an instance of good old hospitality which, I
grieve to say, we castle-hunters seldom meet with in modern days. I
make no doubt it is a virtue which the present representative of the
Lucys inherits from his ancestors; for Shakspeare, even in his
caricature, makes Justice Shallow importunate in this respect, as
witness his pressing instances to Falstaff.
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